Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, April 23, the 113th day of 2014. There are 252 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1616: English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare, 52, dies on what has been traditionally regarded as the anniversary of his birth in 1564.

1789:President-elect George Washington and his wife, Martha, move into the first executive mansion, the Franklin House, in New York.

1791: The 15th president of the United States, James Buchanan, is born in Franklin County, Pa.

1910: Former President Theodore Roosevelt delivers his famous “Man in the Arena” speech at the Sorbonne in Paris.

1914: Chicago’s Wrigley Field, then called Weeghman Park, hosts its first major league game as the Chicago Federals defeat the Kansas City Packers 9-1.

1940: About 200 people die in the Rhythm Night Club Fire in Natchez, Miss.

1943: U.S. Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy assumes command of PT-109, a motor torpedo boat, in the Solomon Islands during World War II. (On Aug. 2, 1943, PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, killing two crew members; Kennedy and 10 others survived.)

1954: Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hits the first of his 755 major-league home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. (The Braves won, 7-5.)

1969: Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)

1988: A federal ban on smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less goes into effect.

1993: Labor leader Cesar Chavez dies in San Luis, Ariz., at age 66.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: The U.S. Coast Guard station at Ashtabula Harbor, closed due to budget restraints in March 1988, is being reopened.

With no Republican primary contests, Lyn M. Crawford, Trumbull County Board of Elections director, expects some Republican voters to cross over by signing a “change of party affiliation” form that would allow them to vote in the Democratic primary.

U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., will appear at Youngstown State University as the next Skeggs lecturer.

1974: The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a federal judge’s order that closed the Reserve Mining Co.’s taconite plant, which the judge said was polluting Lake Superior.

Robert W. Decker, GM vice president and Fisher Body general manager, says GM will build another 89,000-square- foot addition to its Fisher Body fabricating plant at Lordstown.

The board of trustees of the Associated Neighborhood Centers joins the Westlake Terrace Tenant Council in opposing the YMCA’s proposal to allow the Rescue Mission to convert the W. Federal Street YMCA into a center for alcoholics.

1964: About 70 representatives of Ohio contractors, the Operating Engineers union, the Ohio congressional delegation and state and county governments gather in Washington to discuss the proposed Lake Erie-Ohio River Waterway.

U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, predicts that Democrats will add in the fall to their already big majority in the U.S. House.

Teachers must speak out on the problems facing American education, Richard Batchelder, member of the National Education Association, tells 310 people at the ninth annual dinner of the Youngstown Education Association honoring retired teachers.

1939: The Youngstown “Big House” lottery is still taking numbers bets, but is reportedly having trouble paying off on some hits because its assets have been frozen by a civil lawsuit filed by a former member of the Youngstown vice squad.

Mary Louise Black of 63 Creed St., Struthers, a senior in the department of education, is elected May Queen at Youngstown College.

Sen. Robert Taft, R-Ohio, writes a personal letter of protest to George T. Ladd, president of United Engineering and Foundry Co. of Pittsburgh, regarding the company’s announced plan to move its Wooster, Ohio, plant to Japan.