Years Ago

Today is Saturday, April 16, the 106th day of 2011. There are 259 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1789: President-elect George Washington leaves Mount Vernon, Va., for his inauguration in New York.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia.

1879: St. Bernadette, who’d described seeing visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, dies in Nevers, France.

1910: Boston Arena (now Matthews Arena) first opens.

1917: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returns to Russia after years of exile.

1947: The French ship Grandcamp blows up at the harbor in Texas City, Texas; another ship, the High Flyer, explodes the following day. The blasts and resulting fires kill nearly 600 people.

1972: Apollo 16 blasts off on a voyage to the moon.

1991: Sir David Lean, director of “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago,” dies in London at age 83.

1996: Britain’s Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, announce they are in the process of divorcing.

2007: In the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, student Seung-Hui Cho kills 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech before taking his own life.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Pennsylvania authorities file gambling charges against 11 people from Youngstown and New Castle, alleging involvement in a multi-million dollar bookmaking ring.

Silvana M. Foti, a 1974 graduate of Ursuline High School, is named head of the art department at Methodist College in Fayetteville, N.C.

The Youngstown Board of Education has been meeting more frequently and three new board members will be paid almost three times as much as their incumbent colleagues. New board members receive $70 per meeting for unlimited meetings; older members are still paid $40 for a maximum of once a month.

1971: The Peoples Bank of Youngstown is merged with the Society of Cleveland Corp. in a joint announcement by Arnold D. Stambaugh, chairman of the Peoples board, and Walter F. Lineberger Jr., chairman of Society’s board.

Mahoning Common Pleas Judge Clyde Osborne sentences a 23-year-old Youngstown State University student to 10 to 20 years at the Mansfield Reformatory on charges of possession of narcotics. He had been arrested on three counts of possession of narcotics for sale and three counts of sales.

1961: Negotiations are underway for a merger of the l74-year-old Bessemer Limestone & Cement Co. of Youngstown and the Diamond Alkali Co. of Cleveland.

Seven city employees and a brother of Mayor Frank Franko are subpoenaed by the city to appear as witnesses for Joseph Meranto in the union leader’s assault and battery case against Mick Pochiro, water department mechanic.

Many idle steelworkers are being recalled in the Youngstown district as operations pick up, with mills running at 40 percent of capacity.

1936: The Mahoning County grand jury continues its investigation of alleged fake insurance claims and charges that state civil service employees are being forced to contribute to the Ohio Democratic campaign fund.

Mary Jane Wick, 14-year-old daughter of Lemuel Wick, cashier of General Fireproofing Co., is killed when she fell from her bicycle under the wheels of a truck being driven at the Wick estate on Warner Road by her aunt, Mrs. Helen Parker.

About 1,000 steel executives and engineers will arrive by special train on the Youngstown & Northern Railroad tracks to inspect the new McDonald strip mill.