Years Ago

May 21, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Friday, May 21, the 141st day of 2010. There are 224 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1881: Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross.

1910: A year-old Jewish settlement near the port city of Jaffa adopts the name Tel Aviv (Hebrew for “Hill of Spring”).

1927: Charles A. Lindbergh lands his Spirit of St. Louis near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 331/2 hours.

1932: Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean as she lands in Northern Ireland, about 15 hours after leaving Newfoundland.

1956: The United States explodes the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

1980: Ensign Jean Marie Butler becomes the first woman to graduate from a U.S. service academy, the Coast Guard Academy.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: Beaver Township police are seeking the person behind an illegal fireworks plant on Western Reserve Road that exploded, killing at least nine people and causing up to $1 million in damage.

Boardman Township trustees tell three complaining residents that there is little they can do to block the proposed extension of Glenwood Avenue to Western Reserve Road.

1970: The Mahoning County Republican Central Committee elects Philip Rogers chairman and David Downey secretary, but during a meeting that lasts four hours fails to adopt by-laws and elect executive committeeman.

The Packard Electric Division of General Motors lays off 65 office workers in Warren as a result of economic conditions.

Advertisement: Friday Fish Fry at the Cocoanut Grove, 3229 South Ave., large portion of fresh haddock, french fries, coleslaw, bread and butter, $1.

1960: At least 30 outside companies are looking at sites in the Mahoning Valley for manufacturing operations, says Carl Gangloff, executive director of the Youngstown Area Development Foundation.

Among 31 Youngstown athletes who earned a trip to Columbus for the state track meet are Nick DePinto of East and Buddy Taylor of South, both of whom qualified in two events.

1935: Commodity prices continue to rise in Youngstown during April, with food prices reaching the high mark of the depression, at 77.7 percent of normal, the Mahoning County Consumers’ Council reports.

Police arrest two newsboys for fighting in Central Square as they attempt to prevent a renewal of street fighting between “striking” and working newsboys for The Vindicator and Telegram.

Opposition of the railroads and Pittsburgh steel interests is becoming of concern to backers of the Mahoning-Beaver rivers canal. The canal would revitalize the Youngstown steel industry.