YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, May 20, the 140th day of 2013. There are 225 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for farming.

1927: Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, N.Y., aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.

1932: Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

1939: Regular trans-Atlantic mail service begins as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, takes off from Port Washington, N.Y., for Marseille, France.

1959: Nearly 5,000 Japanese-Americans have their U.S. citizenship restored after renouncing it during World War II.

1969: U.S. and South Vietnamese forces capture Ap Bia Mountain, referred to as “Hamburger Hill” by the Americans, following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.

1993: An estimated 93 million people tune in for the final episode of the sitcom “Cheers” on NBC.

Vindicator files

1988: At the dedication of the new Packard Electric training center in Vienna Township, General Manager Elmer Reese announces that the Packard Division of GM will expand its European operations with a new plant in Turkey, and possibly one in Hungary.

Michael Jordan throws up the first ball for the first World Basketball League game, which is played in Chicago between the Youngstown Pride and the Chicago Express. Jordan’s brother, 5-foot-7 Larry, is on the Chicago team, which won, 115 to 102.

1973: Reinhold Conrad, 24, of Canfield, better known as Chuck Drake on WBBW-Radio and host of the “Tradeo” talk show is killed when his car struck bridge abutment on state Route 6 in Ashtabula County.

Atty. Don Hanni Jr. tells Boardman police he does not know who may have placed a dynamite bomb in the front yard of his Tippecanoe Road farm house. The bomb detonated at 5 a.m. but did no damage to the house and caused no injuries.

1963: Frank W. Reese, 57, former chief deputy sheriff under Sheriff Paul J. Langley, and president of the Mahoning County Democratic Club, dies in North Side Hospital.

More than 600 priests, nuns and parishioners of St. Mathias Parish honor the Rt. Rev. John G. Hamrack, St. Mathias pastor, at a testimonial dinner at the parish school.

1938: Henry A. Roemer, president of Sharon Steel Co. and Pittsburgh Steel Co., criticizes the practice of cutting wages and slashing prices and pleads for healthy and honest competition between labor, management and individuals and communities at the annual Youngstown Chamber of Commerce dinner.

Youngstown Councilman Ed Haseltine, who will be 80 years old in June, gets his first ride in an airplane to help celebrate Air Mail Day, which involved six air mail planes making flights from Youngstown area airports carrying letters marked with special cachets. It marks the district’s first direct air mail flights in more than eight years.