Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Sept. 19, the 262nd day of 2009. There are 103 days left in the year. On this date in 1796, President George Washington’s farewell address is published. In it, the nation’s first chief executive writes, “Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.”

In 1783, Jacques Etienne Montgolfier launches a hot-air balloon at Versailles in France. In 1881, the 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, dies 21‚Ñ2 months after being shot by Charles Guiteau; Chester Alan Arthur becomes president. In 1934, Bruno Hauptmann is arrested in New York and charged with the kidnap-murder of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. In 1945, Nazi radio propagandist William Joyce, known as “Lord Haw-Haw,” is convicted of treason and sentenced to death by a British court. In 1957, the United States conducts its first contained underground nuclear test, code-named “Rainier,” in the Nevada desert. In 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, visiting Los Angeles, reacts angrily upon being told that, for security reasons, he wouldn’t get to visit Disneyland. In 1960, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in New York to visit the United Nations, angrily checks out of the Shelburne Hotel in a dispute with the management; Castro accepts an invitation from a hotel in Harlem. In 1988, Israel succeeds in launching a test satellite, the Ofeq (“Horizon”) 1, over the Mediterranean Sea.

September 19, 1984: The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad is considering discontinuation of service on the Youngstown & Southern Railway subsidiary, which runs from Youngstown to Darlington, Pa.

The Liberty School District is back to normal after nonteaching employees end a week-long strike. The employees will receive a 30-cent per hour wage increase and the cost of dental care and prescriptions will be pro-rated based on the number of hours an employee works.

Christine Bott of Austintown is one of 11 youngsters to win a quarter horse in a nationwide contest from Bob Evans farms. She wrote an essay on what it would mean to win a horse and how her 4-H participation prepared her.

September 19, 1969: Construction work on the Fisher Body stamping plant at Lordstown continues despite an unauthorized walkout by members of the Laborers Local 935 over the firing of a member following a fight between a laborer and a carpenter.

Dr. Alfred Mangie, Youngstown dental surgeon and his wife, Sylvia, are among 29 Americans injured when the bus, chartered by the Ohio State University Alumni Association, overturns near Rome, Italy.

Navy Hospital Corpsman Richard Mathias Turner, 19, of Ohio Avenue, Youngstown, is killed by an enemy grenade in Quang Tri province, Vietnam, five weeks after arriving overseas. He is Mahoning County’s l76th combat fatality of the war.

September 19, 1959: Two North Siders are killed when their station wagon crashes a stop sign on McCartney Road and is rammed by a tractor-trailer. Dead are Nester Willis, 30, and Priscilla Paul, 30.

Mahoning County Commissioner Edward J. Gilronan, Republican candidate for mayor, says the foundation of his campaign will be “morality in government” during a television special hosted by TV and stage star Eddie Bracken, an old friend of Gilronan.

City firemen rescue Jenny Norris, 50, from an early morning fire at an apartment house at 326 W. Rayen Ave. The fire was started by an unattended electric iron in another apartment.

September 19, 1934: Alice Gibson, 37, of Youngstown is killed by a runaway automobile, despite the heroic efforts of 14-year-old Anthony Pino, who tried to hold back the car, which belonged to his father and had been parked on a steep grade in front of the family’s Byron Street home.

Republic Steel Corp. resumes operation of its long-idle Bessemer converter, bringing Youngstown district production to 27 percent of capacity.

Mahoning County citizens did more installment buying in August than any August since 1930, with 2,462 chattel mortgages filed, says county Recorder Fred M. Griffiths.