Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, May 23, the 144th day of 2012. There are 222 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1430: Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians, who sells her to the English.

1701: William Kidd is hanged in London after he was convicted of piracy and murder.

1911: The newly completed New York Public Library is dedicated by President William Howard Taft, Gov. John Alden Dix and Mayor William Jay Gaynor.

1934: Bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are shot to death in a police ambush in Bienville Parish, La.

1962: The movie version of “The Miracle Worker,” with Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft reprising their Broadway roles as Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, opens in New York.

1984: Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issues a report saying there is “very solid” evidence linking cigarette smoke to lung disease in non-smokers.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: U.S. Rep. Thomas Ridge, R-21st, of Erie says Victor Posner must make a direct personal effort to obtain the money needed to reline a Sharon Steel Corp. blast furnace.

The Beaver Township Board of Zoning Appeals approves a $1.5 million project to convert the St. Mary’s Friary on Garfield Road into a center for Alzheimer’s disease patients.

1972: Only about 60 of Trumbull County’s 500 Republican and Democratic precinct committeemen turn out for an explanation of the proposed County Charter that will appear on the November ballot.

Record sales for the year from Jan. 30, 1971, to Jan. 29, 1972, are reported by Herbert H. Strawbridge, chairman of the board of Higbee Co. to stockholders.

1962: The Army identifies a Youngstown soldier, Pfc. Thomas J. Lochrane, 24, as one of the victims in a tank accident at Fort Hood, Texas, in which five men were killed.

After almost 40 days without significant rainfall, Mahoning Valley reservoirs are at their lowest levels since 1943, causing some concern by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

1937: Swooping down without any warning, a terrific storm rips through the Youngstown district, leaving behind a tangled mass of wreckage that is expected to cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Flowering dogwoods are in full bloom throughout Mill Creek Park