YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, May 20, the 140th day of 2015. There are 225 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1712: The original version of Alexander Pope’s satirical mock-heroic poem “The Rape of the Lock” is published anonymously in Lintot’s Miscellany.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, which is intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for farming.

1902: The United States ends a three-year military presence in Cuba as the Republic of Cuba is established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma.

1915: Israeli soldier-statesman Moshe Dayan is born at Deganya Alef Kibbutz.

1925: The newly built headquarters of the United States Chamber of Commerce is formally dedicated in Washington D.C.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Three Warren Board of Education members – Sharon Nuzzi, Lynn Gibson and Anthony Payiavlas – take a sample ninth-grade proficiency test to get a sense of what high school freshmen will be facing in the fall. All passed with flying colors. Board President Myrtle Angel and board member Daniel DeSantis declined to take the test.

Patricia Neal and Mako, two of the three stars of “An Unremarkable Life,” an Amin Q. Chaudhri film made primarily in the Shenango Valley, attend a “Show of Shows” fundraiser at Edward W. Powers Auditorium to benefit two infant heart patients, Justin Sopkovich and Jared Ausnehmer.

1975: Air Force Sgt. Elwood Rumbaugh, a 1960 graduate of Warren Township High School in Leavittsburg, is identified by the Department of Defense as one of three servicemen killed in action during the rescue operation of the freighter Mayaguez, which was seized May 12 in the Gulf of Thailand.

Playing five games in less than three days takes a little power out of Youngstown State’s baseball attack as pitchers Dave Dravecky and Mike Glinatsis lose a doubleheader to Mercyhurst College of Erie.

1965: At Youngstown University’s 44th commencement, 649 students receive degrees at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Andrew P. Lawton, retired Navy captain and former Youngstowner, dies of a heart attack in Tampa, Fla., He served on Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff in Japan.

1940: Youngstown College will graduate its largest class on June 6 when 175 students receive diplomas at Stambaugh Auditorium.

The Youngstown Chamber of Commerce executive committee discusses steps to secure one of the new airplane factories proposed in President Roosevelt’s billion-dollar national defense program.