Today is Monday, May 18, the 138th day of 2009. There are 227 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Monday, May 18, the 138th day of 2009. There are 227 days left in the year. On this date in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, endorses “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept the court renounces 58 years later with Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

In 1926, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanishes while visiting a beach in Venice, Calif.; she reappears more than a month later, claiming to have been kidnapped. In 1927, a schoolhouse in Bath, Mich., is blown up with explosives planted by local farmer Andrew Kehoe, who then sets off a dynamite-laden automobile; the attacks kill 38 children and six adults, including Kehoe, who’d earlier killed his wife. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a measure creating the Tennessee Valley Authority. In 1944, during World War II, Allied forces finally occupy Monte Cassino in Italy after a four-month struggle that claims some 20,000 lives. In 1969, astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young blast off aboard Apollo 10 on a mission to orbit the moon. In 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state explodes, leaving 57 people dead or missing.

May 18, 1984: Party regulars sweep Sheriff James A. Traficant Jr. aside, giving Don L. Hanni Jr. another two-year chairmanship of the Mahoning County Democratic Party.

Nancy Cox is named executive director of the Mahoning Valley Campfire Council.

May 18, 1969: Marine Sgt. Major George E. MacGillivary retires from B Company, 6th Engineer Battalion, in Youngstown in an impressive ceremony featuring music provided by the Cardinal Mooney Band. His service dates to 1936 and includes a tour in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

Patrick Lally, a junior at Cardinal Mooney High, ties with a Richland County girl for first place in American history on the Ohio scholastic achievement tests, Richard Graham, a Champion sophomore, takes first place in biology; Debra Muehleisen and Nancy Young, both of Howland High, win first place in Spanish. More than 29,500 finalists were selected from 249,000 students in the state to take the tests.

May 18, 1959: A record number of 39,732 citizens voted in the May 3 primaries in Youngstown, an official count released by the Mahoning County Board of Elections shows.

A special court of jurisdiction approves an increase in wholesale water rates for the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District of 3.5 to 4 percent.

Twenty-three Youngstown teachers are among the first recipients of the newly struck Valley Forge Classroom Teachers Medals that recognize exceptional work in teaching a better understanding of the American way of life.

May 18, 1934: Atty. Clarence Darrow, 77, a native of Kinsman is heading a committee to study the effect of the National Recovery Act on small business.

The New Deal Democratic League, a local insurgent group, calls for a united Mahoning County Democratic Party under leadership other than that of chairman John J. Farrell.