YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 7, the 280th day of 2014. There are 85 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1777: The second Battle of Saratoga begins during the American Revolution. (British forces under Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered 10 days later.)

1849: Author Edgar Allan Poe dies in Baltimore at age 40.

1858: The fifth debate between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas takes place in Galesburg.

1929: Former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall, one of the main figures of the Teapot Dome scandal, goes on trial, charged with accepting a bribe from oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny. (Fall was found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison; he served nine months. Doheny was acquitted at his own trial of offering the bribe Fall was convicted of taking.)

1954:Marian Anderson becomes the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York. (Anderson made her Met debut in January 1955 playing the role of Ulrica in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.”)

1960: Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican opponent Richard Nixon have their second televised debate, this one in Washington.

1979: Pope John Paul II concludes his weeklong tour of the United States with a Mass on the Washington Mall.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Campbell Memorial High School defeats defeats Wooster, 28-10, at Memorial Stadium in a game that goes on despite an ongoing teachers strike. A spokesman for the Campbell Education Association said the game was “important to the community.”

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Salem celebrates the centennial of its church building on East State Street.

The Rev. Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, says at the Freedom Fund Banquet at the Mahoning Country Club, blacks “have made tremendous progress on the one hand, and on the other, we have a long way to go.”

1974: The Youngstown area United Appeal opens its annual drive for $1.9 million to support 33 local volunteer agencies.

Dr. Frederick S. Coombs Jr., 67, of 1886 Fifth Ave., well-known Youngstown internist, dies of an aortic aneurysm in North Side Hospital.

Vincent McBride, 30, of Austintown, owner of Vinnie’s Lounge, is killed when his sports car crashes into a tree on Burkey Road near Raccoon Road.

1964: Highway improvements totaling $38 million will be awarded by 1965 for improvements such as the extension of Interstate 80 through Liberty Township and work on the Wickliffe Expressway.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube employees match the company’s donation of $135,000 to the United Appeal drive. The collection reaches $575,561.

1939: Youngstown College ends a two-game losing streak, trouncing St. Francis College of Loretto, Pa., 20-6, scoring all of its points in the first half before 3,500 fans at South High Stadium.

Frank Purnell, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., says the company has ordered a second new gas butt-weld pipe mill.

Mill Creek Park and Youngstown police are investigating an attempt to hold up a man and three woman following an Epworth Methodist Church outing at the Birch Hill cabin.