Years Ago

Today is Monday, May 5, the 125th day of 2014. There are 240 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1821: Napoleon Bona-parte, 51, dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.

1862: Mexican troops defeat French occupying forces in the Battle of Puebla. (The Cinco de Mayo holiday commemorates Mexico’s victory.)

1891: New York’s Carnegie Hall (then named “Music Hall”) has its official opening night.

1914: Actor Tyrone Power is born in Cincinnati.

1925: Schoolteacher John T. Scopes is charged in Tennessee with violating a state law that prohibits teaching the theory of evolution. (Scopes was found guilty, but his conviction was later set aside.)

1934: The first Three Stooges short for Columbia Pictures, “Woman Haters,” is released.

1955: West Germany becomes a fully sovereign state.

1961: Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. becomes America’s first space traveler as he makes a 15-minute suborbital flight aboard Mercury capsule Freedom 7.

1964: The Granada TV documentary “Seven Up!,” which profiles a group of 7-year-old British children, first airs on Britain’s ITV network. (The subjects were revisited every seven years in sequels called “7 Plus Seven,” “21 Up,” “28 Up,” etc., the latest one to date being “56 Up.”)

1973: Secretariat wins the Kentucky Derby, the first of its Triple Crown victories.

1981: Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands dies at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in his 66th day without food.

1994: Singapore canes American teenager Michael Fay for vandalism, a day after the sentence is reduced from six lashes to four in response to an appeal by President Bill Clinton, who considers the punishment too harsh.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: A 19-year-old Youngstown man is arrested when he shows up to watch the arraignment of his alleged accomplice in the shooting death of Calvin I. Chapman, 21.

Calling the Mahoning Valley a “petri dish for medical waste incinerators,” representatives of various citizens groups urge state legislators to place a moratorium on construction of infectious waste incinerators in Ohio.

Gov. Richard Celeste appoints Youngstown Atty. James M. McNally as Mahoning County Juvenile Court Judge, succeeding Judge Martin P. Joyce, who retired.

1974: A small army of some 2,700 election workers is ready to man Mahoning County’s 400 primary election polling places.

“The state income tax hasn’t been the financial cure-all some educators had expected, and inflation has hurt the schools as much as it has the average household budget,” says George Morar, Trumbull County superintendent of schools.

The Atlanta-based motel franchisor, Days Inn of America, opens the first of its area “budget-luxury” motels, a 138-room motel-restaurant complex off Belmont Avenue at I-80.

1964: Officials of Lake Central Airlines and the city of Youngstown discuss ways of improving air service at Youngstown Municipal Airport in anticipation of the area’s future business growth.

Members of the NAACP demonstrate in front of General Motors headquarters in Detroit in what they say is the beginning of a concentrated effort for job equality in the U.S. auto industry.

Dr. J.E. Smith, dean of Youngstown University, presents awards to 127 students at the fifth annual YU honors and awards program.

1939: Eleven hundred workers in Youngstown’s 1939 Community Chest campaign pass the $200,000 mark, and enter the home stretch with only $68,000 needed to meet the goal of $275,000.

Legislation is drafted by City Council to authorize the Board of Control to purchase for $3,000 a parcel on the east side of South Avenue between Boston and Avondale Avenues for a new fire station.