YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 18, the 322nd day of 2014. There are 43 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1863: The United States and Canada adopt a system of Standard Time zones.

1886: The 21st president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur, dies in New York.

1928: Walt Disney’s first sound-synchronized animated cartoon, “Steamboat Willie” starring Mickey Mouse, premieres in New York.

1936: Germany and Italy recognize the Spanish government of Francisco Franco.

1942: “The Skin of Our Teeth,” Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning allegory about the history of humankind, opens on Broadway.

1959: “Ben-Hur,” the biblical-era spectacle starring Charlton Heston, has its world premiere in New York.

1963: The Bell System introduces the first commercial touch-tone telephone system in Carnegie and Greensburg, Pa.

1964: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover describes civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as “the most notorious liar in the country” for allegedly accusing FBI agents in Georgia of failing to act on complaints filed by blacks; King, who denied making such a claim, replied, “I cannot conceive of Mr. Hoover making a statement like this without being under extreme pressure.”

1966: U.S. Roman Catholic bishops do away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays outside of Lent.

1978: Congressman Leo Ryan, D-Calif., and four others are killed in Jonestown, Guyana, by members of the Peoples Temple; the killings are followed by a night of murder and suicide by more than 900 cult members.

1987: The congressional Iran-Contra committees issue their final report, saying President Ronald Reagan bears “ultimate responsibility” for wrongdoing by his aides.

1994: Bandleader Cab Calloway dies in Hockessin, Del., at age 86.

1999: Twelve people are killed when a bonfire under construction at Texas A&M University collapses.

2004: Former President Bill Clinton’s library opens in Little Rock, Ark.; in attendance were President George W. Bush, former President George H.W. Bush and former President Jimmy Carter.

Former Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry, convicted of killing four black girls in the racially motivated bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church in 1963, dies in prison at age 74.

Vindicator Files

1989: The Mahoning Valley Economic Development Corp. represents the “best single example of cooperation” in generating new jobs in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, says J. Phillip Richley, the first president of the 10-year-old development agency.

A fire that severely burned 3-year-old Jimmy Edwards started in the upstairs bedroom from which he was pulled by a heroic passer-by, Warren firefighters say. The hero is Rob Matthews, 32, of Union Street Southwest.

A jury in Steubenville finds the last of four white men guilty in the brutal thrill killing of Kevin Burks, 17, almost exactly a year after his murder. Billy Smith, 19, faces a sentence of 53 years in prison.

1974: The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio warns Youngstown State University President John J. Coffelt to avoid “premature destruction of records or evidence” related to a reported “enemies list” compiled since 1968 by the school’s security department.

Robert L. Stevens, a 1966 Ursuline High School graduate, is admitted to the Ohio State Bar and is hired as a staff attorney in the Mahoning County Engineer’s Office.

Two men attempting to load stolen merchandise into a car are forced to flee empty-handed and a third man is captured at gunpoint when Youngstown police answer a call of a burglary in progress at Harley- Davidson of Youngstown, 1707 Mahoning Ave.

1964: Walter Mondale is appointed to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota to fill the vacancy left when Hubert Humphrey became vice president.

Yogi Berra, fired as New York Yankees’ manager, rejoins his old boss, Casey Stengel, as a New York Mets coach.

1939: Dick Barrett’s Blue and Gold warriors of East High pull off a surprise, holding the highly touted Bellaire grid squad to a 7-7 tie at South Stadium.

Two well-dressed young men swindle Mrs. Elizabeth Slavik, a 59-year-old widow living on a farm near East Palestine, of her life savings of $1,800.