Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, April 9, the 99th day of 2014. There are 266 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1682: French explorer Robert de La Salle claims the Mississippi River Basin for France.

1865: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

1913: The first game is played at Ebbets Field, the newly built home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who lose to the Philadelphia Phillies, 1-0.

1914: The Tampico Incident takes place as eight U.S. sailors are arrested by Mexican authorities for allegedly entering a restricted area and are held for a short time before being released. Although Mexico offers a verbal apology, the U.S. demands a more formal show of contrition; tensions escalate to the point that President Woodrow Wilson sends a naval task force to invade and occupy Veracruz, which in turn leads to the downfall of Mexican President Victoriano Huerta.

1939: Singer Marian Anderson performs a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after being denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

1942: During World War II, American and Philippine defenders on Bataan capitulate to Japanese forces; the surrender is followed by the notorious Bataan Death March.

1959: NASA presents its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, 91, dies in Phoenix, Ariz.

1963: British statesman Winston Churchill is proclaimed an honorary U.S. citizen by President John F. Kennedy. (Churchill, unable to attend, watched the proceedings live on television in his London home.)

1983: The space shuttle Challenger ends its first mission with a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Area banks lend slightly less than the national and state average shares of their deposits, but their commercial loan volumes are higher than the state average, Vindicator Business Editor Dan Pecchia writes.

Youngstown area priests say that although they are bound by their vow to keep confessions secret, a Parma priest did the right thing in persuading Stephen A. Vrabel, 32, to surrender in the murder of a Struthers woman and her child.

Springfield Local coach Dom Daltorio receives a plaque from the Associated Press in recognition of the Tigers’ No. 1 finish in the AP’s regular-season Division III basketball poll for the 1988-89 season.

1974: The Youngstown area is covered by a 1-inch to 3-inch snowfall.

With Mahoning County’s welfare costs rising steadily and expected to pass $900,000 soon, county officials are moving to plug the loss of support payments for welfare mothers by establishing a bureau of support.

President Nixon signs into law legislation boosting the minimum wage to $2 per hour, calling it “a matter of justice that can no longer be fairly delayed.”

1964: A cutback planned in weather bureau operations at Youngstown Municipal Airport is averted following an appeal to President Lyndon Johnson by U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown.

Youngstown City Council President Joseph E. O’Neill appoints all seven city councilmen to a special committee to study annexation.

Gov. Edmund G. Brown of California arrives in Youngstown to speak at the Democratic Party’s $10-a-plate fund-raising dinner at the Idora Park ballroom.

1939: A searching inquiry into the transportation problems of the Youngstown district will be conducted by experts of the National Resources Committee while the waterway report of the army engineers is awaiting a congressional hearing.

A sudden blizzard on the Saturday before Easter fails to deter last-minute shoppers from crowding into downtown Youngstown stores.

Tom Pemberton, superintendent of Youngstown parks, reports more than 1.6 million visits to city parks, playgrounds and pools in 1938.