Years Ago

Today is Saturday, May 28, the 148th day of 2011. There are 217 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1863: The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, made up of freed blacks, leaves Boston to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

1892: The Sierra Club is organized in San Francisco.

1918: The Battle of Cantigny begins during World War I as American troops capture the French town from the Germans.

1934: The Dionne quintuplets — Annette, Cecile, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne — are born to Elzire Dionne at the family farm in Ontario, Canada.

1937: Neville Chamberlain becomes prime minister of Britain.

1940: During World War II, the Belgian army surrenders to invading German forces.

1961: The human rights group Amnesty International has its beginnings in the form of an article by lawyer Peter Benenson that is published in the British newspaper The Observer. Titled “The Forgotten Prisoners,” the essay calls for mobilizing public opinion to defend “prisoners of conscience” worldwide.

1972: Prince Edward, the Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the English throne to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, dies in Paris at age 77.

1985: David Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, is abducted by pro-Iranian kidnappers (he is freed 17 months later).

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: North Star Steel Ohio begins hiring its first workers to enable the company to resume operations at its bankrupt Hunt Steel Co. complex on W. Federal Street.

Jane Tims, president of the Junior League of Youngstown, announces the opening of a new Ronald McDonald House at Tod Children’s Hospital during a press conference attended by Sam Covelli, owner of all Youngstown area McDonald restaurants.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission refuses to allow the Pennsylvania Power Co. to terminate electric service to the Victor Posner Works of the Sharon Steel Corp. even though the company has not made a payment on its $2 million bill since April.

1971: Trumbull County Prosecutor David M. Griffith dismisses a charge of breaking and entering in the night season against Leroy Henderson of Hubbard, who wrongly served 12 years of a life sentence on the charge. His conviction was overturned by the Appeals Court on numerous errors.

The Youngstown Water Department is asked by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair a flood control gate in Milton Dam to prevent loss of about 40 million gallons of water a day.

Twenty-nine outstanding students are honored by the Youngstown Rotary Club when Choffin Vocational Center holds its annual awards assembly.

1961: Mill Creek Park’s newest attraction, a replica of an old stern wheeler, is providing 40-minute excursions on Lake Newport.

Carl Gangloff, secretary of the Youngstown Area Development Foundation, says the district has seen $340 million in construction since 1960 and another $150 million is on the books, belying any claim that the district is “washed up.”

1936: With the lighting of the No. 2 blast furnace at the Farrell Works of Carnegie-Illinois Steel, 16 of 25 blast furnaces in the Youngstown district are operating, the highest level in six years.

J. Ralph Seidner Jr., flying instructor at S.A.M. Airport off Market Street for five years has a new flying student, his wife.

Cable Co. of Canton is the low bidder on the Wick Avenue grade elimination at the Erie Railroad tracks with a bid of $207,690. The next lowest bid was by James DeJute of Niles, $222, 866.

Betty Zwingler, Mahoning County’s 13-year-old champion, spells her way to seventh place in the national spelling bee in Washington, D.C.