Today in history

Today is Friday, May 15, the 135th day of 2009. There are 230 days left in the year. On this date in 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court orders the breakup of Standard Oil Co., ruling it is a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

In 1859, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Pierre Curie is born in Paris. In 1930, registered nurse Ellen Church, the first airline stewardess, goes on duty aboard an Oakland-to-Chicago flight operated by Boeing Air Transport (a forerunner of United Airlines). In 1942, wartime gasoline rationing goes into effect in 17 Eastern states, limiting sales to three gallons a week for nonessential vehicles. In 1948, hours after declaring its independence, the new state of Israel is attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

May 15, 1984: Austintown trustees say they feel the matter of the juvenile street gang called the Wedgewood Rats has been blown out of proportion by the media and rumors.

Trumbull County Democrats vote to maintain their current leadership, electing Dr. William J. Timmins Jr. to an unprecedented 12th two-year term as party chairman, and electing Atty. Richard P. McLaughlin to a full term as secretary-treasurer.

A small but diverse crowd of homeowners, renters, the old, the young and anti-nukers speak against a proposed $40 million rate hike by Ohio Edison Co. during a PUCO hearing at Youngstown City Hall.

May 15, 1969: Atty. Paul Smith of Canfield, a former president of the Mahoning County Bar Association, is named by Mayor Anthony B. Flask to head a city charter revision committee.

The Brookfield Township Research Committee on Incorporation recommends incorporation of the township to the township trustees.

Marine Pfc. David A. Protain, 20, of Youngstown dies of battle wounds received in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. He is the third 20-year-old Marine from the area killed in Vietnam within two weeks and is Mahoning County’s 71st combat fatality of the war.

May 15, 1959: Some 400 Youngs-town district industrial, civic and rail leaders get a back door view of Youngstown’s multibillion dollar industrial complex and the remarkable railroad network that keeps it operating as a 10-car passenger special tours five railroads and every important rail yard in the area.

The Austintown Zoning Commission turns down a zone change request on S. Raccoon Road between Kirk and New roads that would have brought an estimated 400 new homes to the township because township facilities, including schools, are already “overtaxed.”

May 15, 1934: Councilman A.T. Kryzan challenges Mayor Mark E. Moore and police to list and padlock places at which liquor arrests have been made, especially those operating near churches.

An eye operation is performed at the Cleveland Clinic that it is hoped will partially restore sight to Oliver Jenkins, 17-year-old Chaney High student, who has been without vision since he was a small child.

John C. Jackson Sr., 67, car shop foreman at the Carbon Limestone Co., is killed instantly when stuck by a locomotive while walking across the Carbon Limestone tracks.