Years Ago

April 9, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Friday, April 9, the 99th day of 2010. There are 266 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1682: French explorer Robert de La Salle claims the Mississippi River Basin for France.

1865: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

1939: Singer Marian Anderson performs a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after she is denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

1940: During World War II, Germany invades Denmark and Norway.

1942: American and Philippine defenders on Bataan capitulate to Japanese forces; the surrender is followed by the notorious Bataan Death March which claims thousands of lives.

1959: American architect Frank Lloyd Wright dies in Phoenix, Ariz., at age 91.

NASA announces the selection of America’s first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.

1960: The Boston Celtics win the NBA Finals for the second year in a row by defeating the St. Louis Hawks 122-103.

1965: The newly built Astrodome in Houston features its first baseball game, an exhibition in which the Astros beat the New York Yankees, 2-1.

1983: The space shuttle Challenger ends its first mission with a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: Youngstown district highway crews are caught off guard by an early spring snow storm that dumps up to 5 inches of snow on area roads.

A Pennsylvania Lotto ticket worth nearly $5.6 million becomes worthless as a year passes without the winner claiming the prize, the largest uncollected jackpot ever in the country.

The Citizens League of Greater Youngstown endorses Mayor Patrick Ungaro for re-election and the election of Atty. Edwin Romero, the deputy law director, for Youngstown Municipal Court judge.

1970: George McCuskey, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., says the company “does not plan to shut down any of its Youngstown district facilities and is not about to start a wholesale firing of people.”

Gov. James A. Rhodes tells 200 Republican precinct committee members at a breakfast at Hotel Ohio that he will ask the Ohio Controlling Board to release $250,000 to fight air pollution in the Youngstown-Warren-Sharon area and three other Ohio regions.

The Rev. Burton Cantrell, Youngstown Area Council of Churches chaplain at Youngstown State University, resigns to accept the national directorship of SANE, a Washington-based peace organization.

1960: Ohio Parole Department officials open a probe into a parole payoff scandal in Trumbull County that allegedly involves at least one attorney and one employee of the parole department and involved payoffs ranging from $150 to $1,200.

Youngstown City Engineer J. Phillip Richley is interviewing four consulting engineers to discuss their proposals for preparing a master development plan for the Youngstown Municipal Airport.

Dorothy Goldstein, census crew leader in Youngstown, says one of the problems census takers are running into is women who are reluctant to give their ages. Age is an important part of the form because the information is used to plan aid for the aged.

1935: Youngstown police arrest 10 “bug men,” but they are small fry and the biggest number banks have not been touched in the raids.

Russell L. Harold, 27-year-old Youngstown bus driver, is acquitted of manslaughter by a jury of seven women and five men in the shooting death of Robert Bowen, 26, a rider with whom he fought over an unpaid fare.