Years Ago

Today is Monday, Nov. 28, the 332nd day of 2011. There are 33 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Pacific Ocean after passing through the South American strait that now bears his name.

1861: The Confederate Congress admits Missouri as the 12th state of the Confederacy after Missouri’s disputed secession from the Union.

1942: Nearly 500 people die in a fire that destroys the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston.

1958: Chad, Gabon and Middle Congo become autonomous republics within the French community.

1961: President John F. Kennedy dedicates the original permanent headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va.

Ernie Davis of Syracuse University becomes the first African-American football player to be named winner of the Heisman Trophy.

1964: The United States launches the space probe Mariner 4 on a course to Mars.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Garcell Moss of Warren Reserve High School is the only Youngstown area gridder named to the first team on the Associated Press 1986 Class AAA All-Ohio football squad.

Five-year-old Jerrod Hunkus receives a hero’s treatment from Johnston Township fire officials during a ceremony at Maplewood East Elementary. Fire Chief Charles Gaylog gave Jerrod a plaque for noticing smoke coming from a clothes drier and alerting his parents; the chief said this was the youngest person he ever honored for such quick thinking.

McDonald Village residents are recovering from a Thanksgiving Day nightmare after a powerful pressure surge in natural gas lines sparked explosions and fires in 31 homes and two businesses. There were related problems in 125 other houses in which gas appliances flared like torches.

1971: The Most Rev. James W. Malone, bishop of Youngstown, dedicates a new five-story wing that adds 107 beds to St. Joseph Hospital in Warren.

Elsie Dieter is named to the Youngstown Park and Recreation Commission.

Mill Creek Park opens its ice rink on McCollum Road for the season and a happy crowd jams the ice, until an afternoon rain has the rink looking like a swimming pool.

1961: Army Secretary Elvis J. Stahr Jr. signs a contract with Mahoning and Trumbull counties clearing the way for construction of the West Branch reservoir.

A two-alarm fire just west of Youngstown’s downtown business district destroys a three-store brick warehouse holding an estimated 100 tons of merchandise for SAV Army–Navy Surplus at 557 W. Federal St.

John C. Reddish, the Wayne County, Ga., sheriff who is Youngstown hoodlum Phillip “Fleegle” Mainer’s alibi for a Sharon burglary, is standing trial in Jesup, Ga., on charges of embezzling $3,265.

1936: Capt. Charles Richmond leads Youngstown police on raids of three clubs, confiscating four slot machines and arresting two men and a woman.

Strouss-Hirshberg Co. announces it will give between 500 and 600 employees Christmas bonuses equal to a week’s pay.

The Roosevelt administration will reduce WPA relief spending by at least 20 percent in 1937, the United Press reports.