Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, April 17, the 108th day of 2012. There are 258 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1521: Martin Luther goes before the Diet of Worms to face charges stemming from his religious writings. (He is later declared an outlaw by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.)

1937: The animated cartoon character Daffy Duck makes his debut in the Warner Bros. cartoon “Porky’s Duck Hunt,” directed by Tex Avery.

1970: Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert splash down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank cripples their spacecraft while en route to the moon.

1972: The Boston Marathon allows women to compete for the first time; Nina Kuscsik is the first officially recognized women’s champion, with a time of 3:10:26.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Emanuel N. Catsoules, superintendent of Youngstown schools, says the state should change the law to limit the frequency with which residents may ask that their children be transferred to another school district.

The governors of Ohio and Wisconsin say they would back Illinois as the site for a proposed $6 billion Superconducting Super Collider if their own states are out of the competition.

The 7th District Court of Appeals denies the appeal of Rosalie Grant of Youngstown, sentenced in 1983 to die in Ohio’s electric chair for setting a fire that killed her two sons.

1972: “The frustration of Vietnam should not bring America to let its guard down,” U.S. Sen. Henry Jackson, D-Washington, says during a fund-raising dinner for 18th District Rep. Charles J. Carney at Cherry’s Top of the Mall restaurant in Niles.

The slowdowns and strike that plagued the General Motors assembly plant at Lordstown are over, but the underlying issue, “assembly line boredom,” remains a threat to GM and other companies.

Three federal judges rule that Ohio’s new system of reimbursing parents $90 per year for parochial school tuition is unconstitutional.

1962: The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and Republic Steel Corp. are among 12 leading steel companies subpoenaed by a Senate anti-trust and monopoly subcommittee looking into price increases.

Ralph P. “Bob” White, secretary treasure of White’s Drugstores, is named to a five-year term on the Youngstown Board of Health.

Youngstown police solve a dozen burglaries at nine homes and a school on the West Side over the period of a year with the arrest of five boys between the ages of 14 and 16.

1937: With steel plant capacity taxed by the biggest business since 1929, Republic Steel Corp. is building anew $15 million strip mill in Cleveland.

Thomas Mylott, brother-in-law of Youngstown Traffic Commissioner Clarence Coppersmith, dies in South Side hospital after being struck by a hit-skip driver at Market Street and Ellenwood Avenue. City police capture the driver, who was charged with drunken driving.