Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 18, the 261st day of 2013. There are 104 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1759: The French formally surrender Quebec to the British.

1793: President George Washington lays the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.

1810: Chile makes its initial declaration of independence from Spain with the formation of a national junta.

1850: Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act, which creates a force of federal commissioners charged with returning escaped slaves to their owners.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs a commission naming Rabbi Jacob Frankel of Rodeph Shalom Congregation in Philadelphia the first Jewish chaplain of the U.S. Army.

1927: The Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System (later CBS) makes its on-air debut with a basic network of 16 radio stations.

1931: An explosion in the Chinese city of Mukden damages a section of Japanese-owned railway track; Japan, blaming Chinese nationalists, invades Manchuria the next day.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: A citizens group that is working to preserve Stambaugh Auditorium into the 21st century kicks off its campaign with a wine and cheese party called “To Rediscover Stambaugh Auditorium”

Youngstown Golfer Rick Jones, 54, who graduated from Ohio State in 1956, will be inducted into the OSU Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1954 he led the Buckeyes to the Big 10 Championship and in 1956 he won the NCAA Individual Championship.

1973: James Dellick, elections board director, says the theft of 200 keys to voting machines does not jeopardize the integrity of elections and does not justify replacing locks on the 200 machines, which would be “prohibitively” expensive.

A 22-year-old Cortland man, Larry W. Smith, is killed when his motorcycle struck a car that pulled into his path in Route 88. It was Trumbull County’s 48th traffic fatality of the year, compared to 27 at the same time a year earlier.

1963: A crowd of more than 1,500 attend the freedom crusade at Stambaugh Auditorium, raising more than $500 for the Southern Christian Leadership Council headed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Both, King’s brother, the Rev. A.D. King, and labor leader A. Phillip Randolph were forced to cancel their appearances because they were going to Birmingham, Ala., to support integration there.

Officials of the Housing and Home Finance Agency in Chicago order a federal investigation into alleged violations of minimum wage standards by contractors working on Youngstown’s sidewalk improvement program.

Poland Mayor Robert Tatman says village councilmen and Mahoning County commissioners must confer before the village will permit the county to build a sanitary sewer line through Poland Forest.

1938: Thirteen people are shot, one seriously, at the Federal Creosoting Co. plant in Toledo where 200 strikers and sympathizers were said by Deputy Sheriff Don Cochran to have rushed a group of guards armed with shotguns.

Youngstown’s used car market is rapidly nearing depletion and some dealers are unable to meet demand in certain price ranges while others find themselves with almost no stock.