Years Ago

Today is Monday, Nov. 2, the 306th day of 2009. There are 59 days left in the year. On this date in 1959, former game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits before a House subcommittee that he’d been given questions and answers in advance when he appeared on the NBC program “Twenty One,” amassing $129,000 during a 14-week run.

In 1783, Gen. George Washington issues his Farewell Orders to the Armies of the United States near Princeton, N.J. In 1859, John Brown is convicted of treason against Virginia, murder and conspiracy for his raid on Harpers Ferry. In 1865, the 29th president of the United States, Warren Gamaliel Harding, is born near Marion, Ohio. In 1889, North Dakota and South Dakota become the 39th and 40th states. In 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issues a declaration expressing support for a “national home” for the Jews in Palestine. In 1947, Howard Hughes pilots his huge wooden flying boat, the Hughes H-4 Hercules (derisively dubbed the “Spruce Goose” by detractors), on its only flight, which lasts about a minute over Long Beach Harbor in California. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman surprises the experts by winning a narrow upset over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey. In 1979, black militant JoAnne Chesimard escapes from a New Jersey prison, where she’d been serving a life sentence for the 1973 slaying of a New Jersey state trooper, Werner Foerster. (She now lives in Cuba.) In 1984, Velma Barfield, convicted of fatally poisoning boyfriend Stuart Taylor, is executed in Raleigh, N.C., becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

November 2, 1984: The Youngstown district has its warmest October since 1971, with temperatures running 4.7 degrees above normal.

An 1884 Weber parlor grand piano at Canfield Presbyterian Church is restored to mint condition and unveiled at the church to mark the piano’s centennial.

The Youngstown-Warren metropolitan area has the 11th highest unemployment rate in the country with a reported rate of 12.3 percent, but an effective rate of 22.1 percent, the Full Employment Action Council says.

November 2, 1969: The Mahoning County Board of Elections will have a small army of 2,600 workers to man the polls in anticipation of an estimated voter turnout of 100,000 for municipal, township and school board races.

At least a dozen steel-hauling drivers employed by Youngstown Cartage Co., all said to have been involved in a gun-and-club battle between Teamsters and members of the Fraternal Association of Steel Haulers, have been given discharge notices.

The highlight of the annual homecoming dinner of Youngstown State University alumni is the presentation of distinguished alumnus awards to Frank C. Watson, Dr. Esther Niemi and Chester A. Amedia.

November 2, 1959: A thunderous underground explosion in the East Ohio Gas Co.’s main feeder line near North Jackson rocks homes as far away as Youngstown and Canfield.

Ernest Bernard, a Hubbard contractor, arrives at the $900,000 West Side Baptist Church to prepare for a cornerstone laying ceremony and finds smoke coming out a window. The fire, ruled arson, is the third at the church since construction began.

A Youngstown entertainer, Frances Svendsen, 40, dies in a three car crash in Dallas, Texas. She and her husband, Leo, 41, of Chicago, performed a juggling act under the stage name Lee and Billie Marx.

November 2, 1934: Sixteen head of cattle and 52 lambs burn to death in a $12,000 fire that destroyed the cattle barn of the Steiner Packing Co. at 1540 South Ave.

Carnegie Steel Co. awards a contract for building its new strip mill for the McDonald plant to United Engineering & Foundry Co.

William C. Zabel, who built the W.C. Zabel Co. in E. Federal Street to the biggest restaurant supply company between New York and Chicago, dies at his home at 121 E. Chalmers Ave.