Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Oct. 4, the 277th day of 2014. There are 88 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1777: Gen. George Washington’s troops launch an assault on the British at Germantown, Pa., resulting in heavy American casualties.

1822: The 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, is born in Delaware, Ohio.

1931: The comic strip “Dick Tracy,” created by Chester Gould, makes its debut.

1940: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini confer at Brenner Pass in the Alps.

1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit; 1959, the Soviet Union launches Luna 3, a space probe which transmits images of the far side of the moon.

1960: An Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-188A Electra crashes on takeoff from Boston’s Logan International Airport, killing all but 10 of the 72 people on board.

1970: Rock singer Janis Joplin, 27, is found dead in her Hollywood hotel room.

1976: Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz resigns in the wake of a controversy over a joke he’d made about blacks.

1989: Fawaz Younis, a Lebanese hijacker convicted of commandeering a Jordanian jetliner with two Americans aboard in 1985, is sentenced in Washington to 30 years in prison.

1991: Twenty-six nations, including the United States, sign the Madrid Protocol, which imposew a 50-year ban on oil exploration and mining in Antarctica.

2002: John Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban,” receives a 20-year sentence after a sobbing plea for forgiveness before a federal judge in Alexandria, Va.

Vindicator Files

1989: Haas & Partners Inc. turns up the heat on Commercial Intertech Corp., saying if the company rejects its offer of $27.50 per share, it will consider “other means” of acquiring the company.

Diane Mastro Nard, speech coach at Cardinal Mooney High School, is named Ohio Speech Teacher of the Year by the Speech Communication Association of Ohio.

Three local men are arrested for operating a burglary ring that Austintown police say may be responsible for the theft of jewelry and other goods valued at $1 million.

1974: An 18-year-old intruder is shot to death by Bernard Lawrence, a 75-year-old farmer, in the kitchen of his remote farmhouse in Greene Township. Trumbull County deputies are holding two of the young man’s suspected accomplices.

The Youngstown Development Review Committee recommends a plan by the William B. Pollock Co., a division of GATX, to expand its light fabricating plant in E. Federal Street.

The Mahoning County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board plans to have a 24-hour Help Hotline in operation before the end of the year to provide emergency and suicide prevention services.

1964: The Senate and House abandon a proposed bill boosting Social Security benefits and its added Medical Care provision.

The New York Yankees defeat the Cleveland Indians and clinch the pennant for rookie manager Yogi Berra.

H. Sargent Shriver, Peace Corps head, is the speaker at a Democratic fund-raiser dinner at Idora Park ballroom.

In City Series action, Ursuline beats Rayen, 14-0, and Chaney defeats Cardinal Mooney, 30-6.

1939: Steel output in the Youngstown district, which averaged 72 percent in September, is up to 90 percent, prevented from going higher by shortages of iron and raw steel.

Bert H. Printz, president of the Youngstown Fresh Air Camp, reports the camp provided two weeks of camping for 1,288 underprivileged Youngstown children at a cost of 30 cents each per day.

Henry S. Schmutz, a supervisor in the Youngstown Water Department, is elected to receive the 33rd Degree, Masonry’s highest honor.