Today is Saturday, May 29, the 149th day of 2010. There are 216 days left in the year.

May 29, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1953: Mount Everest is conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit.

1765: Patrick Henry denounces the Stamp Act before Virginia’s House of Burgesses.

1790: Rhode Island becomes the 13th original colony to ratify the United States Constitution.

1917: The 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, is born in Brookline, Mass.

1932: World War I veterans begin arriving in Washington to demand cash bonuses they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.

1943: Norman Rockwell’s portrait of “Rosie the Riveter” appears on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

2000: The space shuttle Atlantis returns from a repair mission to the international space station.

vindicator files

1985: A study by Dr. Terry Buss, director of Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban Studies, says a dual-community mindset has developed in Mahoning County, with suburbanites believing that crime is increasing in Youngstown, which is not borne out by FBI statistics.

Bond is continued at $25,000 for four men described as the owners and operators of an illegal fireworks plant that exploded in Beaver township, killing nine people.

1970: A 23-year-old Youngstown State University senior from Pittsburgh being held in Youngstown City Jail on narcotics charges is found hanged to death by his belt in a cell.

A survey of 856 students by The Jambar, the student newspaper at YSU, finds drug use is below the national average with most describing themselves as casual users and a third saying they wouldn’t try marijuana or LSD again.

Walter Kutchyn of Walter’s Golden Crust Bakery, is honored for outstanding community service by the American Heart Association, Eastern Ohio chapter.

1960: Steel production in the Youngstown district has slipped to one of the lowest levels since the Depression, but is expected to pick up after the Memorial Day holiday.

Natalie Sharpnack, who has taught hundreds of Salem school children — and their parents and grandparents — retires as principal of McKinley Elementary School after 57 years in the teaching profession.

Mahoning County’s first Memorial Day period traffic fatality since 1956 is Edward Fell, 22, of Youngstown who collided with a car on his new motorcycle at Market and Front streets.

1935: A $5 million appropriation for the Beaver-Mahoning freight canal is absent from a list of projects formally approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but canal backers are told the omission is of no significance and the project remains on track.

Teachers at The Rayen School present the school with a portrait of E.F. Miller, who is retiring after 23 years as principal, and a bronze plaque containing the names of all former Rayen principals.