Years Ago

Today is Friday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2009. There are 90 days left in the year. On this date in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffers a serious stroke at the White House that leaves him paralyzed on his left side.

In 1835, the first battle of the Texas Revolution takes place as American settlers fight Mexican soldiers near the Guadalupe River; the Mexicans end up withdrawing. In 1869, political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi is born in Porbandar, India. In 1944, Nazi troops crush the two-month-old Warsaw Uprising, during which a quarter of a million people are killed. In 1950, the comic strip “Peanuts,” created by Charles M. Schulz, is syndicated to seven newspapers. In 1958, the former French colony of Guinea in West Africa proclaims its independence. In 1959, Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” makes its debut on CBS-TV with the episode “Where Is Everybody?” starring Earl Holliman. In 1967, Thurgood Marshall is sworn as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court as the court opens its new term. In 2006, an armed milk truck driver takes a group of girls hostage in an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., killing five of them and wounding five others before committing suicide.

October 2, 1984: Township trustees from Austintown, Boardman and Liberty say it is not fair that their residents are paying 40 percent more for water than Youngstown residents and have filed suit in Mahoning County Common Pleas court.

Downtown Pittsburgh buildings “Light up the Night” to give the city a bright appearance on national television when the Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals play on Monday Night Football. The Steelers win, 38-17.

October 2, 1969: Mahoning County commissioners consolidate Mahoning County’s 22 sewer districts into the Mahoning Metropolitan Sewer District, acting on the recommendation of county Engineer J. Philip Richley.

A $6.2 million contract for munition loading and assembly at the Ravenna Arsenal is awarded by the Army to the arsenal’s parent company, Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.

October 2, 1959: Youngstown Community Chest opens its campaign for $1.2 million when some 200 corporate leaders and executives attend a kickoff luncheon in Hotel Pick Ohio.

October 2, 1934: “The last 20 years in America have been a moral and spiritual ‘Ice Age,’” Dr. A.W. Beaven, president of the Federated Council of Churches, tells an audience that packed the main gymnasium of the Central YMCA as the Y marks its 50th anniversary.

Youngstown City Council retreats from its pledge to appropriate $5,000 to fight illegal lotteries in the city.