YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 23, the 266th day of 2015. There are 99 days left in the year. Autumn arrives at 4:21 a.m.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1779: During the Revolutionary War, the American warship Bon Homme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, defeats the HMS Serapis in battle off Yorkshire, England; however, the seriously damaged Bon Homme Richard would sink two days later.

1780: British spy John Andre is captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British.

1806: The Lewis and Clark expedition returns to St. Louis more than two years after setting out for the Pacific Northwest.

1846: Neptune is identified as a planet by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.

1939: Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, dies in London at age 83.

1952: In what would become known as the “Checkers” speech, Sen. Richard M. Nixon, R-Calif., salvages his vice-presidential nomination by appearing live on television to refute allegations of improper campaign fundraising.

1955: A jury in Sumner, Miss., acquits two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, of murdering black teenager Emmett Till. (The two men later admitted the crime in an interview with Look magazine.)

1957: Nine black students who’d entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas are forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside.

1962: New York’s Philharmonic Hall (later renamed Avery Fisher Hall) formally opens as the first unit of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

“The Jetsons,” an animated cartoon series about a Space Age family, premieres as the ABC television network’s first program in color.

1973: Former Argentine president Juan Peron wins a landslide election victory that returns him to power; his wife, Isabel, is elected vice president.

1987: Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., withdraws from the Democratic presidential race after questions about his use of borrowed quotations and the portrayal of his academic record.

1999: The Mars Climate Orbiter apparently burns up as it attempted to go into orbit around the Red Planet.

2014: In the first international test for his climate-change strategy, President Barack Obama presses world leaders at the United Nations to follow the United States’ lead on the issue.

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1990: Members of the 635th Quartermaster Detachment board a bus at the Reserve Center in Farrell, Pa., as members are called up for active duty and possible assignment to hostilities in the Persian Gulf.

Idora Park continues to deteriorate, casting doubt on any chance of its revival. A small parcel of park land is sold to Mill Creek Park.

Youngstown Police Chief Randall Wellington says he will continue to have ranking police officers driven to and from work in cruisers despite complaints that the practice is inefficient and degrading to patrolmen.

1975: Motorists using the main arteries into downtown Youngstown are reminded that traffic signals are being synchronized so that motorists maintaining 30 mph will catch a maximum of green lights.

A 20-year-old escapee from the Massillon State Hospital is captured hiding under shrubbery at a Statler Avenue house after first being spotted by Boardman police at U.S. Route 224 and Southern Boulevard.

The Pittsburgh Pirates and manager Danny Murtaugh celebrate the team’s fifth National League East title in six seasons.

1965: Deputy Sheriff John T. Dellick resigns from the sheriff’s department over enforced $6 monthly political campaign contributions to Sheriff Ray Davis.

A short circuit in a second-floor room sparks a fire and gas explosion that guts the West Federal Bake Shop. Two firemen were injured.

The fall semester enrollment at Youngstown University stands at 11,018, topping enrollment a year earlier by 1,028.

Daniel C. Forshee, manager of the General Motors Fisher Body-Chevrolet plant in Lordstown, says all is proceeding on schedule and the plant may open by January.

1940: Republic Steel Corp. announces an enlargement of its Lansingville plant that will expand its capacity by 10 percent.

The Youngstown Rangers close their 1940 Penn-Ohio Polo League season with an 8-3 victory over North Hills riders form Pittsburgh before 500 fans at the Canfield Fairgrounds.

Four Akron businessmen- artists, in the area to paint Youngstown district scenes, are held by Campbell police for more than an hour after being found painting steel mill scenes on Wilson Avenue. Police suspected the men were fifth-columnists or spies.