Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 9, the 313th day of 2011. There are 52 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1872: Fire destroys nearly 800 buildings in Boston.

1938: Nazis loot and burn synagogues as well as Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in a pogrom that becomes known as “Kristallnacht.”

1953: Welsh author-poet Dylan Thomas dies in New York at age 39.

1961: The Beatles’ future manager, Brian Epstein, first sees the group perform at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, England.

1963: Twin disasters strike Japan as some 450 miners are killed in a coal-dust explosion, and about 160 people die in a train crash.

1965: The great Northeast blackout occurs as a series of power failures lasting up to 131/2 hours leave 30 million people in seven states and part of Canada without electricity.

1970: Former French President Charles de Gaulle dies at age 79.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Youngstown Bishop James W. Malone says that during his three years as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the conference led the effort to see that there was no retrenchment on the Second Vatican Council, which modernized the church.

Analysts say intense price and foreign competition during the next 10 years will challenge the auto industry, but the Big Three U.S. makers are expected to survive, though with fewer workers.

1971: Youngstown’s new law requiring the use of domestic steel only in city-sponsored projects is receiving widespread expressions of approval, including some from U.S. steel executives, and inquiries from other cities.

Fire kills Jeffrey Saunders, 4, and injures four members of his family at their home on Marshall Street in the Patagonia section of Hickory Township, Pa.

First Baptist Church at 16 W. Boardman St., a downtown landmark for almost 50 years, will be sold to undisclosed business interests for $160,000.

1961: Edward J. Allen, police chief in Youngstown under the “reform administration” of former Mayor Charles P. Henderson, has been approached indirectly about returning to Youngstown to once again head the police department.

Youngstown Police Sgt. William Turnbull shoots and kills a burglar attempting to loot the Plaza Record Shop at the Mahoning Plaza and captures two accomplices at gunpoint.

1936: In addition to recent wage increases for common and skilled labor at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., management announces salary increases of 9 and 10 percent for clerical employees.