YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, Nov. 15, the 319th day of 2015. There are 46 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1315: In the Battle of Morgarten, Swiss Confederation forces lying in wait attack and defeat invading Austrian troops.

1777: The Second Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.

1806: Explorer Zebulon Pike sights the mountaintop now known as Pikes Peak in present-day Colorado.

1812: As Napoleon Bonaparte’s army retreats from Moscow, temperatures drop to 20 degrees below zero.

1864: During the Civil War, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman begin their “March to the Sea” from Atlanta; the campaign ends with the capture of Savannah on Dec. 21.

1889: Brazil is proclaimed a republic as its emperor, Dom Pedro II, is overthrown.

1935: The Commonwealth of the Philippines is established as its new president, Manuel L. Quezon, takes office.

1939: President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1942: The naval Battle of Guadalcanal ends during World War II with a decisive U.S. victory over Japanese forces.

1959: Four members of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kan., are found murdered in their home. (Ex-convicts Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were later convicted of the killings and hanged.)

1960: President Dwight D. Eisenhower orders U.S. naval units into the Caribbean after Guatemala and Nicaragua charge Castro with starting uprisings.

1964: Bonanza Air Lines Flight 114, a Fairchild F-27A, crashes outside of Las Vegas, killing all 29 people on board.

1979: The British government publicly identifies Sir Anthony Blunt as the “fourth man” of a Soviet spy ring.

US President Jimmy Carter freezes all Iranian assets in the United States in response to Iranian militants holding more than 50 Americans hostage.

1982: Lech Walesa, leader of Poland’s outlawed Solidarity movement, is released by communist authorities after 11 months confinement; he would win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and be elected Poland’s president in 1990.

1985: Britain and Ireland sign an accord giving Dublin an official consultative role in governing Northern Ireland.

1990: Bulgaria’s Grand National Assembly votes to change the country’s name from the People’s Republic of Bulgaria to the Republic of Bulgaria and invalidate the Communist constitution of 1971.

1995: A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces temporary closure of national parks and museums; federal agencies are forced to operate with skeleton staff.

2005: Israel and the Palestinians, under strong U.S. pressure, reach an agreement to open Gaza’s borders.

Baseball players and owners agree on a tougher steroids-testing policy.

At the CMA Awards, Lee Ann Womack wins three trophies, including album of the year for “There’s More Where That Came From.”

2010: A House ethics committee panel begins closed-door deliberations on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct by U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who walks out of the proceeding after pleading unsuccessfully for more time to raise money for a lawyer. (Rangel was convicted the next day of 11 rules violations.)

San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey and Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz are voted the Rookies of the Year.

2014: Closing out his Asia-Pacific tour in Brisbane, Australia, President Barack Obama calls on Asian nations to join the United States in confronting the globe’s biggest challenges, from climate change and poverty to violent extremism.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrives in Iraq on a previously unannounced visit, his first since a U.S.-led coalition began launching airstrikes against the extremist Islamic State group.

Pope Francis denounces the right to die movement, telling the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors it is a “false sense of compassion” to consider euthanasia an act of dignity when it is in fact a sin against God and creation.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers are owed almost $100 million by the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation, with some of the bills going unpaid for two years, bureau and hospital officials say.

Mahoning County Sheriff Edward Nemeth wants an additional $1 million in his 1991 budget to pay for new jail space, but Commissioner Thomas J. Carney said that won’t happen without “new revenue sources.”

Opponents of Ohio’s four-tiered diploma system call for legislation repealing the law creating it, saying the scheme is classist and racist. Beginning in 1994, students would receive four levels of diplomas, based on their scores on ninth- and 12th-grade proficiency tests.

1975: Selma Kornhauser, 78, is beaten and robbed by a gang of youths at her grocery store at Broadway and Ford Avenue.

Two men posing as IRS agents enter the home of a woman on Burgett Lane in Austintown, tie and handcuff her and take $3,500 in cash and traveler’s checks.

Ohio state Superintendent Dr. Martin Essex and Robert Hedrick, Campbell superintendent, announce that Campbell city schools will be out of money by Nov. 19 and will close that day and not reopen until Jan. 3.

1965: Warren detectives say the arrest of eight teenagers has solved 15 auto thefts and three house burglaries.

Dorothy McDermott, a secretary at St. Patrick Church in Youngstown, picked up a box left on the rectory steps thinking it contained clothing for the bishop’s drive, but found, instead, a 1-day old baby boy.

Columbiana County Civil Defense units respond in force to a simulated airplane crash at Stover- Leslie airport near Williamsport.

1940: More than 100 Mahoning Valley employers meet at the Youngstown Country Club to discuss problems arising from the military draft.

Five great-nieces of William Holmes McGuffey, author of the famous McGuffey Readers, attend a meeting of the recently formed McGuffey Club and share family stories.

Officers of the Junior Teens Girls Reserve Club plan a dance at East High School. They are: Madelyn Hubert, Betty Gande, Eleanor Bunn, Virginia Del Bene, Concetta Cucciarre, Jennie Petretich, Elsie Giannini and Clare Orlando.