Today in history

Today is Tuesday, June 9, the 160th day of 2009. There are 205 days left in the year. On this date in A.D. 68, the Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide.

In 1870, author Charles Dickens dies in Gad’s Hill Place, England. In 1940, during World War II, Norway decides to surrender to the Nazis, effective at midnight. In 1953, 94 people die when a tornado strikes Worcester, Mass. In 1954, during the Senate-Army Hearings, Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch berates Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, asking: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” In 1969, the Senate confirms Warren Burger to be the new chief justice of the United States, succeeding Earl Warren. In 1973, Secretariat becomes horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner in 25 years by winning the Belmont Stakes. In 1978, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints strike down a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men from the Mormon priesthood.

June 9, 1984: The Ohio Department of Public Welfare cuts $345,000 from the state’s $4.2 million budget for Mahoning County.

A high-voltage line damaged by an electrical storm leaves most of Niles without electricity for 90 minutes.

The brother of Youngstown Board of Education President Rose DeGise is hired as a journeyman painter for the school district at a salary of $20,900, less than three weeks after union officials blocked his appointment as an apprentice.

June 9, 1969: Dr. Sidney Berkowitz, spiritual leader of Rodef Sholom Congregation, advises Youngstown State University graduates at the baccalaureate at C.J. Strouss Memorial Auditorium that they must strengthen their moral armor in an era of war, campus riots, air and water pollution, racial bitterness and poverty.

Clarence Joseph Duby, 78, of Goleta Avenue, a key figure in the growth of the steel industry in Youngstown and widely known in steel engineering circles, dies of a heart attack at his home.

Brookfield police say the Erie Lackawanna Railroad plans to take action against two 12-year-olds and two 13-year-olds who pushed a small railroad repair car off a siding onto the mainline, where it was struck by a train near the General American Transportation Corp. The train was stopped for three hours while wreckage was cut from beneath the engines.

June 9, 1959: Trumbull County Republican Party Chairman Jean Blair files charges of assault with intent to kill against Warren rackets kingpin Mike Farah.

Mahoning County Treasurer John A. Bannon issues a warning to the four county judges that they are legally required to file monthly reports and payments after one judge failed to report to the county for nearly six months.

Youngstown wins its fight to keep both Warren and Niles in the Standard Metropolitan Area with Youngstown. Warren interests had sought a separate statistical area built around Warren.

June 9, 1934: Frank Purnell, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., is being given credit for the fact that Sheet & Tube Co.’s new continuous strip mill is being erected in the Youngstown district instead of at the company’s Chicago plant.

Steel output in the Youngstown district approaches 66 percent, the year’s high, with 53 or 54 of the 83 open hearths operating.

Four veteran detectives and four plainclothesmen are among 26 Youngstown policemen who fail the civil service test for detective. Sixty took the test.

John L. Fahey, chairman of the Federal Home Loan system, tells Alfred Liebman of HOLC in Youngstown that the old style short term mortgage of three, five or seven years is being abandoned for mortgages that will run longer and allow lower monthly payments.