Today in history

Today is Saturday, Oct. 20, the 294th day of 2012. There are 72 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1740: Maria Theresa becomes ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia upon the death of her father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

1803: The U.S. Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.

1903: A joint commission rules largely in favor of the United States in a boundary dispute between the District of Alaska and Canada.

1944: During World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur steps ashore at Leyte in the Philippines, 2 Ω years after saying, “I shall return.”

1947: The House Un-American Activities Committee opens hearings into alleged Communist influence and infiltration in the U.S. motion picture industry.

1964: The 31st president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, dies in New York at age 90.

1967: Seven men are convicted in Meridian, Miss., of violating the civil rights of three slain civil rights workers.

1968: Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

1972: President Richard M. Nixon signs into law the General Revenue Sharing Act, which allocates $30 billion over five years to state and local governments.

1973: In the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre,” special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox is dismissed and Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resign.

1981: A bungled armored truck robbery carried out by members of radical groups in Nanuet, N.Y., leaves a guard and two police officers dead.

1987: Ten people die when an Air Force jet crashes into a Ramada Inn hotel near Indianapolis International Airport after the pilot, who was trying to make an emergency landing, ejects safely.

2011: Moammar Gadhafi, 69, Libya’s dictator for 42 years, is killed as revolutionary fighters overwhelm his hometown of Sirte and capture the last major bastion of resistance two months after his regime falls.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: After the stock market’s record 500-point drop in New York, Youngstown brokers are advising their clients to buy. Keith Downard, chief financial officer at Butler Wick & Co., says “All my bids today are buy tickets.”

U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. blames the stock market crash on President Ronald Reagan’s policies and predicts the nation is headed for an economic depression before the next president takes office in 1989,

Construction of a Wick Avenue apartment complex for Youngstown State University students has stalled because the developer could not secure financial backing, a company official says.

1972: City negotiators offer the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 28 a package that would bring the pay for a five-year Youngstown police officer to $10,922 in two years, an increase of 7.5 percent each year.

The Youngstown Board of Education announces that it will hold one public meeting a month, but plans to hold three executive sessions with groups or individuals who have complaints.

1962: Atty. Paul E. Stevens, one-time Republican candidate for judge and Congress, is selected to introduce Gov. Michael V. DiSalle, a Democrat, at Poland Union School as the governor concludes a swing through Mahoning County.

A Navy flight technician from Craig Beach, George A. Blythe Jr., 20, is reported missing and presumed dead after a helicopter crash in the open sea during naval maneuvers in the Caribbean.

1937: Jacob Newman, 67, who made the derby hat famous in Youngstown at a time when he sold as many as 1,500 hats a day from his N. Phelps St. store, dies in South Side Hospital of burns suffered when naphtha he was using to clean hats in his garage ignited.

J.L. Mauthe of Poland Manor is named general superintendent of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.’s Youngstown District plants.

Joe Dallet, former Youngstown communist leader, congressional and mayoral candidate, is reported killed in action on the Arragon front of the Spanish civic. War. Dallet, 29, had arrived in Spain in May after he and other Communists were detained in France.