Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Today is Wednesday, May 20, the 140th day of 2009. There are 225 days left in the year. On this date in 1939, regular trans-Atlantic mail service begins as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, takes off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Marseille, France.
In 1506, explorer Christopher Columbus dies in Spain. In 1861, North Carolina votes to secede from the Union. In 1902, the United States ends a three-year military presence in Cuba as the Republic of Cuba is established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma. In 1908, actor James Stewart is born in Indiana, Pa. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York’s Roosevelt Field in Long Island aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France. In 1932, Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. (Weather and equipment problems force her to land in Northern Ireland instead of France.)
May 20, 1984: Boardman and Austintown teachers are at the forefront of a rush to obtain master’s degrees in the state. Boardman is 11th in the state with 67 percent of its 220 teachers having a master’s and Austintown is 21st with 63 percent.
Youngstown State and Kent State university officials meet to discuss complaints that KSU is “poaching” prospective YSU students. YSU maintains that KSU is overstepping its mission by offering upper level courses at Champion, Salem and East Liverpool branches.
May 20, 1969: The Austintown Board of Education adopts a new salary schedule that gives beginning teachers with a bachelor’s degree a salary of $6,100. Maximum pay for a teacher with a master’s degree will be $11,346.
First Lt. Gerald Torba, 24, a graduate of Liberty High School and Youngstown State University, is reported severely wounded when his Army evacuation helicopter was shot down in South Vietnam near the Laotian border. He had been the cadet colonel of the ROTC program at YSU.
May 20, 1959: Boardman voters pass a $1.9 million bond issue for construction of the township’s first junior high school.
The Youngstown Planning Commission is deadlocked on two separate zone changes that would allow engineering offices on Wick Avenue near Youngstown University and insurance offices on Market Street at Pinehurst Avenue. A seventh spot on the commission has not been filled, allowing a 3-3 tie in both votes.
About 110 of the 435 cars that were inspected by the Independent Garage Owners of Ohio mobile inspection unit in Youngstown are found to have safety defects, including 73 defective rear lights, 33 faulty exhaust systems and 16 with bad brakes. Some cars had more than one defect.
May 20, 1934: Thirteen-year-old Phoebe Anita Mellinger, a Poland Union student, wins The Vindicator’s Mahoning County Spelling Bee at South High School and will represent the county at the national bee in Washington.
The Women’s Christian Temperance League and representatives of the city’s Negro churches are the latest to announce their intention to attend an organization meeting of the Youngstown Metropolitan Area Citizens Association.
Ogden Mills, Secretary of the Treasury in Hoover’s cabinet, says the New Deal is a disguised attempt toward government control of industry and regimentation of the people.