Today is Thursday, April 24, the 115th day of 2008. There are 251 days left in the year. On this

Today is Thursday, April 24, the 115th day of 2008. There are 251 days left in the year. On this date in 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists launch the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin, Ireland. (The rising is put down by British forces almost a week later.)

In 1792, the national anthem of France, “La Marseillaise,” is composed by Capt. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. In 1877, federal troops are ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1898, Spain declares war on the United States after rejecting America’s ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba. In 1915, the Ottoman Empire begins the brutal mass deportation of Armenians during World War I. In 1953, British statesman Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth ll. In 1970, the People’s Republic of China launches its first satellite, which keeps transmitting a song, “The East is Red.” In 1980, the United States launches an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that results in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen. In 1986, Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, for whom King Edward VIII had given up the British throne, dies in Paris.

April 24, 1983: An increasing number of educators and legislators have come to the realization that Gov. Richard F. Celeste’s biennium budget recommendation for funding education would provide more money for education, but would reduce the percentage of the state budget going for education from 30 percent to 26 percent.

A federal study predicts that renewable energy from such sources as wind and water will increase from 18 percent in 1980 to 26 percent in 2000, while energy from oil will decrease from 38 percent to 26 percent.

President Reagan welcomes home the bodies of 16 Americans killed in a bomb attack in Beirut vowing that the “cowardly, skulking barbarians” responsible “will not have their way.”

April 24, 1968: Defense Secretary Clark Clifford is expected to announce within a week whether the Ravenna Arsenal will be reopened for the production of ammunition.

Army Pfc. Larry A. Widener, 20, of 55 Baldwin St., Youngstown, is listed killed in action in Vietnam, the 54th Mahoning County resident to die in the war zone since 1964.

Twenty men are injured in an explosion at the Ohio Edison Co. plant at Stratton on the Ohio River about 15 miles south of East Liverpool.

April 24, 1958: Mayor Frank X. Kryzan praises the city police department for its role in keeping the increase of crime in the city well below the national average in 1957.

Before beginning a three-day suspension for a minor traffic accident in a police cruiser, Campbell Patrolman Odell Eddings conducts one-man raids at three numbers joints, arresting three men.

Youngstown City Council creates two new staffs totaling 11 people to carry out the W. Federal Street slum clearance in accordance with federal regulations.

April 24, 1933: Lt. Commander Herbert V. Wiley, the only officer to survive the disastrous wreck of the U.S.S. Akron, says the U.S.S. Macon, the navy’s new giant dirigible, is better handling and quicker than its ill-fated sister ship.

Warren firemen Brennan O’Rourke and Lee O’Brien respond to a call that a robin was caught in a tree in Monumental Park. The firemen climb the tree and find that a bird building a nest flew into the tree with a piece of sting in its mouth and managed to tie itself to a branch. They untangled the string and the bird flew away.

Atty. Clyde W. Osborne cites 18 grounds in his motion for a new trial for his client, Clyde Neff, found guilty in the shotgun death of his wife, Mary. Among the complaints is that spectators derided some witnesses with laughter and applauded others.