Years Ago

Today is Thursday, April 26, the 117th day of 2012. There are 249 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1607: English colonists go ashore at present-day Cape Henry, Va., on an expedition to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

1785: American naturalist, hunter and artist John James Audubon is born in present-day Haiti.

1865: John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, is surrounded by federal troops near Port Royal, Va., and killed. (As he lay dying, Booth looked at his hands and gasped, “Useless, useless.”)

1937: German and Italian warplanes raid the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, resulting in widespread destruction; estimates of the number of people killed vary greatly, from the hundreds to the thousands. (The raid inspires Pablo Picasso’s famous antiwar painting, “Guernica.”)

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Youngstown city schools are still struggling to meet a permanent injunction issued by a U.S. district court nine years ago that requires the district to maintain a balance of black teachers and administrators in all schools, regardless of the racial makeup of the student population.

Two 15-year-old members of Boy Scouts Troop 114 at St. Charles Church in Boardman receive the Eagle Scout awards: Anthony M. DiTommaso and Paul Remke.

1972: United Airlines puts on a display at Youngstown Municipal Airport to mark the 45th anniversary of commercial airline service in the city, which began April 21, 1927, at Lansdowne Airport.

St. Mary Home for the Aged at 278 Broadway, established by the Diocese of Youngstown in 1952, will be closed as soon as homes are found for the 51 elderly residents.

1962: Mayor Harry Savasten submits legislation to sell $110,000 in bonds to finance the city’s share of runway resurfacing at Youngstown Municipal Airport, but some city council members say paving city streets should come first.

Third Ward Councilman James A. Pastor criticizes the city’s purchase of Buick sedans for the mayor and water commissioner, for $3,644 from Buick Youngstown, saying the city should have been able to get the same cars for $300 less each, and a “comparable car” of another make for as little as $2,737 each.

1937: The worst April floods in history hit Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland as streams are fed with heavy rain and melting snow.

Youngstown’s annual Community Chest drive opens at the YMCA with a goal of $275,000 to help the needy.