Years Ago

Today is Friday, Oct. 28, the 301st day of 2011. There are 64 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1636: The General Court of Massachusetts passes a legislative act establishing Harvard College.

1858: Rowland Hussey Macy opens his first New York store at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan.

1886: The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, is dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.

1919: Congress enacts the Volstead Act, which provides for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Wilson’s veto.

In 1936: President Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicates the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.

1940: Italy invades Greece during World War II.

1958: The Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, is elected pope; he takes the name John XXIII.

1962: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informs the United States that he has ordered the dismantling of missile bases in Cuba.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Edward J. DeBartolo Sr., the Youngstown native who is the nation’s leading mall developer, is awarded the Medal of Liberty during a ceremony at the Statue of Liberty with other honoree’s including Jacqueline Onassis and Muhammad Ali.

A tally by Congressional Quarterly shows that U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant, D-17th, was the leading opponent of President Ronald Reagan and his policies in the House. Donald Riegle, D-Mich., was the leading opponent in the Senate.

1971: The new Division Street Expressway linking I-680 and W. Federal Street is opened by Gov. John J. Gilligan, Mayor Jack C. Hunter and state Highway Director J. Phillip Richley, former city and county engineer.

Two neighborhood health clinics, one at McGuffey Centre and one at Clarence Robinson Center, the first of their kind, will be established with a $164,000 Model Cities grant.

1961: Nine people are injured, three seriously, in a spectacular collision between an East Palestine Coach Co. bus and two cars in Route 90 south of New Middletown.

Ursuline back John Greene thrills the crowd with two touchdown runs of 84 and 55 yards in the Irish win over Rayen, 26-8, at Rayen Stadium.

1936: Youngstown civic leaders are on hand for trial runs of a new trackless trolley bus downtown. Streetcar and bus drivers are going to “school” to learn the intricacies of driving the new vehicles.

The Belmont and Brown Memorial Methodist Episcopal churches will be merged as a new church at Fifth Avenue and Fairgreen Avenue.

There are 58 days till Christmas, but Youngstown area retailers note that only 49 of them are shopping days.