Years Ago

Today is Monday, April 4, the 94th day of 2011. There are 271 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1818: Congress decides the flag of the United States would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.

1841: President William Henry Harrison succumbs to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.

1949: Twelve nations, including the United States, sign the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C.

1968: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, is shot to death at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. (James Earl Ray later pleads guilty to assassinating King, then spends the rest of his life claiming his innocence before dying in 1998.)

1991: Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., and six other people, including two children, are killed when a helicopter collides with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pa.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: Failure of GF Furniture Systems to secure a federal government contract for desks has been a setback for the company’s recovery efforts, but Ronald Anderson, GF president, says every effort is being made to keep the Youngstown plant open.

At a conference on “Appraising the Economy of Northeast Ohio,” Michael P. Stewart of the Kent State Graduate School of Economics says the Youngstown area needs more dynamic political leadership and more coordinated development efforts to attract new business.

1971: A Zayre’s department store is one of four stores being added in a major remodeling of the Boardman Plaza by the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp.

Cynthia Ellsworth, a senior at Youngstown State University and daughter of the former Struthers superintendent of schools, is crowned Miss Youngstown during a pageant at Austintown and will compete in the Ohio Miss Universe finals in Mentor.

Student artists win awards at the Home and Garden Art Show at the Idora Park Ballroom. High school winners are Paul Gulacy, Larry Greco, Susan Missik and Kathy Anthal. Junior high winners are Belinda Ruffin, Charmaine Bednar, Brenda Jackson and Jeanette Price.

1961: Field Enterprises Educational Corp. of Cleveland presents the first volumes of a Braille encyclopedia that will be used in the blind class at Rayen School.

Shoppers flock to downtown Youngstown stores, attracted by after-Easter spring bargains.

Only 27 men show up on the first day of work in the city’s special public improvements project designed to give day work to needy men.

1936: The last of the old timers who helped build the steel industry, and with it Youngstown, William C. Riley, retires as vice president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. He is a descendant of one of the members of John Young’s original survey party and was there when Youngstown Sheet & Tube was formed.