Years Ago

Today is Sunday, April 29, the 120th day of 2012. There are 246 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1429: Joan of Arc enters the besieged city of Orleans to lead a French victory over the English.

1798: Joseph Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation” is rehearsed in Vienna, Austria, before an invited audience.

1861: The Maryland House of Delegates votes 53-13 against seceding from the Union. In Montgomery, Ala., President Jefferson Davis asks the Confederate Congress for the authority to wage war.

1916: The Easter Rising in Dublin collapses as Irish nationalists surrender to British authorities.

1945: During World War II, American soldiers liberate the Dachau concentration camp.

Adolf Hitler marries Eva Braun and designates Adm. Karl Doenitz president.

1946: Twenty-eight former Japanese officials go on trial in Tokyo as war criminals; seven end up being sentenced to death.

1961: “ABC’s Wide World of Sports” premieres, with Jim McKay as host.

1974: President Richard M. Nixon announces he is releasing edited transcripts of some secretly made White House tape recordings related to Watergate.

1983: Harold Washington is sworn in as the first black mayor of Chicago.

1987: Ronnie DeSillers, a seven-year-old liver transplant recipient whose story had prompted thousands of Americans, including President Ronald Reagan, to lend support, dies at a Pittsburgh hospital while awaiting a fourth transplant.

1991: A cyclone strikes the South Asian country of Bangladesh, claiming an estimated 138,000 lives.

1992: Exxon executive Sidney Reso is kidnapped outside his Morris Township, N.J., home by Arthur Seale, a former Exxon security official, and Seale’s wife, Irene, and held for ransom; Reso dies in captivity. (Arthur Seale is serving a 95-year prison term, while his wife was given a 20-year sentence; Irene Seale was released in November 2009.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: A Youngstown teacher who described East High School students as “low life” in a self-improvement assignment is among 10 teachers whose limited contracts will not be renewed for the 1978-’88 school year. English teacher Nicoleen Dodd was transferred to the Woodrow Wilson library after parents complained.

Janie S. Jenkins, who retired as a Vindicator feature writer at the beginning of the month, is honored by county officials at the Mahoning County Courthouse, especially for her coverage of the Canfield Fair and assistance in getting animals adopted from the pound. (Jenkins died last week at age 90.)

The Packard Electric Division of General Motors in Warren will supply wiring harnesses for the Volkswagen Jetta that will be built in New Stanton, Pa.

1972: Twenty-two Austintown policemen, some in riot gear, make certain the curtain goes up on the Miss Youngstown State beauty pageant at Austintown Middle School, despite efforts of some 40 shouting, sign-carrying Women’s Liberation supporters.

U.S. Sen. George McGovern tells workers at the Campbell Works of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. that if he wins the presidential primary in Ohio it will be a “workers’ victory.”

The Youngstown Board of Education files a lawsuit seeking $3,461 from the parents of a Poland boy who allegedly set an arson fire at Science Hill School.

1962: Some 3,500 volunteers fan out over Mahoning County in a door-to-door drive on Cancer Sunday.

Cleveland Mayor Anthony J. Celebrezze tells 250 people at the state convention of the Catholic War Veterans in Youngstown that the threat of nuclear warfare must not allow Americans to succumb to fear or fatalism.

The Monday Musical Club books six acts for its coming 66th season including Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians and Liberace.

1937: Mahoning County is in a position to care for its needy without major difficulty for at least five months and possibly the rest of 1937, Relief Director I.L. Feurer tells city, county and township officials during a meeting at the courthouse.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. officials confer for three hours with leaders of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, but do not sign the contract presented by the SWOC.

Movie Cowboy Tom Mix brings his circus to Youngstown in 175 trailers and begins setting up at Wright Field.