Today is Saturday, April 19, the 110th day of 2008. There are 256 days left in the year. The Jewish
Today is Saturday, April 19, the 110th day of 2008. There are 256 days left in the year. The Jewish holiday of Passover begins at sunset. On this date in 1775, the American Revolutionary War begins with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
In 1897, the first Boston Marathon is held; winner John J. McDermott runs the course in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds. In 1933, the United States goes off the gold standard. In 1943, during World War II, tens of thousands of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto begin a valiant but futile battle against Nazi forces. In 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his Far East command by President Truman, bids farewell in an address to Congress in which he quotes a line from a ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” In 1975, India launches its first satellite atop a Soviet rocket. In 1982, astronauts Sally K. Ride and Guion S. Bluford Jr. become the first woman and first African-American to be tapped for U.S. space missions. In 1989, 47 sailors are killed when a gun turret explodes aboard the USS Iowa. In 1993, the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends as fire destroys the structure after federal agents begin smashing their way in; dozens of people, including David Koresh, are killed. In 1995, a truck bomb destroys the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Timothy McVeigh is later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.) In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany is elected pope in the first conclave of the new millennium; he takes the name Benedict XVI.
April 19, 1983: FBI agents arrest four Youngstown area men on armed robbery and drug charges stemming from an investigation that spanned 19 months. As many as 50 armed robberies in the Youngstown and Buffalo, N.Y., areas have been attributed to the gang.
A state clampdown on non-essential construction at state universities may spell the end of plans for a convocation center at Youngstown State University.
Lordstown Village Council approves plans for a $300,000 renovation and expansion of the village administration building.
April 19, 1968: Nationally known pollster Samuel Lubell tells an overflow crowd at Youngstown State University’s C. J. Strouss Auditorium that Robert F. Kennedy will be beaten if nominated by Democrats and Nelson Rockefeller would make a stronger presidential candidate for the GOP than Richard Nixon. He labels Kennedy the most “radical and controversial “candidate on the public stage.
Hanahan, Strollo and Associates are named architects for the new Southeast Junior High School by the Youngstown Board of Education.
Bishop James Malone hopes to have Pastoral Councils established in 25 Youngstown Diocese parishes before the end of the year.
April 19, 1958: A masked gunman escapes with about $1,400 after holding up the manager of the Toth Food Market at 3731 Mahoning Ave.
Youngstown police hold over the weekend 15 of 22 juveniles being questioned in connection with a gang fight on the South side.
A roaring crowd of 78,762 greets the Los Angeles Dodgers in their new home at Memorial Coliseum, a single game record for Major League Baseball. The Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5.
April 19, 1933: U.S. Army engineers visiting Youngstown to study the feasibility of a Mahoning-Beaver river canal to the Ohio River are impressed by the flow of the river and are studying the possible use of the Pymatuning Reservoir as an auxiliary water supply.
As the trial of Cyrus Neff, charged with murdering his wife, draws to an end, the prosecution calls several witnesses to show that Mrs. Neff has seemed “depressed” and that Neff himself felt the marriage was not a success.