Years Ago

Today is Saturday, May 7, the 127th day of 2011. There are 238 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1789: The first inaugural ball is held in New York in honor of President George Washington and his wife, Martha.

1861: Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore is born in Calcutta.

1915: Nearly 1,200 people die when a German torpedo sinks the British liner RMS Lusitania off the Irish coast.

1945: Germany signs an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, ending its role in World War II.

1954: The 55-day Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ends with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces.

1975: President Gerald R. Ford formally declares an end to the “Vietnam era.” In Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrates its takeover.

1977: Seattle Slew wins the Kentucky Derby, first of his Triple Crown victories (and dies on the same date in 2002).

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Robert F. Hagan unseats veteran lawmaker Thomas P. Gilmartin for the Democratic nomination in the 53rd Ohio House District, 7,873 to 6,371. Timothy Mulholland, endorsed by the Mahoning County Democratic Party, got 3,844 votes and Atty. David Engler received 2,620.

U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. gets 64,645 votes, swamping two challengers in the Democratic primary for the 17th Congressional District nomination. He got 76 percent of the votes cast and will face Republican Dr. James H. Fulks in November.

Political novice George J. Tablack wins the Democratic nomination to replace Mahoning County Auditor Stephen Olenick. He will face Republican Charles D. Zamary in November.

1971: The Rev. Norman M. Parr, executive director of the Youngstown Area Council of Churches, says St. James Episcopal Church, the oldest church in the Western Reserve, will be burned down unless a plan comes together to move the structure from 7365 Market St. to a spot where it can be preserved.

Lorraine Mendes, Columbiana High School senior, is named student of the year at the Northern Columbiana County vocation Education banquet at the Timberlanes in Salem.

1961: Frank L. Ohl speaks briefly at the dedication of the new $1-million Austintown junior high school that will bear his name.

Warren G. Harding High’s dance band wins the trophy at the 31st annual Vindicator Hi-Y, Tri-Hi-Y Play Day at Idora Park.

1936: The state tax commission approves Youngstown’s sale of $1.1 million in bonds toward paying off debt, including back pay owed to city employees.

Trumbull County’s sixth Eisteddfod will open at Harding High School in Warren and will draw Welsh singers from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Canada.

Six Boardman girls are nominated by the school’s lettermen for the title of “Sports Queen of 1936”: Peg Hoover, Eleanor Schulz, Harriet Hoover, Martha Jones, Betty Moran and Romaine Clever.

Youngstown detectives say they have arrested eight men, breaking a car theft ring that had been operating for more than a year.