Years Ago

Today is Saturday, May 5, the 126th day of 2012. There are 240 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1821: Napoleon Bonaparte, 51, dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.

1862: The Battle of Puebla takes place in Mexico as forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeat troops that had been sent by Napoleon III during the so-called French Intervention.

1891: New York’s Carnegie Hall (then named “Music Hall”) has its official opening night.

1925: Schoolteacher John T. Scopes is charged in Tennessee with violating a state law that prohibits teaching the theory of evolution. (Scopes is found guilty, but his conviction is later set aside.)

1936: The Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, falls to Italian invaders.

1941: Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa after the Italians are driven out with the help of Allied forces.

1942: Wartime sugar rationing begins in the United States.

1961: Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. becomes America’s first space traveler as he makes a 15-minute suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7, a Mercury capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

1981: Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands dies at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in his 66th day without food.

1987: The congressional Iran-Contra hearings open.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: About 800 people attend a ceremony at Kent State University to mark the death of four students at the university 17 years earlier.

Early voter turnout in Youngstown and Mahoning County is light for primary election contests.

The Youngstown YMCA announces that it will launch the 73rd season of summer camping at Camp Fitch on June 21.

After four years at the helm, George E. Mims announces his resignation as executive director of the Youngstown Urban League.

1972: The Campbell Education Association, representing most Campbell teachers, votes to strike over pay and job cuts.

A false fire alarm and a firecracker set off at Hayes Middle School result in 10-day suspensions for two students, one in 7th grade and one in 8th.

McCullough Williams, president of the Youngstown Board of Education, tells board members of a recruiting trip he and Superintendent Robert Pegues made to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., and the problems the city schools face in luring competent black teachers to Youngstown.

1962: Barbara Brugnaux of St. Patrick’s Oak Hill School wins The Vindicator’s 29th annual spelling bee, outspelling runner up Alice Kryzan, daughter of former mayor and Mrs. Frank X. Kryzan.

Youngstown City Council will consider a proposal to replace the position of chief of detectives with a captain’s rank.

Members of Painters and Decorators Union 476 in Mahoning County reject a proposal by contractors to end a strike that has idled 300 painters. At issue is a demand by contractors that painters use rollers rather than brushes.

1937: Mahoning County commissioners say cities and villages must either pay back bills for boarding and feeding prisoners they sent to the county jail or have the amounts subtracted from their tax distributions.

Republic Steel Corp., facing a strike threat, agrees to meet with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Corp. faces a similar threat.

William B. Knudsen is named president of General Motors Corp., succeeding Alfred B. Sloan, who moved up to board chairmanship.

Cleveland police say parts of a woman’s body found in Lake Erie brings to nine the victims of a presumed mad killer lose in the city.