YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, May 1, the 121st day of 2015. There are 244 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1707: The Kingdom of Great Britain is created as a treaty merging England and Scotland takes effect.

1898: Commodore George Dewey gives the command, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley,” as an American naval force destroys a Spanish squadron in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

1911: The song “I Want a Girl (Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad),” by Harry Von Tilzer and Will Dillon, is first published.

1915: During World War I, a German submarine torpoedoes and severely damages the SS Gulflight, an American tanker near Britain’s Scilly Isles, even though the United States is still neutral in the conflict; the incident occurs the same day that the RMS Lusitania sets sail from New York, headed for Liverpool, England (it was torpedoed and sunk by Germany off the coast of Ireland six days later).

1931: New York’s 102-story Empire State Building is dedicated.

Singer Kate Smith makes her debut on CBS Radio on her 24th birthday.

1945: A day after Adolf Hitler took his own life, Admiral Karl Doenitz effectively becomes sole leader of the Third Reich with the suicide of Hitler’s propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels.

1960: The Soviet Union shoots down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane over Sverdlovsk and captures its pilot.

1963: James W. Whittaker becomes the first American to conquer Mount Everest as he and Sherpa guide Nawang Gombu reach the summit.

1965: Vice President Hubert Humphrey, in a speech in Williamsburg, Va., says: “There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people.”

1975: Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Brewers breaks baseball’s all-time RBI record previously held by Babe Ruth during a game against the Detroit Tigers (Milwaukee won, 17-3).

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Youngstown officials, looking for ways to increase revenue at the Youngstown Municipal Airport, want the Air Force to begin paying landing fees for military flights at the Youngstown Air Reserve Base.

Mahoning County Prosecutor James A. Philomena is calling for a grand jury investigation into reports that state Sen. Lee I. Fisher, the Ohio Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate for Ohio attorney general, offered to help another candidate, Charles T. Brown, obtain a judgeship if he dropped out of the primary race. Philomena is the third candidate for the Democratic nomination for attorney general.

Robert L. Wagmiller, campaign chairman for the Youngstown Area United Way, says a modest 3 percent increase in the UW goal, to $3.3 million, recognizes the effects of the closing of the GF Corp. Youngstown plant and uncertainty about the future of the GM plant in Lordstown will have on the campaign.

1975: The Hubbard Classroom Teachers Association calls a strike after rejecting an offer of $7,900 in base pay as part of a two-year contract, causing postponement of regular classes. HCTA President Robert Zirafi says teachers want a single-year contract.

Six Ohio Highway patrolmen, five Mahoning County deputies and an OSP spotter plane pursue two Lake Milton boys on a high-speed chase before capturing them near Leisure Lake in Portage County. The boys, 15 and 16, are charged with auto theft.

A number of building trades unions representing 2,000 craftsmen in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties strike the Builders Association of Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

1965: H.D. Lessig, U.S. soil scientist from Lisbon, states that the best wild natural area left in Ohio is in southeastern Columbiana County, along Little Beaver Creek between Elkton and East Liverpool.

Camp Fire Girls’ highest award, the Wo-He-Lo Medallion (Work-Health-Love) is presented for the first time to four Mahoning County Girls: Betty Conner and Russella Baldwin of Poland High School; Colleen Colgan and Maureen Mahunik of Wilson High.

1940: Building is booming in Youngstown, and April saw the city issue 210 construction permits with a value of $378,757.

Rabbi George B. Lieberman of Wheeling tells 250 Youngstown supporters of the Jewish National Fund Council at South High auditorium that Jews must remain united if they are to avoid extinction.

Samuel Church, president of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, says 50 wealthy people are offering a cash reward of $1 million for the capture of Adolph Hitler, “alive, unwounded and unhurt” before the end of May, when he is expected to launch a Blitzkrieg on the Western Front.