Today in history

Today is Easter Sunday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2009. There are 263 days left in the year. On this date in 1861, the American Civil War begins as Confederate forces bombard Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

In 1877, the catcher’s mask is first used in a baseball game, by James Tyng of Harvard in a game against the Lynn Live Oaks. In 1908, fire devastates the city of Chelsea, Mass. In 1934, “Tender Is the Night” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is first published in book form by Charles Scribner’s Sons after being serialized in Scribner’s Magazine. In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63; he is succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman. In 1955, the Salk vaccine against polio is declared safe and effective. In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing. In 1981, the space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on its first test flight. In 1983, Chicagoans go to the polls to elect Harold Washington the city’s first black mayor.

April 12, 1984: Speaking to an audience of 1,200 at Youngstown State University, Harvard economics professor John Kenneth Galbraith predicts that Republican economic policy will lead to a surge of inflation and interest rates after the presidential election in November.

The average home buyer in the Youngstown-Warren area, a 33.4-year-old person with a median income of $22,662, is somewhat younger than the national average and considerably below the U.S. median income of $34,600.

April 12, 1969: Teams totaling nearly 400 workers raise the curtain for the Youngstown Playhouse’s 44th annual membership campaign, heartened by a report that $52,500 has already been raised toward a goal of $72,000.

Some leaders of the Ohio Senate threaten to bar United Press International reporter Betty Work, a 25-year-old graduate of Ohio State University, from the floor of the Senate if she insists on wearing “mini-skirts.” Not everyone was offended by her hemline falling about 8 inches above the knee. “It ain’t short enough, honey,” Sen. Anthony O. Calabrese Sr., D-Cleveland, told her.

Brian Job of Cortland, Ohio, who is attending high school in Santa Clara, Calif., shatters the American record for the 100-yard breastroke, and Ross Wales of Youngstown, a senior at Princeton, captures the 100 butterfly in the AAU Swimming Championships at Long Beach.

April 12, 1959: Transportation-minded Youngstowners with more money to spend as a result of business improvement, bought 327 new automobiles in the first week of April, compared to 79 in the same week a year earlier.

Hubbard High School’s 60-voice choir under the direction of Vernon Hamilton is featured at the Sunday concert of the W.D. Packard Band at the music hall in Warren.

Pittsburgh Sculptor Emil Kinder is in Youngstown working on a 15 by 20 foot frieze for the outside wall of the new St. Anthony Church auditorium on Turin Avenue.

April 12, 1934: Attorney Joseph W. Powers is appointed as an attorney and examiner for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington.

Tax collections are running at 80 to 85 percent, the highest since 1930, says County Treasurer George F. Lewis. Youngstown school employees, who are several weeks in arrears, are receiving a pay.

Despite pleas from city councilmen, Mayor Mark Moore says street lights will remain off in the city until June, the same period that city employees are working at half pay.