Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, April 8, the 98th day of 2014. There are 267 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1614: Painter, sculptor and architect El Greco dies in Toledo, Spain.

1820: The Venus de Milo statue is discovered by a farmer on the Greek island of Milos.

1864: The United States Senate passes, 38-6, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery. (The House of Representatives passed it in January 1865; the amendment was ratified and adopted in December 1865.)

1904: Longacre Square in Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.

1911: An explosion at the Banner Coal Mine in Littleton, Ala., claims the lives of 128 men, most of them convicts loaned out from prisons.

1913: The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for popular election of United States senators (as opposed to appointment by state legislatures), is ratified.

1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which provides money for programs such as the Works Progress Administration.

1946: The League of Nations assembles in Geneva for its final session.

1952: President Harry S. Truman seizes the American steel industry to avert a nationwide strike. (The Supreme Court later ruled that Truman had overstepped his authority, opening the way for a seven-week strike by steelworkers.)

1961: A suspected bomb explodes aboard the passenger liner MV Dara in the Persian Gulf, causing it to sink; 238 of the 819 people aboard are killed.

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1989: About 90 area Moslems begin their month-long observance of Ramadan at the Islamic Society of Youngstown’s newly completed mosque at 1760 Homewood Ave.

Residents who oppose three group homes for the handicapped planned in Boardman Township are deriving some satisfaction from fire officials’ order that at least one of the facilities have a sprinkler system installed.

The Mahoning County Health Department reports it has run out of measles vaccine as the number of measles cases in the area grows.

1974: United Auto Workers Local 1714 accepts by a narrow margin a contract covering 300 local grievances and returns to work at the Fisher Fabricating Division at Lordstown, ending a two-day strike. Vega production is expected to resume in another day.

Don Bucci of Cardinal Mooney, Dick Hartzell of West Branch, Jack Geddes of Lowellville, Rick Brook of Sebring, Paul Toth of Youngstown North and Alan Burns of Boardman get awards from Mahoning Valley Coaches Association.

The $3.5 million addition to the Kilcawley Center at Youngstown State University will open with two days of festivities to the theme of “Back to the Good Old Days.”

1964: A penitent bandit returns most of the money taken in a $138 holdup at a North Jackson filling station, mailing $114 to Austintown police.

Twenty-four Youngstown area reservists with the 910th Troop Carrier Squadron at Youngstown Municipal Airport are taking part in the escort procession during the funeral of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Washington, D.C.

A Cortland man is sentenced to six months in Trumbull County Jail by Girard Municipal Court Judge Joseph Luarde for leaving the scene of an accident on state Route 170 near the Youngstown Airport that killed YSU coed Alice Seminara, 19.

1939: A new two-year contract is signed by the National Leather Workers Association, Local 29, and the Girard Leather Co. that does not provide a closed shop but calls for the company to lay off any employee who becomes delinquent in his union dues.

Youngstown, Hubbard and Sharon police and highway patrolmen conduct raids on a ring of auto thieves, arresting 10 men and recovering thousands of dollars in loot.

A resolution opposing construction of the Lake Erie-Ohio River canal is sent to Washington by 21 railroad brotherhood lodges in Pennsylvania and Ohio.