Monday, April 23, 2007
Today is Monday, April 23, the 113th day of 2007. There are 252 days left in the year. On this date in 1564, is believed to be the birthdate of English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare; he dies 52 years later, also on April 23.
In 1791, the 15th president of the United States, James Buchanan, is born in Franklin County, Pa. In 1896, the Vitascope system for projecting movies onto a screen is publicly demonstrated in New York City. In 1940, about 200 people die in the Rhythm Night Club Fire in Natchez, Miss. In 1954, Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hits the first of his record 755 major-league home runs, in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. (The Braves win, 7-5.) In 1968, the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merge to form the United Methodist Church. In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence is later reduced to life imprisonment.) In 1985, Coca-Cola Co. announces it is changing the secret flavor formula for Coke (negative public reaction forces the company to resume selling the original version). In 1987, 28 construction workers are killed when an apartment complex being built in Bridgeport, Conn., suddenly collapses. In 1998, James Earl Ray, convicted of assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, dies at a Nashville, Tenn., hospital at age 70.
April 23, 1982: Angered by violent crime and arson fires, a group of East Side residents is forming a neighborhood coalition to make its neighborhood a better place in which to live. Tricia Gardner says she and a group of neighbors have formed the Upper East Side Neighborhood Coalition.
Members of a key House subcommittee appear to favor a General Services Administration plan to build a new 10 million federal courthouse in Youngstown.
Facing heavy criticism from the United Auto Workers union, General Motors cancels a plan to pay executives bonuses and says the new bonus plan will not be put into effect for the life of the new UAW contract, which included concessions.
April 23, 1967: Young hoodlums in the Spring Common area shoot a Canfield man in a car with his wife and attack the young couple while they are stopped at a traffic light. Gus Dimas drove away; none of the youths was apprehended.
Mahoning County Engineer Samuel Gould Jr. calls for joint meetings between county commissioners and area state legislators to discuss and implement a 21 million program for water pollution abatement and water supply in the county.
Members of the United Auto Workers give their leaders authority to quit the AFL-CIO, and UAW President Walter P. Reuther says he will lead his 1.4 million members in a walkout unless there is reform within the federation.
April 23, 1957: Records show that bombings in the Youngstown district, including distant ones tied to Youngstown sources, total 54 since late 1951, with 22 of those occurring in the city itself (17 of those since Jan. 1, 1954).
Dr. Colin R. Clark, an eminent physician in Youngstown over a career that spanned 58 years, dies at his home at the age of 87. The family requests that material tributes take the form of contributions to the Youngstown Hospital Association.
For the first time in 10 years, the Mahoning County Home may be forced to use well water because of the high fees being charged by the village of Canfield. The village took over water service from Youngstown. The annual bill from Youngstown in 1955 was 1,627. The first bill from Canfield, which covered less than a quarter, was for 892.
April 23, 1932: The assignment of all city jobs given to unemployed men will be overseen by Miss Anna Woodward of the Allied Council and H.R. Weller of the State-City Employment Bureau as a way of removing politics from the jobs program.
Youngstown's first swimming accident of the year claims the lives of Clusteris Marshbank, 10, and his sister, Odala, 11, who tried to save him after he faltered in the cold water of an abandoned strip mine near their home on McDonald Blvd. about a half mile from the northwest city line.