YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Thursday, April 7, the 98th day of 2016. There are 268 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1614: Painter, sculptor and architect El Greco dies in Toledo, Spain.

1788: An expedition led by Gen. Rufus Putnam establishes a settlement at present-day Marietta, Ohio.

1862: Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

1927: The image and voice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover are transmitted live from Washington to New York in the first successful long- distance demonstration of television.

1953: The U.N. General Assembly ratifies Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden as the new secretary-general, succeeding Trygve Lie of Norway.

1962: Nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles tried by Cuba for their roles in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion are convicted of treason.

1966: The U.S. Navy recovers a hydrogen bomb that the U.S. Air Force had lost in the Mediterranean Sea off Spain after a B-52 crash.

1978: President Jimmy Carter announces he is deferring development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation weapon.

2006: A suicide attack in a Shiite mosque in Baghdad kills 85 people.

Tornadoes in Tennessee kill a dozen people.

2015: President Barack Obama, speaking at Howard University Medical School, announces commitments from Google, Microsoft and others to help the nation’s health system prepare for a warmer, more erratic climate.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: More than two dozen anti-abortion demonstrators – five of whom were arrested in Youngstown in 1990 – are sentenced to 18 months in a North Carolina penitentiary for entering a women’s clinic in Asheville, N.C., and locking themselves together. The Youngstown protesters were put on nonreporting probation by Municipal Judge Patrick Kerrigan.

A rainbow of colors speckle the gray skies over Mill Creek Park as scores of kites are flown as part of the park’s 100th anniversary celebration. Nationally known artist P. Buckley Moss leads a fund-raising walk through the park.

The Farrell Area School District is naming its planetarium for Ted Pedas, who has donated more than $140,000 in cash and equipment over the 21 years since he was instrumental in its being built. Pedas teaches at YSU and Farrell and has written an astronomy column for The Vindicator for 25 years.

1976: The Youngstown Hospital Association, St. Elizabeth Hospital and Youngstown Osteopathic Hospital join in the formation of a regional blood bank, the Mahoning Valley Community Blood Center Inc.

Browning Ferris Industries, the nation’s largest waste-disposal company, tells the Mahoning County Board of Health that it intends to deposit 6,000 tons of sludge from Philadelphia weekly in the Central Waste Landfill in Smith Township.

Canfield City Council initiates legislation to increase the city income tax from a half-percent to 1 percent in an effort to solve financial problems.

1966: Youngstown City Council passes an ordinance declaring the Palace Theater a nuisance and ordering its demolition. The only remaining tenant, Dr. H.T. D’Amato, is given until April 15 to vacate. Stephen C. Baytos and Associates plans to built a plaza-mall on the site.

Nila G. Beard, principal of North Elementary School in Poland, is presented the Poland Education Association’s award for Distinguished Contributions to education. She has been an educator for 44 years, 43 of them in Poland.

Because of Holy Week, Municipal Judge John J. Leskovyansky dismisses traffic court justice without the usual jail sentences or license suspensions.

1941: The dance team of Ruth and Billy Ambrose adds a third member, Daneen Joan, born to Mrs. Ambrose at North Side Hospital. The couple had to cancel a number of costly contracts over the last six months due to the impending arrival.

Jesse E. Longmire, a Spanish American War veteran, retires after 30 years in the Postal Service. He had been a street-car conductor before becoming a postman.

Marble boards are making a comeback in Youngstown, but without the win-a-free-play feature the machines had when police began their crackdown.