Years Ago

Today is Thursday, Jan. 5, the fifth day of 2012. There are 361 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1589: Catherine de Medici of France dies at age 69.

1781: A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burns Richmond, Va.

1895: French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, is publicly stripped of his rank. (He was ultimately vindicated.)

1896: An Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reports the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that comes to be known as X-rays.

1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposes assistance to countries to help them resist Communist aggression; this becomes known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.

1970: Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America, is found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pa., home. (UMWA President Tony Boyle and seven others are convicted of, or plead guilty to, the killings.)

1972: President Richard Nixon announces that he has ordered development of “an entirely new type of space transportation system,” the reusable space shuttle. (The first operational shuttle, Columbia, is launched in 1981.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Kaufmann’s announces that it is closing its stores in the Austintown and Liberty plazas, leaving a total of 63 employees out of work.

Full-scale picketing by striking Liberty Local School District teachers begins following an unsuccessful nine-hour bargaining session between the teachers union and board of education.

1972: The Youngstown Area Chamber of Commerce submits a five-point plan for the city to balance its budget, including a reduction in salaried employees through attrition, resignation and retirement.

Alex T. Yankush is re-elected Youngstown city clerk by a unanimous vote, but two veteran staff members, Barbara Synsik and James F. Brahney, are ousted.

Toro Enterprises Inc buys Recreational Industries Inc. of Riverside, Calif., which operates in the Lordstown Ordnance Depot converting Lordstown-built GM vans into recreation vehicles.

1962: Three Boardman High school buses transporting 127 students are involved in a minor collision in Market Street Ext. a mile north of Route 224. One boy is treated at South Side Hospital for back pain.

Trumbull County commissioners Roy Stillwagon and W.B. Kilpatrick stalk from the commissioners meeting when the third commissioner, Joseph Baldine, criticizes the appointment of Mr. and Mrs. James Bane as matron and superintendent of the Children’s Home.

The Wick Drive-In Hotel and Motel at 777 Wick Ave. begins an 18-month, $750,000 expansion.

1937:George Prystash is elected president of the Ukrainian American Political Club of Youngstown.

Ohio’s federal road improvement program approves $150,000 for a mile and a half of brick paving on state Route 7 at Woodworth and $100,000 for a mile of brick pavement on U.S. Route 422 west of Warren.

The Rev. Cyrillos Papagregory, pastor of St. John’s Greek Orthodox Church and a leader of the Greek people in the Mahoning Valley, dies in North Side Hospital, where he was taken after becoming ill while leading pupils of the church school in singing . He was 67.