YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, Oct. 18, the 291st day of 2014. There are 74 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1685: King Louis XIV signs the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoking the Edict of Nantes that had established legal toleration of France’s Protestant population, the Huguenots.

1767: The Mason-Dixon line, the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, is set as astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon complete their survey.

1867: The United States takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia.

1892: The first long-distance telephone line between New York and Chicago is officially opened (it could only handle one call at a time).

1931: Inventor Thomas Alva Edison dies in West Orange, N.J., at age 84.

1944: Troops of the Soviet Union invade Czechoslovakia during World War II.

1962: James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins are honored with the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for determining the double- helix molecular structure of DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid].

1969: The federal government bans artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates because of evidence they cause cancer in laboratory rats.

1972: Congress passes the Clean Water Act, overriding President Richard Nixon’s veto.

2004: President George W. Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry trade biting accusations over the war in Iraq, with Bush saying his Democratic challenger stands for “protest and defeatism” while Kerry accuses the president of “arrogant boasting.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Youngstown Police Detective Harry Wollet is investigating reports of at least four elderly people receiving phone calls from con men posing as police officers seeking access to their bank accounts.

Nabisco Brands announces that it is closing its Austintown warehouse, which is in a building that has been foreclosed on for having 20 years of delinquent taxes. Thirteen people will lose their jobs.

Maj. Gen. Charles A. May Jr., deputy chief of staff for the Strategic Air Command, tells the Youngstown Area Chamber of Commerce that a warming trend between the U.S. and Soviet Union is no reason for the U.S. to let its guard down.

1974: Youngstown public school enrollment for the new school year is 21,829, a decrease of 1,902 from a year earlier.

Calling state and federal environmental protection agencies “arrogant” and “devious,” William A. Sullivan, vice president of the Western Reserve Economic Development Agency, threatens a court fight to block a scheduled hearing on pollution standards for the Mahoning River.

Jeff Davis, 22, of 344 Meadow St., is shot and killed by a 25-year-old friend who was playing with a .22-caliber rifle at the home of a mutual friend at 407 Harrison St.

1964: A crowd estimated at 4,000 to 5,000 hears U. S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee, speak at the Idora Park Ballroom. Goldwater was greeted at the Youngstown airport by Industrialist L.A. Beeghly and A.S. Glossbrenner, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., and another crowd of about 5,000 people.

All three American runners advance to the 110-meter hurdles final at the Tokyo Olympics, including Willie Davenport of Howland.

Coach Dike Beede’s Youngstown University Penguins beat Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., 40-22, for YU’s strongest start in years with four straight wins.

1939: Congressman Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown stresses the necessity of canalizing navigable streams to enable American industry to compete with foreign industry during an address at the closing session of the Mississippi Valley Association in St. Louis.

Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp.’s second Farrell blast furnace goes into blast, boosting the number of active stacks to 21 out of the 25 in the Youngstown district.

Dr. David E. Jenkins awards Bertha Storm, 206 E. Delason Ave., $15,000 for damages against the city of Youngstown for a broken hip suffered when she fell on the sidewalk in Central Square.