Years Ago

Today is Thursday, April 30, the 120th day of 2015. There are 245 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1789: George Washington takes the oath of office in New York as the first president of the United States.

1803: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for 60 million francs, the equivalent of about $15 million.

1900: Engineer John Luther “Casey” Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad dies in a train wreck near Vaughan, Miss., after staying at the controls in a successful effort to save the passengers.

1939: The New York World’s Fair officially opens with a ceremony that includes an address by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1945: As Soviet troops approach his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler commits suicide along with his wife of one day, Eva Braun.

1958: The American Association of Retired Persons (later simply AARP) is founded in Washington, D.C., by Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus.

1968: New York City police forcibly remove student demonstrators occupying five buildings at Columbia University.

1973: President Richard Nixon announces the resignations of top aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst and White House counsel John Dean, who is actually fired.

1975: The Vietnam War ends as the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon falls to Communist forces.

1988: Gen. Manuel Noriega, waving a machete, vows at a rally to keep fighting U.S. efforts to oust him as Panama’s military ruler.

1990: Hostage Frank Reed is released by his captives in Lebanon; he is the second American to be released in eight days.

2005:Missing Georgia woman Jennifer Wilbanks admits to police in Albuquerque, N.M., that she is a “runaway bride” after initially claiming to have been abducted; on what was supposed to have been her wedding day, she was escorted to the airport by officers for a flight home.

James Toney outpoints John Ruiz to win the WBA heavyweight title in New York.

2010: Heavy winds, high tides complicate efforts to hold back oil from a blown-out BP-operated rig that threatens to coat bird and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico; President Barack Obama halts any new offshore projects pending safeguards to prevent more explosions such as the one that unleashed the spill.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Terrence J. Shidel, chief of the Canfield Police Department, who says his city falsely has been accused of targeting people because of their color, has been named to the Civil Rights Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He will help develop a policy on civil rights for police nationwide.

Members of the Workers Solidarity Club of Youngstown gather on Federal Plaza near the historical marker for the Little Steel Strike of 1937, to mark the 75th anniversary of the death of early union leader Joe Hill by firing squad in Utah.

Charles E. West, 28, challenges as unconstitutional Youngstown’s new loitering ordinance. West’s attorney, Gerald Ingram, says it is overly broad and unconstitutionally vague.

1975: Youngstown’s 59th arson of the year, sparked by plastic bags filled with kerosene and gasoline, causes $7,000 damage to a vacant three-story house at 1137 Ford Ave.

Donald E. Schrock, 46, a foreman for Connell Steel Co., erectors of steel buildings, is killed when he falls 36 feet from a roof onto a pile of steel roofing at the General Motors Lordstown facility.

Dr. Thomas Shipka, chief negotiator for the YSU-OEA, says a tentative agreement has been reached between faculty and Youngstown State University.

1965: Four district high school students are national winners in the annual scholastic art contest sponsored by Scholastic magazine. They are John Baca, Warren G. Harding High; James Sheban, Boardman; Michael Spisak, East, and Richard Burke, Cardinal Mooney.

Youngstown University’s baseball team sets a record for runs scored in a single game, beating Geneva College, 25-4. Ron Sabatino pitches six innings for the win.

James E. O’Brien, executive director of Associated Neighborhood Centers in Youngstown, scores the highest grade among eight qualifiers for the post of Mahoning County welfare director.

1940: More than 1,000 men and women attend the opening dinner of the Community Chest campaign, which has a 1940 goal of $275,000.

James Park of Canfield, at 98 the oldest Civil War veteran in Mahoning County, dies in the Salem Clinic, leaving only four surviving members of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The Youngstown Browns — 19 strong — arrive at the Idora Park ball field, inaugurating the home training sessions for the Mid-Atlantic League opener, which will be against Charleston, W. Va.