Years Ago

May 12, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Wednesday, May 12, the 132nd day of 2010. There are 233 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1870: An act creating the Canadian province of Manitoba is given royal assent, to take effect in July.

1930: Chicago’s Adler Planetarium first opens to the public.

1932: The body of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, is found in a wooded area near Hopewell, N.J.

1937: Britain’s King George VI is crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1943: During World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrender.

1949: The Soviet Union lifts the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had succeeded in circumventing with their Berlin Airlift.

1958: The United States and Canada sign an agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (later the North American Aerospace Defense Command).

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: Robert Adickes, president of California-base Avtek Corp., is considering the Commuter Aircraft Corp. facility at the Youngstown Municipal Airport to build his business jet.

The first Party on the Plaza of the season is scheduled for June 7 by the planning committee for the annual event.

1970: A firebomb causes an estimated $100,000 damage to a new section of Ohio University’s Nelson Hall cafeteria on the Athens campus.

David Fenitz, 11, dies when his raft is caught in currents of the Niagara River and is swept over the falls. Two companions jump from the raft and swim to safety, but David couldn’t swim.

1960: Investigators for Secretary of State Ted W. Brown visit the old Banner Heating Co. building on Indianola Avenue, where voting machines that malfunctioned on election day had been stored.

The Mahoning County Bar Association and the Medical Society form a committee to study medical malpractice claims.

Thomas P. Wellman, chairman of the Trumbull County Democratic Party, says U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy, front runner for the Democratic nomination for president, has agreed to speak at the first annual Democratic Honor Day dinner.

1935: “Snap the Whip,” a painting by Winslow Homer and owned by the Butler Art Gallery, is shown in an exhibition of American art in New York and will soon travel to San Francisco.

Aloha Wanderwell, world traveler and promoter of peace, spends a weekend in Youngstown “just to look the city over” during a worldwide tour. She stayed at the Hotel Ohio while her plane was being overhauled in Cleveland.