Years Ago

Today is Sunday, Sept. 18, the 261st day of 2011. There are 104 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1961: United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold is killed in a plane crash in northern Rhodesia.

1793: President George Washington lays the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.

1810: Chile makes its initial declaration of independence from Spain with the forming of a national junta.

1850: Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act, which creates a force of federal commissioners charged with returning escaped slaves to their owners.

1927: The Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System (later CBS) makes its on-air debut with a basic network of 16 radio stations.

1931: An explosion in the Chinese city of Mukden damages a section of Japanese-owned railway track; Japan, blaming Chinese nationalists for the blast, invades Manchuria the next day.

1970: Rock star Jimi Hendrix dies in London at age 27.

1975: Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is captured by the FBI in San Francisco, 19 months after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

1981: A museum honoring former President Gerald R. Ford is dedicated in Grand Rapids, Mich.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro says Youngstown can save more than a quarter-million dollars annually by reducing the number of municipal judges from three to two.

A parents group lobbying for a quick settlement of a strike by teachers at the Columbiana school district collects more than 1,000 signatures, which will be presented to the Columbiana Education Association and Superintendent Roger Stiller.

The U.S. Senate confirms William Rehnquist as chief justice of the United States by a vote of 65-33, and confirms Antonin Scalia as a an associate justice by a vote of 98-0.

Schools in Mahoning County are informed that the LTV Steel Corp. will not pay $975,000 in personal property taxes due this year.

1971: The Youngstown Education Association votes to withhold all non-teaching services for 25,000 public school pupils, but will not affect regular school-day work.

Two cars collide on the crest of a hill on Alternate Route 14 near Salem, killing two men and a girl. Dead are Gary Henderson, 26; George T. Ursu Jr., 19, and Bonnie Lee Burson, 15.

The A.P. O’Horo Co. is awarded a $10.3 million contract to build the Boardman Expressway extension from South Avenue to Midlothian Blvd.

Mass Transit Authority buses will roll at least through the end of the month when a new transit authority may be formed, according to a timetable discussed at a meeting of the transit board.

1961: Common Pleas Judge David G. Jenkins rules that City Council legally rezoned land in Canfield Road, clearing the way for construction of the Kirkmere shopping plaza over objections of residents.

Mercer County Judge Herman Rodgers orders the jury that will hear the case of Phillip “Fleagle” Mainer, Youngstown hoodlum charged with burglary, be kept in a Mercer hotel for the duration of the trial.

A band of North Worthington Street mothers are fighting to block a tavern from coming into their neighborhood, saying the decline of the neighborhood is already apparent.

1936: Iron production in the Youngstown district moves to a new post-depression peak as Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. puts into blast its fifth furnace, No. 4 in the Campbell group.

Coal prices are on the rise in the Youngstown district, costing residential buyers 50 cents to 75 cents more per ton.

More than 250 delegates to the 13th annual convention of the National Association of Foremen have registered at the Ohio Hotel, the vanguard of an expected 1,000 at the Ohio Hotel.