Years Ago

Today is Thursday, May 31, the 152nd day of 2012. There are 214 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1790: President George Washington signs into law the first U.S. copyright act.

1889: More than 2,000 people perish when a dam breaks sending water rushing through Johnstown, Pa.

1912: U.S. Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson is born in Everett, Wash.

1941: “Tobacco Road,” a play about an impoverished Southern family based on the novel by Erskine Caldwell, closes on Broadway after a run of 3,182 performances.

1962: Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel for his role in the Holocaust.

1977: The trans-Alaska oil pipeline, three years in the making, is completed.

1985: At least 88 people are killed, more than 1,000 injured, as over 40 tornadoes sweep through parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Ontario, Canada, during an 8-hour period.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Two years after a tornado swept through Trumbull County and into Western Pennsylvania, signs of recovery abound, but tornado scars remain.

State Rep. June Lucas, D-58th, tells a seminar, “Women in the Political Arena,” at Youngstown State University that strategic planning is crucial for women running for office.

1972: Mahoning County’s second half real estate tax collection will be delayed for at least a month because of bookkeeping difficulties caused by the state’s order for a 10 percent rollback on all real estate taxes.

Dr. Frank “Chips” Bellino wins Class AA medal play at Tippecanoe Country Club with a 73.

President Richard Nixon names four local men to fill vacancies on Local Draft Boards 78 and 79: Edward Flask, Martin Mason, R. Frank Huntley and Fred De Luca.

1962: Bright sun and 80-degree weather brings 15,000 area residents to downtown Youngstown for the Memorial Day parade.

Two parachute jumpers are killed and three injured when a small airplane crashes and burns during take off from the Shady Grove Airport west of Alliance.

Dr. Edward J. Litchfield, industrialist and chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, tells 818 graduates at Youngstown University’s 40th annual commencement that the nation must stop squandering its human resources and develop a new work ethic.

1937: The Mahoning Valley honors its hero dead with a parade in downtown Youngstown and observances at area cemeteries.

Tensions mount on the picket lines at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and Republic Steel Corp. Pickets fire shots at a company plane delivering supplies in Warren.

In a scathing attack on leaders of the CIO, the Rev. J.M. Crann uses his Sunday sermon at St. Charles Church in Boardman to urge parishioners “not only to refuse to join the CIO,” but to “take measures to protect their jobs.”