Years Ago

Today is Palm Sunday, April 17, the 107th day of 2011. There are 258 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1911: The town of Palm Beach, Fla., is incorporated.

1941: Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany in World War II.

1961: Some 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launch the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in an attempt to topple Fidel Castro, whose forces crush the incursion by the third day.

“The Apartment” wins the Academy Award for best picture of 1960; Burt Lancaster is named best actor for “Elmer Gantry,” while the best actress award goes to Elizabeth Taylor for “Butterfield 8.”

1969: A jury in Los Angeles convicts Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

1986: The bodies of kidnapped American Peter Kilburn and two Britons are found near Beirut; they had been slain in apparent retaliation for the U.S. raid on Libya.

1991: The Dow Jones industrial average closes above 3,000 for the first time, ending the day at 3,004.46, up 17.58.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Following U.S. air raids against Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Youngstown area travel agents report many travelers are cancelling overseas trips, fearing hijackings or airport bombings.

The Mahoning Valley Sanitary District announces it will seek a 4.98 percent increase in wholesale water rates to member cities Youngstown and Niles.

Boardman’s Dave Dravecky pitches well and hits his first Major League home run as the San Diego Padres hand the Los Angeles Dodgers a 2-1 defeat.

1971: A fire at the Pick-Carter Hotel in Cleveland that killed seven people, including Robert T. Loftus, a Youngstown IRS agent, is ruled arson by Cleveland fire investigators.

Jerry Wolford, 31, a barber, is plunged into the basement of the Fisher Building at 192 E. State St. in Salem after the brick front wall of the building which was being worked on collapses. He and five other people suffer minor injuries.

An 18-year-old youth who said his drug habit led him to commit 14 burglaries in Youngstown and Boardman, is sentenced to one-to-five years at the Mansfield Reformatory by Judge Clyde W. Osborne.

1961: Henry Greenfield, 60, the Youngstown Post Office’s oldest letter carrier, and a popular downtown figure, is fatally injured at Vindicator Square and Boardman Street by a car that jumped the curb after being involved in a three-car collision.

A small army of cancer crusaders raised more than $27,000 in a door-to-door canvass of Mahoning County homes.

The Campbell Chamber of Commerce honors Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. for 60 years of progress and for its role as a “good neighbor” during a banquet at the University Club on Villa Maria Road.

1936: Lamont Hughes, formerly of Youngstown, announces his retirement as executive vice president and director of the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. Hughes, 58, had risen in the ranks from a draftsman, and the flagship of Carnegie’s fleet of boats was named for him.

Federal agents seize a 250-gallon still in a raid at 49 S. Forest St. and arrest two men who arrived with a load of sugar and empty liquor cans.