Today is Monday, April 6, the 96th day of 2015. There are 269 days left in the year.

Today is Monday, April 6, the 96th day of 2015. There are 269 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1830: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is organized by Joseph Smith in Fayette, N.Y.

1865: In the closing days of the Civil War, Union forces led by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeat Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the Battle of Sailor’s Creek.

1896: The first modern Olympic games formally open in Athens, Greece.

1909: American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Inuits become the first men to reach the North Pole.

1917: Congress approves a declaration of war against Germany.

1945: During World War II, the Japanese warship Yamato and nine other vessels sail on a suicide mission to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; the fleet was intercepted the next day.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Sharon Steel Corp. lays off about 200 workers because of a mechanical malfunction that has shut down its only operating blast furnace for up to three weeks.

Thomas Creed, a former Hubbard service director, files a complaint with the city law director saying in-term pay raises granted to the mayor, law director, treasurer and council members in July were illegal.

1975: With the energy crisis worsening and auto-buyers’ demands changing, Detroit’s auto makers are spending millions of dollars for development of a new generation of more efficient, practical cars for the 1977 model year.

Leroy Howell, 31, of Crandall Avenue, who was shot by Campbell police during a robbery at an Amoco Service Station on Wilson Ave., dies in St. Elizabeth Hospital.

A system instituted by common pleas court judges to avoid releasing prisoners prematurely from the Mahoning County jail backfires, and a 31-year-old man being held on charges of receiving stolen property is held for 50 days after the Mahoning County grand jury declines to indict him.

1965: R. Thomas Parker, former director of student housing and the Campus Center at Otterbein College, is a new staff executive with the Youngstown Area Chamber of Commerce. He will assist with education, special projects, public and member relations.

The Youngstown Educators’ Wives Club meets at the home of Mrs. Richard Jeren. Atty. Robert Manchester speaks on education bills and other proposed legislation before the General Assembly. Assisting hostesses were Mrs. Ted Theodosoff, Mrs. Howard Friend, Mrs. Charles Wilhelm and Mrs. Arthur Horvath.

1940: Herbert Brisley, 23-year-old Republic Steel Corp. worker, shoots and kills his wife, Ruth, in their small home on state Route 305 northeast of Warren, then kills himself, leaving their 22-month old daughter an orphan.

An $8,000 verdict, one of the largest ever returned in Mahoning County in a child’s death, is awarded to the estate of Margaret Sweeney, an 11-year-old girl fatally injured when struck by a car at Rayen Avenue and North Phelps Street.

Police Chief John W. Turnbull and Fire Chief Michael J. Melillo and their forces evict 25 squatters from shacks at the Youngstown incinerator on Cedar Street and set the shacks afire.