Years Ago

Today is Sunday, April 6, the 96th day of 2014. There are 269 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1830: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is organized by Joseph Smith in Fayette, N.Y.

1896: The first modern Olympic games formally open in Athens, Greece.

1909: U.S. explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Inuits become the first men to reach the North Pole.

1917: Congress approves a declaration of war against Germany.

1954: A month after being criticized by newsman Edward R. Murrow on CBS’ “See It Now,” Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., given the chance to respond on the program, charges that Murrow had, in the past, “engaged in propaganda for Communist causes.”

1988: Tirza Porat, a 15-year-old Israeli girl, is killed in a West Bank melee. (Although Arabs were initially blamed, the army concluded Tirza had been accidentally shot by a Jewish settler.)

1994: Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun announces his retirement after 24 years.

The Hutu president of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana, is killed along with the president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, when their plane is apparently shot down near the Rwandan capital of Kigali; what followed was a 100-day genocide in Rwanda during which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and moderate members of the Hutu majority were killed by Hutu extremists.

1998: Country singer Tammy Wynette dies at her Nashville home at 55.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: A Mahoning County health department official says he is generally satisfied with the detailed plans of Browning-Ferris Industries to expand its three landfills in Poland and Green townships.

The bodies of Susan Clemente, 29, and her 2-year-old daughter are found in a refrigerator in their Struthers apartment. Both had been shot.

Youngstown Councilmen Albert Chance and Charles P. Sammarone say they will rework pending legislation governing oil and gas well drilling in the city to ban such activity from residential neighborhoods.

1974: Youngstown residents awaken to find an inch of snow on the ground and roads and highways that are slippery in spots.

The Ashland Oil Co. announces a 4.23-cent per gallon increase in diesel fuel sold to the Western Reserve Transit Authority, bringing the price to 32.78 cents per gallon, compared to 14.75 cents a gallon a year earlier.

Dr. Akbar Abdul-Haqq, associate evangelist of the Billy Graham team, will conduct five days of revival services at New Waterford United Methodist Church.

1964: A split vote on the proposed merger of Epworth and Indianola Methodist churches ends a movement to form a joint congregation with Epworth’s congregation voting 225 to 99 against while Indianola approved the proposal 162-29.

The possibility of a bomb aboard a Lake Central Airlines DC-3 delays takeoff for the plane and its 10 passengers at Youngstown Municipal Airport while sheriff’s deputies and highway patrolmen search for explosives, finding none. A woman caller to the Erie Morning News said a bomb was on the plane, which took off from Erie.

Bob Thompson of Woodrow Wilson High School, and Jerry Hanlon of Ursuline High School, are named the top cage and grid coaches at the Mahoning Valley Coaches Association Clinic.

1939: The city of Struthers is asked to annex 87 acres of Boardman Township, which includes the oft- raided Poland Country Club. The club’s liquor license was lost when Boardman voted to go dry.

Yeggs who broke into the Jewel Tea Co., 18 W. Hylda Ave., knocked the combination from a safe but were frightened away before they could open it, police report.

Disturbed over reports that a number of city employees are circulating a petition demanding pay increases, Youngstown Mayor Lionel Evans declares there is no possibility of pay raises before July 1, and only then if finances permit.