Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, May 18, the 138th day of 2011. There are 227 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1896: The Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, endorses “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept renounced 58 years later in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

1911: Composer-conductor Gustav Mahler dies in Vienna, Austria, at age 50.

1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a measure creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1969: Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young blast off aboard Apollo 10 on a mission to orbit the moon.

1981: The New York Native, a gay newspaper, carries a story concerning rumors of “an exotic new disease” among homosexuals; it was the first published report about what came to be known as AIDS. American author and playwright William Saroyan dies in Fresno, Calif., at age 72.

Vindicator files

1986: The Youngstown Revitalization Foundation calls on the Ungaro administration to begin planning $2 million in improvements for 15 acres of the railroad abandonment corridor in downtown Youngstown.

The Salvation Army’s prestigious Others Award is presented to Mrs. Charles B. Cushwa by Maj. Norman Zanders, commander of the Youngstown Corps.

1971: A Girard senior, Robert Hawkins, and West Branch sophomore, Barney Barnett, are among 31 students in Ohio receiving top scores in the Ohio Scholastic Achievement tests.

The national rail strike tightens its grip on the Youngstown district, threatening to idle thousands of workmen in steel, auto and other plants within days.

1961: Rear Admiral R.L. Moore, deputy and assistant chief of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships, tells the Armed Forces Day luncheon at the Hotel Pick-Ohio that the Navy is doing a remarkable job in paring costs at a time when complex weapons systems are becoming increasingly expensive.

1936: Speaking at the dedication of Youngstown’s new $50,000 Crittenton Home on McGuffey Road, Robert S. Barrett, son of a co-founder of the Florence Crittenton missions, says more than 3,500 young unwed mothers and their babies find refuge in Crittenton homes.

The Nazi discrimination against world Jewry, the worst since the Crusades, will not wipe out Judaism, Dr. Abram L. Sachar of the University of Illinois, tells several hundred people at Temple Emanu-El and at Anshe Emeth Temple.