Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Nov. 17, the 322nd day of 2012. There are 44 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1800: Congress holds its first session in Washington in the partially completed Capitol building.

1869: The Suez Canal opens in Egypt.

1911: The African-American fraternity Omega Psi Phi is founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

1934: Lyndon Baines Johnson marries Claudia Alta Taylor, better known as Lady Bird, in San Antonio, Texas.

1962: Washington Dulles International Airport is dedicated by President John F. Kennedy.

The musical comedy “Little Me,” starring Sid Caesar in seven roles, opens on Broadway.

1969: The first round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union opens in Helsinki, Finland.

1973: President Richard Nixon tells Associated Press managing editors in Orlando, Fla.: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”

1979: Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 black and/or female American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

1987: A federal jury in Denver convicts two white supremacists of civil rights violations in the 1984 slaying of radio talk show host Alan Berg. (Both men later die in prison.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Acting on the orders of Ohio State University President Edward Jennings, Athletic Director Rick Bay announces that head football Coach Earle Bruce has been fired; Bay then announces his own resignation.

Aides to U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant say results of a statewide poll that showed Traficant with 1 percent support is not a concern this early in the race because Ohioans have not yet gotten an opportunity to know Traficant and what he stands for.

1972: The body of Stephen Secich, 55, is found in his room at the Farrell Hotel on Idaho Street. He had been bound and fatally stabbed; the body was set afire.

Nearly 1,000 Youngstown teachers will be at their desks for daytime and evening parent-teacher conferences; the Youngstown Education Association had discussed boycotting the conference because there is still no master contract between the YEA and the board of education.

Youngstown Democratic ward captains recommend the appointment of former Mayor Frank X. Kryzan and Atty. Lloyd R. Haines to two vacancies on the Youngstown Municipal Court.

1962: Pvt. Michael A. Murphy, 17-year-old paratrooper who survived the ditching of the Flying Tiger Constellation in the icy Atlantic Sept. 23, returns to his mother’s Milton Avenue home for a 10-day Thanksgiving furlough in Youngstown.

A private airplane carrying a Miami, Fla., family of four makes a safe emergency landing in a wheat field near Franklin, Pa., after the pilot, Robert E. Davis, becomes lost in the clouds and while air traffic controllers at Youngstown Municipal Airport sought to steer him to safety.

Red paint is smeared on the large stone and bronze plaque in front of Youngstown University. The stone and plaque were presented to the school by the 1949 graduating class.

1937: Fads in foods, such as the graham cracker, the whole wheat bread diet and vegetarianism, have little or no scientific basis or value, Dr. Morris Fishbein, noted physician and editor of The Journal of American Medical Association, tells an audience in Rodef Sholem Temple.

Mahoning County Prosecutor William A. Amborse files suit to collect $7,500 from five bondsmen of Phillip Poghan, convicted “torture-robber” who failed to appear for trial and fled the state.

Michael Sarkes, 18, walks into the Youngstown police station, frail, cold and hungry, and tells police a story of wandering from Mexico City years ago looking for work and ending up in Youngstown with no where else to turn but the police station. The boy says he was born in New Springfield, Mass., and will be kept at the jail until his citizenship is determined.

Members of the Buckeye Retail Liquor and Beer Dealers Association agree to close their restaurants and liquor places on Sunday. Ben Harris, association secretary, calls on the public to support bills to be introduced in the Legislature compelling Sunday closing.