Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, April 19, the 109th day of 2011. There are 256 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1775: The American Revolutionary War begins with the battles of Lexington and Concord.

1911: The Ballet Russes premieres “Le Spectre de la Rose” in Monte Carlo, with Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina.

1933: The United States goes off the gold standard.

1943: During World War II, tens of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto begin a valiant but ultimately futile battle against Nazi forces.

1951: Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his Far East command by President Harry S. Truman, bids farewell in an address to Congress in which he quotes a line from a ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”

1961: The Federal Communications Commission authorizes regular FM stereo broadcasting starting on June 1, 1961.

1993: The 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends as fire destroys the structure after federal agents begin smashing their way in; dozens of people, including sect leader David Koresh, are killed.

1995: A truck bomb destroys the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Bomber Timothy McVeigh is later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Youngstown defense lawyer E. Winther McCroom accuses state officials of delaying the release of four Youngstown defendants who were ordered released by the Ohio Supreme Court while their drug convictions were being appealed.

Socrates Kolitsos files suit in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to test the constitutionality of a Youngstown Civil Service Commission decision to fire him as Youngstown Community Development Agency director because he is running for partisan office.

Students from Watkins Christian Academy spend a day cleaning up around McKelvey Lake as part of Clean Up Ohio Week.

1971: The Youngstown Board of Control hires Floyd G. Browne & Associates of Marion to do engineering on about $8 million in water system improvements.

Edmund Fabrizio is elected president of the Mill Creek Park Citizens Committee.

Youngstown Mayor Jack C. Hunter mails questionnaires to 500 residents of four townships adjoining Youngstown asking for their views on annexation and metropolitan government.

1961: Traffic investigator Paul Cress says the Mahoning County grand jury should determine if there are manslaughter charges in a chain-reaction accident involving a car, a beer truck and an Ohio Bell Telephone Co. car in Vindicator Square that killed letter carrier Henry Greenfield.

The Youngstown Board of Control ignores the low bidder five times in purchasing material valued at more than $100,000 for the Water Department.

1936: Traffic Commissioner Clarence W. Coppersmith asks City Council to make W. Front Street from Boardman to Spring Common one-way to relieve traffic congestion at Spring Common.

More than 25,000 people attend Youngstown’s first Hobby Show during three days at the YMCA.

Walter Cecil McKain Jr., a Youngstown native and 1934 graduate of Harvard, is named an assistant in sociology on the Harvard faculty.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. employees will present an Olde Tyme Minstrel Show at Stambaugh Auditorium.