Years Ago

Today is Friday, June 1, the 153rd day of 2012. There are 213 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1812: President James Madison, in a message to Congress, recounts what he calls Britain’s “series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation”; Congress ends up declaring war.

1862: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee assumes command of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War.

1912: Paramount Pictures has its beginnings as Adolph Zukor incorporates the Famous Players Film Co., which later merges with the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co.

1958: Charles de Gaulle becomes premier of France, marking the beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic.

1967: The Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is released.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: The Standard Oil Co. in Cleveland announces the closing Larry Haefke Jr.’s Sohio service station at State Route 46 and U.S. 224 in Canfield, a landmark for 50 years.

Local communities are responding negatively to an effort by Mahoning County commissioners to institute the 911 emergency telephone system throughout the county, saying it is too expensive.

1972: The Youngstown Area Community Action Council’s Neighborhood Youth Corps program has a unique problem — funds to hire 587 youths for summer jobs, but no jobs.

Trumbull County Probate Judge Reed Battin awards $220,000 to James Evans of Girard in a suit filed against the late Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard accusing the doctor once famous for being convicted of killing his wife. The suit alleges that the boy suffered permanent arm damage after treatment by Sheppard.

The Youngstown Diocesan Board of Education votes to close Christ Our King School in Warren.

1962: City Council approves a $250,000 project by the Water Department to improve pressure in the Kirkmere area and Southwest side.

Coming to Stambaugh Auditorium, the Grand Ole Opry, featuring Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys.

Burglars working in the daylight on a holiday wheel a heavy safe containing several thousand dollars from the Ohio State Liquor Store at 2737 South Ave.

1937: Archbishop Edward A. Mooney, former Youngstown man who has served as bishop of Rochester, N.Y., since 1933, is designated by Pope Pius XI to head the new archdiocese of Detroit.

Reacting to the shooting deaths of six pickets, John L. Lewis, head of the Committee for Industrial Organization, says the Chicago police force which “for years has protected the hoodlum and the thug … now aids the Republic Steel Corp.”