Years Ago

April 2, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Good Friday, April 2, the 92nd day of 2010. There are 273 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS:

On this date in:

1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon lands in present-day Florida.

1792: Congress passes the Coinage Act, which authorizes establishment of the U.S. Mint.

1860: The first Italian Parliament meets at Turin.

1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., because of advancing Union forces.

1917: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declares war four days later.)

1932: Aviator Charles A. Lindbergh and John F. Condon go to a cemetery in The Bronx, N.Y., where Condon turns over $50,000 to a man in exchange for Lindbergh’s kidnapped son. (The child, who was not returned, is found dead the following month.)

1956: The soap operas “As the World Turns” and “The Edge of Night” premier on CBS television.

1974: French President Georges Pompidou dies in Paris.

1980: President Jimmy Carter signs into law a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. (The tax is repealed in 1988.)

1982: Several thousand troops from Argentina seize the disputed Falkland Islands, located in the south Atlantic, from Britain. (Britain seizes the islands back the following June.)

1986: Four American passengers are killed when a bomb explodes aboard a TWA jetliner en route from Rome to Athens, Greece.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: A survey by the Ohio Insurance Institute shows that auto theft in Youngstown has decreased by 23.6 percent in a year.

Hubbard City Council rescinds a 50 percent increase in electric bills during a meeting when the chambers were packed by anti-increase residents.

The Eastern Ohio Chapter of the American Heart Association is likely to be merged into a larger unit with Akron and Canton, says William Jacob, chapter executive director.

Jon Anderson, purchasing manager for General Motors Packard Electric Division plant in Warren, says the company’s “just in time” supply program has been an outstanding success.

1970: Lawrence Shilling, president of Johnson Industries, says the company, which makes wooden pallets at its 44-acre site south of Orangeville, has two shifts making pallets for industries in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Akron.

A city health inspector and assistant high school principal, accompanied by a reporter, make a spot check of two inner-city Civil Defense shelters and find rusted water cans, outdated food and medicine packages and opened radioactivity detection equipment boxes and batteries of undetermined reliability

Youngstown City Council eliminates eight vacant jobs at the request of Mayor Jack C. Hunter, which will save the city $100,000 a year.

1960: Bernadine Boals, one of the stars of the Salineville High School class play, is killed in a traffic accident an hour before the curtain was to rise. Her parents were called from the audience to inform them of the accident before the play, “The Egg and I” was canceled.

On the first day of the census in Youngstown, one canvasser ran into an unusual problem at a Brier Hill home. A mother told him she had 18 children, but she couldn’t remember all their names.

Grand opening of Boardman Lanes, 24 new fully automatic AMF lanes at 7624 Market St.

Common Pleas Judge Frank J. Battisti dismisses a jury that was hopelessly deadlocked over bad check charges against dapper Youngstown racketeer J. Jasper “Fats” Aiello. Court sources said the jury of six men and six women had voted 11 to 1 for acquittal, but the one woman voting for conviction was resolute.

1935: City council passes as an emergency measure a law prohibiting beer and liquor establishments from locating nearer than 300 feet to school or church buildings.

Gov. Davey urges the legislature to pass a law that would allow Ohio communities to suspend payments on the principal of mature bond issues for two years. Youngstown would be able to shift $2 million toward operations if the bill passes.

Mrs. John L. Becker, daughter of T.W. Kennedy, a pioneer furnace builder in Mahoning County, dies at her residence on Kennedy Road, Poland. She was 75.