Today in history

Today is Friday, Oct. 19, the 293rd day of 2012. There are 73 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1812: French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte begin their retreat from Moscow.

1936: H.R. Ekins of the New York World-Telegram beats out Dorothy Kilgallen of the New York Journal and Leo Kieran of The New York Times in a round-the-world race on commercial flights that lasted 18 Ω days.

1960: The United States begins a limited embargo against Cuba covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.

1977: The supersonic Concorde makes its first landing in New York City.

1987: The stock market crashes as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value, to close at 1,738.74.

1994: Twenty-two people are killed as a terrorist bomb shatters a bus in the heart of Tel Aviv’s shopping district.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Trumbull County’s auto title division will reopen after an agreement is reached with the Automobile Dealers Association of Eastern Ohio to pay the salaries and benefits for nine employees who had been laid off by the cash-strapped county.

Mahoning County Board of Elections, which will need 1,668 poll workers for the November election, will find some of them from among the county’s high school government classes. Traditionally poll workers are senior citizens.

The last remnants of the old Voyager Motor Inn come tumbling down on Market Street across from the Mahoning County Courthouse.

1972: Youngstown Police Chief Donald Baker deplores the bombing of the car of Rev. Lonnie Simon in the driveway of his home and asks the public to report any clue that might help solve the case.

Youngstown Mayor Jack C. Hunter becomes the 10,000th area resident to purchase a copper bracelet engraved with the name of the GI prisoners of war or missing in action in Vietnam. More than 1,600 American GIs are listed as prisoners or MIA.

Episcopal Bishop John H. Burt of the Ohio Diocese, a former rector of St. John’s in Youngstown, is nominated as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles.

1962: An Austintown truck driver is arrested after trying to sell a $5 football pool bet to an undercover Liberty Township police officer

The state of Ohio agrees to pay Mill Creek Park $55,000 for land it took to relocate Route 18 in the area of Mahoning Avenue, Price Road and Glenwood Avenue during expressway construction.

1937: Youngstown Mayor Lionel Evans says traffic congestion on Spring Common is chocking the city and urges passage of a bond issue to finance improvements.

A severe cold led William J. Hart, a Sharon, Pa., engineer for Westinghouse to take an airplane rather than a train to California where he was to spend three weeks working on transformers for Boulder Dam. He was one of 19 people who died when the United Airlines plane crashed near Salt Lake City.

Charles Westlake Jr., 57, is shot in the back while watching a move in the State Theater downtown when a gun fell from his pocket. His condition is not serious. A woman who was sitting behind him and was taken into custody was released after Westlake described how he was shot.