YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 22, the 295th day of 2014. There are 70 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1797: French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet over Paris.

1836: Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first constitutionally elected president of the Republic of Texas.

1883: The original Metropolitan Opera House in New York holds its grand opening with a performance of Gounod’s “Faust.”

1928: Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover speaks of the “American system of rugged individualism” in a speech at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

1934: Bank robber Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd is shot to death by federal agents and local police at a farm near East Liverpool, Ohio., in Columbiana County.

1953: Franco-Lao Treaty of Amity and Association effectively makes Laos an independent member of the French Union.

1962: President John F. Kennedy reveals the presence of Soviet-built missile bases under construction in Cuba and announces a quarantine of all offensive military equipment being shipped to the Communist island nation.

1964: Jean-Paul Sartre is named winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, even though the French writer has said he would decline the award.

1979: The U.S. government allows the deposed Shah of Iran to travel to New York for medical treatment — a decision that precipitates the Iran hostage crisis.

French conductor and music teacher Nadia Boulanger dies in Paris.

1981: The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization is decertified by the federal government for its strike the previous August.

1986: President Ronald Reagan signs into law sweeping tax-overhaul legislation.

1991: The European Community and the European Free Trade Association conclude a landmark accord to create a free trade zone of 19 nations by 1993.

2004: In a wrenching videotaped statement, aid worker Margaret Hassan, kidnapped in Baghdad, begs the British government to help save her by withdrawing its troops from Iraq, saying these “might be my last hours.” (Hassan was apparently killed by her captors a month later.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Employment at the Lordstown General Motors complex will be cut by 2,500 with the shifting of van production to Flint, Mich., and will bring about a 25 percent cut in 1988’s payroll of $454 million.

Sally Ford, 26-year-old daughter of Niles City Auditor Ann Ford and former city schools principal James Ford, is resting at their Niles home after completing a six-month, 2,000-mile hike through 14 states, from Georgia to Maine, on the Appalachian Trail.

John Kopp, head football coach at Woodrow Wilson High School, faces a dilemma over which team to root for in the Bethany-Oberlin game. One son, Neal, is an assistant coach at Oberlin while another, Brian, is a freshman halfback at Bethany.

1974: A 17-year-old Campbell boy pleads innocent to two delinquent charges in the $60,000 arson at Campbell Memorial High School.

Eight angry and frustrated Girard residents, all victims of crimes, gather at the home of 4th Ward Councilman Nick L. D’Eramo Jr. to complain about crime and their belief that police have failed to thoroughly investigate their crimes.

The faculty and students of Ursuline High School celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Ursuline Sisters. Auxiliary Bishop William A. Hughes celebrates a Centennial Mass in the high school auditorium.

1964: Milwaukee County officials are granted an injunction to halt the Milwaukee Braves from moving the team to Atlanta for the 1965 season.

1939: U.S. Sen. Robert A. Taft, speaking at the 27th anniversary banquet of the du-Quesne Club at the Youngstown Club, says the arms-embargo provision of the neutrality act is unsound and discriminates against countries with small armaments and favors heavily armed countries.

Major John Berry, manager of the Cleveland airport, will meet with Youngstown city officials and members of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce to discuss proposed regulations at Youngstown’s new municipal airport.

Dale Rudibaugh, 19-year-old Lisbon farm youth, retains his Columbiana County corn husking championship, defeating 12 other huskers at the annual farm classic, husking 1,204 pounds of corn.