Years Ago

Today is Sunday, May 4, the 124th day of 2014. There are 241 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1904: The United States takes over construction of the Panama Canal.

1932: Mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, enters the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. (Capone is later transferred to Alcatraz Island.)

1959: The first Grammy Awards ceremony takes place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Domenico Modugno wins Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Volare.” Henry Mancini wins Album of the Year for “The Music from Peter Gunn.”

1964: The daytime drama “Another World” begins a 35-year run on NBC-TV.

1970: Ohio National Guardsmen open fire during an anti-war protest at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.

1974: Expo ’74, a six-month-long world’s fair, opens in Spokane, Wash.

1979: Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first female prime minister after the Tories oust the incumbent Labor government in parliamentary elections.

1989: Fired White House aide Oliver North is convicted of shredding documents and two other crimes and acquitted of nine other charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair.

1994: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign an accord on Palestinian autonomy that grants self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

2004: The Army discloses that the deaths of 10 prisoners and abuse of 10 more in Iraq and Afghanistan are under criminal investigation.

2009: President Barack Obama promises to crack down on companies “that ship jobs overseas” and duck U.S. taxes with offshore havens.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: The University of Notre Dame announces that the Edward J. DeBartolo family will underwrite a $33 million addition to the campus in South Bend, Ind., the 18th largest gift ever to an American university.

Debra Balentine of Lords- town is installed as the first female president of the Warren Area Jaycees.

Three-year-old Teralynn Landis of Youngstown undergoes her third liver transplant at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh.

1974: The nation’s 10 largest steel producers and the United Steelworkers union sign their first contract reached under a no-strike agreement, giving workers a 28-cent per hour increase the first year, equivalent to 6.3 percent, and 16-cent raises each of the next two years. The average hourly wage under the old contract was $4.42.

Mrs. William F. Dunlap, prominent churchwoman from Steubenville, tells the annual May Fellowship of Church Women United at First Presbyterian Church, Youngstown, that the role of women is changing and “perhaps the future of our society will be determined more by the actions of our young women than our young men.”

1964: Struthers police say a cut brake line caused the car of Robert Collingwood, 76, and his wife, Daisy, 70, to plunge out of control down Bridge Street hill and over an embankment, seriously injuring both.

James Copeland, 29, is appointed by Mayor Anthony B. Flask to the Youngstown Fire Department, the second Negro to be named to the department.

Cmdr. Grant Drennan, USNR, of Columbus is elected president of Ohio Department, Reserve Officers Association of the United States, concluding the 39th annual convention at Hotel Pick-Ohio in Youngstown.

1939: A crowd of 2,200 watches the Youngstown Browns win their first home game, 13-9, over the Erie Sailors at the Idora Park ball field.

Fourteen reputed “bug employees” plead guilty and are fined $50 each by Judge Harry Hoffman, who warns that their fines will be higher the next time.

An application for $1.5 million for a low-rent housing project on the East Side of Youngstown is approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan announces.