Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Oct. 3, the 276th day of 2009. There are 89 days left in the year. On this date in 1789, President George Washington declares Nov. 26, 1789, a day of Thanksgiving to express gratitude for the creation of the United States of America. (On this date in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaims the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day.)

In 1226, St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, dies; he is canonized in 1228. In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formally changes its name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In 1941, Adolf Hitler declares in a speech in Berlin that Russia has been “broken” and would “never rise again.” In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the Office of Economic Stabilization. In 1951, the New York Giants capture the National League pennant as Bobby Thomson hits a three-run homer off the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Ralph Branca in the “shot heard ’round the world.” In 1952, Britain conducts its first atomic test as it detonates a 25-kiloton device in the Monte Bello Islands off Australia. In 1962, astronaut Wally Schirra blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the Sigma 7 on a nine-hour flight. In 1988, Lebanese kidnappers release Indian educator Mithileshwar Singh, who’d been held captive with three Americans for more than 20 months.

October 3, 1984: J. William Petro, 44, who guided President Reagan’s election campaign in Ohio in 1980, is fired by the president as U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio.

The looming court battle between Trumbull County and seven area libraries over the distribution of $2.1 million in intangible personal property tax ends after an agreement is hammered out by the county budget commission.

The Tamarkin Co. will stop deliveries to some 200 small grocery and convenience stores within 75 miles of Youngstown because of rising costs and mechanical problems at the Pittsburgh non-perishable foods warehouse.

October 3, 1969: Michael Lee Bowman of Warren is one of 26 Navy men killed when a Navy turboprop plane crashes into the Tonkin Gulf off Vietnam.

Directors of the Youngstown Humane Society are informed that Mahoning County dog wardens will no longer do extra work for the society because they have not been paid for such work for nearly two years.

October 3, 1959: Edward Gilronan, Republican candidate for Youngstown mayor, is running 4 percentage points stronger in Youngstown’s 6th Ward than President Eisenhower did in 1956, first half returns in The Vindicator straw poll show.

Two bandits terrorize Mr. And Mrs. Morris Friedman, their son and a maid at their Market Street home for an hour while they ransack the house. They fled in Friedman’s 1959 Cadillac convertible, which was abandoned in Warren later in the day.

Sources close to the sides in the crippling 80-day national steel strike tell Vindicator industrial editor George Reiss that a break may be near.

Democratic headquarters are opened in each of Youngstown’s seven wards and will be open daily for the municipal election campaign, says party Chairman Jack Sulligan.

October 3, 1934: Jacqueline Sanders, the pretty 24-year-old former girlfriend of Ford Bradshaw, the desperado killed by a deputy in Arkansas in March, is being held in Youngstown City Jail as a fugitive from justice. She escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary a month ago. She was arrested in Youngstown after writing to a pal still in jail and including her return address in “invisible ink.”

Clarence J. Brown Republican governor nominee, is shaken and Mrs. Brown slightly bruised when their car collides with another at W. Market St. and Tod Avenue in Warren.

Charles Denny, president of the Erie Railroad, says Youngstown’s grade elimination project is only half complete because the railroad doesn’t have the money to complete the job. Mayor Mark Moore says the city will have its share at the ready when the railroad comes up with its.