YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2015. There are 263 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1606: England’s King James I decrees the design of the original Union Flag, which combines the flags of England and Scotland.

1776: North Carolina’s Fourth Provincial Congress approves the colony’s delegates to the Continen- tal Congress to support independence from Great Britain.

1861: The American Civil War begins as Confederate forces open fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

1912: Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, dies in Glen Echo, Md., at age 90.

1934: “Tender Is the Night,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is first published in book form after being serialized in Scribner’s Magazine.

1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63; he is succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

1955: The Salk vaccine against polio is declared safe and effective.

1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space, orbiting the Earth once before making a safe landing.

1963: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Ala., charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)

1975: Singer, dancer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker, 68, dies in Paris.

1981: Former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, 66, dies in Las Vegas, Nev.

1990: In its first meeting, East Germany’s first democratically elected parliament acknowledges responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust, and asks the forgiveness of Jews and others who had suffered.

2005: Three men with suspected al-Qaida ties, already in British custody, are charged with a years-long plot to attack the New York Stock Exchange and other East Coast financial institutions.

2010: President Barack Obama opens a 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington, boosted by Ukraine’s announcement that it will give up its weapons-grade uranium.

2014: The policy-setting panel of the 188-nation International Monetary Fund concludes a meeting in Washington by expressing confidence that the global economy finally has turned the corner to stronger growth.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: One of 3 members of the United Auto Workers union is injured or becomes acutely ill each year, and 1 in 10 is disabled, according to a union report on workplace safety covering the years 1985 through 1988.

Youngstown City Council creates an 11-member committee to search for cheaper sources of electrical power for Youngstown homes and businesses. Ohio Edison Co. and unions representing OE workers lobbied against the proposal.

Boardman Police Chief William Walter warns youths and their parents that police will combat unruliness with the same tools used during warm-weather months in 1989: arrests and court appearances.

1975: An estimated $150,000 to $200,000 a week will be cut from the Mahoning Valley economy when supplemental unemployment benefits expire for 1,300 furloughed employees at the General Motors Lordstown complex.

The Koppers Co. of Pittsburgh is given a contract to build a new battery of 85 by-products of coke at Republic Steel Corp.’s Warren Works as part of a $160 million improvement project.

Planned Parenthood of the Mahoning Valley reports a sharp increase in the number of people served by its education and training department at its third annual meeting at the Butler Institute of American Art. Mrs. Allen F. Guttmacher, wife of the late president of Planned Parenthood of America, was the guest speaker.

1965: James M. Butler Jr., director of research for Johnson Bronze Co. of New Castle, announces that the company has developed a bearing of 20 percent tin-aluminum on steel, an alloy it has been working on since 1951.

Six area businesses contribute to the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges in Columbus. The firms are General Extrusions, Isaly Dairy Co., Metal Carbides, Ohio Bell, Poling & Bacon Construction and Union National Bank.

1940: Congressman Michael Kirwan is attempting to aid the Resch family of Youngstown in bringing back their sister, Mrs. Jens Ron, and her three children from war-torn Norway.

Jane Rothermund of 189 Poland Ave., Struthers, and Richard Firth of 366 W. Delason Ave., Youngstown, are chosen the most popular woman and man on Kent State University’s campus.

Clyde Singer, nationally known artist and assistant director of the Butler Institute of American Art, is interviewed on radio station WFMJ by Joseph S. Rosapepe, Vindicator art critic.