Years ago

May 17, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Monday, May 17, the 137th day of 2010. There are 228 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1510: Early Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli dies in obscurity in Florence, Italy; he was probably in his mid 60s. (More than three centuries would pass before the art world rediscovered Botticelli and his works, such as “The Birth of Venus” and “Primavera.”)

1792: The New York Stock Exchange has its origins as a group of brokers meets under a tree on Wall Street.

1910: The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts is established.

1954: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously strikes down racially segregated public schools in its Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision.

1987: Thirty-seven American sailors are killed when an Iraqi warplane attacks the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf. (Iraq and the U.S. call the attack a mistake.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: The LTV Corp. is expected to announce a restructuring of its LTV Steel Co., which will include selling or closing the financially troubled tubular division in Youngstown.

United Airlines halts all service in and out of Youngstown because of a strike by its pilots, stranding several hundred area travelers.

1970: The Boardman High School Speech Team, coached by William Dykins, captures the Ohio High School Speech League championship in Columbus.

Sgt. Randall Wellington, head of Youngstown’s vice squad, leads a raid on Pasttime Billiards at 1215 Market St. and arrests a bookie and confiscates betting slips and $3,000 in bets on the Preakness at Pimlico race track.

1960: Common Pleas Judge Erskine Maiden rules that Youngstown industries using city water must pay the full 100 percent sewage surcharge.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. takes off its Jeannette blast furnace at the Brier Hill Works, further reducing Youngstown district iron production.

Mahoning County Commissioner John Palermo warns that the county must decide on an architect for the new county home within a week or stand to lose $150,000 in federal funds.

1935: Army engineers in Pittsburgh have orders to send men to Youngstown immediately to begin work on a Mahoning-Beaver rivers canal; $5 million is allotted for hiring relief workers for the project.

The South High School spring graduating class will number 454.