Years Ago

Today is Saturday, April 2, the 92nd day of 2011. There are 273 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon lands in present-day Florida.

1792: Congress passes the Coinage Act, which authorizes establishment of the U.S. Mint.

1811: James Monroe becomes the seventh U.S. Secretary of State.

1860: The first Italian Parliament meets at Turin.

1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., because of advancing Union forces.

1917: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declares war four days later.)

1932: Aviator Charles A. Lindbergh and John F. Condon go to a cemetery in The Bronx, N.Y., where Condon turns over $50,000 to a man in exchange for Lindbergh’s kidnapped son. (The child, who is not returned, is found dead the following month.)

1956: The soap operas “As the World Turns” and “The Edge of Night” premiere on CBS television.

1974: French President Georges Pompidou dies in Paris.

1982: Several thousand troops from Argentina seize the disputed Falkland Islands, located in the south Atlantic, from Britain. (Britain seizes the islands back the following June.)

1986: Four American passengers are killed when a bomb explodes aboard a TWA jetliner en route from Rome to Athens, Greece.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Owners of a Mahoning County landfill near Salem say they will resume accepting shipments of incinerator ash from Philadelphia.

Gov. Richard F. Celeste marks the first anniversary of the Economic Development Railroad Corp.’s takeover of the Youngstown & Austintown Railroad with an $85,000 grant to improve the line.

Eight months of secret talks by the Reagan administration to win Egyptian approval for a joint effort to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi from Libya fall apart.

1971: Trumbull County sheriff’s deputies are seeking a motive in the murder of Maj. James Teague, 30, whose body was found in the trunk of a burning car south of the city.

Common Pleas Judge Sidney Rigelhaupt declares illegal more than $200,000 in street improvement assessments the city levied against Mill Creek Park and many other West Side property owners in 1968.

Dr. Albert L. Pugsley, president of Youngstown State University, is elected president of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the regional accrediting organization for high schools, colleges and universities in a 19-state area.

1961: Michael M. Malmer, president of the Youngstown Transit Co., says he will seek reimbursement for lost revenue between Jan. 15 and April 1, a period during which a court injunction prevented the company from increasing bus fares. He estimates the loss at $18,000 to $22,000.

Despite an increase in spring sales, the auto industry is laying off more than 40,000 workers due to inventory adjustments.

R. Bruce Stafford, 65, retires as state editor after a 45-year career at The Vindicator. He will be replaced by Robert E. McGill, 35.

The Downtown Advisory Committee approves a one-way loop route for traffic circling Youngstown’s central business district as a key step in downtown redevelopment.

1936: Harry Stearn, president of Reliable Parking & Service Station at 35 N. Walnut, thought the masked gunman confronting him was an April Fools Day joke, until a second armed man appeared and fired a warning shot into the floor. Stearn handed over about $60 before he and G.H. Kazadd, a friend who was at the station, were locked in a closet by the fleeing robbers.

A former city policeman, Frank Lincoln, and former part department worker, William Mundee, file suits alleging that their firings were illegal.

Col. Frank A. Scott, Cleveland manufacturer, and S. Livingston Mather, Cleveland iron ore magnate and philanthropist, are named directors of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.,

Collection of Mahoning County real estate taxes sets a single-day record of $177,126; the total exceeds $1 million.