Years Ago

Today is Monday, Nov. 16, the 320th day of 2009. There are 45 days left in the year. On this date in 1959, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” inspired by the real-life story of the Trapp Family Singers, opens on Broadway with Mary Martin as Maria and Theodore Bikel as Capt. von Trapp.

In 1776, British troops capture Fort Washington in New York during the American Revolution. In 1907, Oklahoma becomes the 46th state of the union. In 1917, Georges Clemenceau again becomes prime minister of France. In 1933, the United States and the Soviet Union establish diplomatic relations. In 1961, House Speaker Samuel T. Rayburn dies in Bonham, Texas, having served as speaker since 1940 except for two terms. In 1966, Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard is acquitted in his second trial of murdering his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954. In 1973, Skylab 4, carrying a crew of three astronauts, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on an 84-day mission. In 1982, an agreement is announced in the 57th day of a strike by National Football League players. In 1989, six Jesuit priests, a housekeeper and her daughter are slain by army troops at the University of Central America Jose Simeon Canas in El Salvador.

November 16, 1984: Nearly 500 parking spaces are lost from the downtown Youngstown area with the Christmas shopping season at hand as officials of the Parkade at the former Higbee’s building say it is being closed until structural repairs are made.

Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro expects to receive a final draft from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development department for a $9.3 million UDAG grant for the proposed Ronneburg Brewery project.

The Cardinal Money High School Alumni Association is seeking to raise $250,000 to finance scholarships for Mooney students.

November 16, 1969: Mantovani brings his 45-piece orchestra to Stambaugh Auditorium for a Monday Musical Club performance.

An expected deficit for Trumbull County, foreseen as reaching as high as $500,000, will actually approach $600,000, and it is possible there will not be sufficient funds to meet the Nov. 28 payroll.

The Ohio Society of Professional Engineers honors Edward J. Salata, Youngstown city engineer, as one of two selectees for Young Engineer of the Year.

November 16, 1959: Officers of the Warren Post of the State Highway Patrol appeal to district motorists to aid in the search for a car that struck and killed Nora Leroy, 32, of Vienna as she walked near her home.

Meg Bachman, 20, of Youngstown, a student at Julliard School of Music, is winner of the sixth annual Youngstown Symphony Society piano concerto contest. Immediately afterward she checked into North Side Hospital for an appendectomy she postponed for a week until after the contest.

Niles firemen confine an early morning fire at the Robins Theater to the lobby and damage to $15,000 after a passerby notices the fire and calls in an alarm.

November 16, 1934: Youngs–town Municipal Court Judge Harry Hoffman says police have no legal right to arrest a man just because he has a lottery ticket in his pocket.

The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph P. Hurley, at one time assistant at St. Columba church in Youngstown, is named by Pope Pius XI an attache at the Vatican secretariat of state in Rome.