Years Ago

Today is Thursday, Nov. 15, the 320th day of 2012. There are 46 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1777: The Second Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.

1806: Explorer Zebulon Pike sights the mountaintop now known as Pikes Peak in present-day Colorado.

1889: Brazil is proclaimed a republic as its emperor, Dom Pedro II, is overthrown.

1935: The Commonwealth of the Philippines is established as its new president, Manuel L. Quezon, takes office.

1937: The House and Senate chambers of the U.S. Capitol are air-conditioned for the first time.

1939: President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1942: The naval Battle of Guadalcanal ends during World War II with a decisive U.S. victory over Japanese forces.

1948: William Lyon Mackenzie King retires as prime minister of Canada after 21 years; he is succeeded by Louis St. Laurent.

1958: Actor Tyrone Power, 44, dies in Madrid, Spain, while filming “Solomon and Sheba.” (Power’s part is recast with Yul Brynner.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: The creation of a port authority to operate Youngstown Municipal Airport hits a snag, the question of who will be responsible for the airport’s $2.4 million debt for airport improvements.

Patrick V. Kerrigan, 37, Youngstown’s new, young judge on the municipal court, says he intends to spread his work out throughout the day, rather than concentrate the court’s hours in the morning, and will work with the probation department to expand a diversion program for drug- and alcohol-related cases.

1972: Donald Rominger, 53, of Heatherbrae Drive, Poland, who was third officer on the African Neptune, testifies during a hearing in Georgia that he tried to correct an error by the helmsman shortly before the ship struck a bridge near Brunswick, Ga., killing 10 people.

Liberty Township Trustee Phillip Adler Jr. says defeat of a 2.7-mill levy means the township will cut its police, fire and road crews by 38 percent in an effort to balance a shrinking budget.

1962: More than 100 members of the Austintown Council of Parent-Teachers Associations are conducting a door-to-door campaign to get 4,000 signatures and raise $4,000 for a special election to pass a 3-mill school operating levy.

Youngstown police are looking for clues in the brutal murder of Mary Kakis, 69, who was found slashed to death in her neat yellow frame house at 946 Mabel St.

1937: Every Youngstown school teacher will instruct their students on the importance of completing a citywide survey of unemployment. Any unemployed or partially employed person will be asked to fill out a registration card that is being distributed by mail carriers.

Between 1,500 and 2,000 people — church dignitaries, priests, nuns and laymen of all denominations — throng St. Patrick Church for the funeral of the Rt. Rev. Msgr William A. Kane, dean of Mahoning Valley Catholic clergy.