Years Ago

April 13, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Wednesday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2011. There are 262 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1598: King Henry IV of France endorses the Edict of Nantes, which grants rights to the Protestant Huguenots. (The edict is abrogated in 1685 by King Louis XIV, who declares France entirely Catholic again.)

1742: Handel’s “Messiah” is first performed publicly, in Dublin, Ireland.

1860: The Pony Express completes its inaugural run from St. Joseph, Mo. to Sacramento, Calif. in 10 days.

1861: Fort Sumter in South Carolina falls as the Union commander, Maj. Robert Anderson, agrees to surrender in the face of the Confederates’ relentless bombardment.

1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Jefferson Memorial.

1958: Van Cliburn of the United States wins the first International Tchaikovsky Competition for piano in Moscow.

1970: Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, is crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen bursts.

1981: Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke receives a Pulitzer Prize for her feature about an 8-year-old heroin addict. Cooke relinquishes the prize two days later after admitting she’d fabricated the story.

1986: Pope John Paul II visits the Great Synagogue of Rome, the first recorded papal visit of its kind to a Jewish house of worship.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Residents near an inoperative landfill near New Springfield file suit in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court seeking to block the Mahoning Landfill Co. from resuming operations.

Former Gov. James Rhodes says the Youngstown Municipal Airport has great potential for development into a freight distribution center.

The Junior League of Youngstown announces its lecturers for the 1986-87 season, which will include actress Loretta Young, G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame and Steven Ford, son of President Gerald Ford.

1971: Southern Airways Airport, a longtime Youngstown area aviation landmark, is closed to make way for a 250-acre, $40 million complex of luxury homes, offices and commercial space that will be known as Hitchcock Square.

Judge Lynn B. Griffith Jr. announces that he will resign from the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court bench, effective May 1.

The Ohio Board of Education votes to revoke the charters of seven Ohio school districts, including Farmington and Bloomfield-Mespo school districts in Trumbull County.

1961: Speaking to more than 2,300 people in the Grove City College Arena, rocket expert Dr. Wernher von Braun predicts that the United States will put a man in space before the year’s end.

Presidents, staff representatives and business agents of 92 AFL-CIO unions pledge continued support for Youngstown Mayor Frank R. Franko at a dinner meeting in the Tod Hotel.

1936: March’s flood waters that swept through Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Johnstown, Wilkes-Barre and Hartford ruined thousands of wooden desks, which are being replaced by General Fireproofing Corp., creating hundreds of jobs in Youngstown.

Federal Emergency Works funds are providing work for 209,366 Ohioans, making the state fourth among those receiving WPA funds.

Ninety-two boys from Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties are given physical exams in preparation for two weeks of training at Camp Knox, Ky., before being assigned to Civilian Conservation Corps.