Years Ago

Today is Monday, Nov. 9, the 313th day of 2009. There are 52 days left in the year. On this date in 1989, communist East Germany throws open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West; joyous Germans dance atop the Berlin Wall.

In 1872, fire destroys nearly 800 buildings in Boston. In 1918, it is announced that Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II would abdicate. He then flees to the Netherlands. In 1935, United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis and other labor leaders form the Committee for Industrial Organization, later Congress of Industrial Organizations. In 1938, Nazis loot and burn synagogues as well as Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in a pogrom that becomes known as “Kristallnacht.” In 1953, author-poet Dylan Thomas dies in New York at age 39. In 1963, twin disasters strike Japan as some 450 miners are killed in a coal-dust explosion, and about 160 people die in a train crash. In 1965, the great Northeast blackout occurs as a series of power failures lasting up to 131‚Ñ2 hours leaves 30 million people in seven states and part of Canada without electricity. In 1976, the U.N. General Assembly approves resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa, including one characterizing the white-ruled government as “illegitimate.”

November 9, 1984: Packard Electric Division of General Motors reports improved quality in nine of 15 measures during the 1984 model year.

William M. Cafaro, chairman of the Cafaro Co., assures Youngstown Mayor Patrick Ungaro that the shopping center developer is not moving its headquarters from the city.

The Woodrow Wilson High girls volleyball team captures the City Series championship with a 12-0 record under Coach Tom Krispli.

November 9, 1969: Art students from Ursuline, Struthers, Poland, Boardman and Canfield high schools are contributing their talents to the antismoking campaign by entering the Tobacco Expresso poster contest sponsored by the Mahoning County Tuberculosis and Health Association.

Liberty Township trustees who have been ousted by a Trumbull County common pleas court decision upholding the separation of the township from Girard, refuse to turn over the township’s books, records and keys to office while the case is being appealed.

The Mill Creek Park Citizens committee threatens to file suit if necessary to block construction of a proposed Old Furnace bridge over Mill Creek Park

November 9, 1959: The first batch of new steel melted in one of the Youngstown district’s strike-idled plants in three months is poured into ingot molds at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co’s Campbell works.

Mahoning County commissioners pass a resolution to sell 280 acres of County Home land as one of the first steps toward building a new county home.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Thomas A. Beil says he’s ready to act as soon as a new anti—obscenity bill takes effect to curb the distribution of obscene literature in the city and county,

November 9, 1934: Although diphtheria immunization in Youngstown schools has reduced the toll of the disease from 903 cases and 69 deaths in 1923 to 70 cases and one death in 1933, Dr. W.E. Hathhorn, school physician, warns that preschool children are unvaccinated and remain at risk.

Youngstown bookmakers are taking protective measures, reducing the odds that they’ll pay on the most popular “bug” numbers, in some cases to as low as 100 to one. Combinations of 101, 112, 133, 150, 520 and 450 have been consistent winners for several months.

Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, two co-pilots and three passengers set a new transcontinental record, flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 12 hours, three minutes and 50 seconds.