Years Ago

Today is Easter Sunday, April 8, the 99th day of 2012. There are 267 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1820: The Venus de Milo statue is discovered by a farmer on the Greek island of Milos.

1911: An explosion at the Banner Coal Mine in Littleton, Ala., claims the lives of 128 men, most of them convicts loaned out from prisons.

1913: The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for direct popular election of United States senators (as opposed to appointment by state legislatures), is ratified.

1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signsa bill providing money for programs such as the Works Progress Administration.

1952: President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order seizing the American steel industry to avert a nationwide strike. (The U.S. Supreme Court later rules that Truman had overstepped his authority, opening the way for a seven-week strike by steelworkers.)

1994: Kurt Cobain of the grunge band Nirvana is found dead in Seattle from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

VINDICAT0R FILES

1987:Mayor Patrick Ungaro faces two challengers, Atty. James J. Corbett and Robert Ford, in a debate sponsored by the Market Street Merchants.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge William G. Houser sentences a 24-year-old Youngstown man to 10 to 15 years in the penitentiary for snatching the purse of a woman who cannot hear or speak as she was walking along Market Street.

1972: Confronted with a huge accumulation of orders, General Motors Corp.’s Lordstown Vega and van assembly lines will operate on 10-hour shifts to make up for production lost during months of a worker slow down and a three-week strike.

Record low temperatures in the mid-teens and a light snow keep the Mahoning Valley in winter’s grip 18 days after the official start of spring.

Trumbull County Sheriff Robert W. Barnett leads 38 deputies on a raid of the House that Jack Built, a teen center in Vienna Township. No arrests are made, but Barnett says drugs, including heroin and marijuana, were found, dropped by some of the 400 teenagers on the dance floor when deputies entered the building.

Herman “Pete” Starks, 2nd Ward councilman, is among 32 men and 20 women arrested when Youngstown police raid a bottle club at 926 Hillman St.

1962: Mahoning County Prosecutor Thomas Beil is investigating possible irregularities in the reappraisal of property in the county. He cites one case of an elderly man living in a dilapidated 100-year-old house who saw his tax valuation double.

Youngstown Postmaster Chester Bailey says an election will be held among some 700 employees of the Youngstown Post Office to determine what group or groups will bargain for them.

More than 700 area public and parochial school teachers go back to school on a Saturday, attending a workshop on teaching mathematics held at Chaney High School .

1937: Scott Lewis, 15-year-old Canfield Boy Scout, is awarded a gold medal for heroism for saving his 20-year-old sister from a fire that destroyed the family home and killed three other sisters.

Thirty “hunger sit-downers” invade the office of Ohio Gov. Martin L. Davey to protest the governor‘s plan to operate soup kitchens manned by the Ohio National Guard in 13 counties.

State Sen. Edward N. Waldvogel, a Hamilton Democrat who sponsored a bill to provide $7 million in aid to parochial schools, says he fears that amendments may allow local school districts to control the operations of Catholic schools.

Youngstown College will establish a co-operative program with business and industry in the Mahoning Valley, similar to those in operation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Antioch College, says Howard W. Jones, YC president. During three years of the five-year program, students will split their time between classes and work, giving them practical business experience and a source of income.