YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, April 9, the 100th day of 2016. There are 266 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1413: The coronation of England’s King Henry V takes place in Westminster Abbey.

1682: French explorer Robert de La Salle claims the Mississippi River Basin for France.

1865: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his army to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

1940: During World War II, Germany invades Denmark and Norway.

1942: American and Philippine defenders on Bataan capitulate to Japanese forces; the surrender is followed by the notorious Bataan Death March.

1959: NASA presents its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.

1983: The space shuttle Challenger ends its first mission with a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1991: The Georgian Parliament declares the republic’s independence.

2011: A man armed with several weapons opens fire in a crowded shopping mall in the Netherlands, killing six people before committing suicide.

2015: President Barack Obama briefly visits Jamaica, where he meets with Caribbean leaders and speaks at a town hall of young leaders; the president then flew to Panama City for a summit of Western Hemisphere nations and a historic encounter with Cuban President Raul Castro.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Eleven fire companies respond to a fire that destroys the Rollerena roller skating rink on state Route 14 in Unity Township.

Niles Mayor Joseph J. Parise says a recent sex-discrimination suit filed by a city employee highlights the need to either strictly enforce or abandon the city’s residency requirement for municipal employees.

Two inner city Catholic schools slated to close at the end of the school year – Immaculate Conception and St. Patrick – are given a reprieve after a campaign raises $115,000 toward their operations.

1976: Mahoning County Commissioner Thomas Barrett takes Youngstown City Council to task for trying to divest the city of sponsoring the Ohio District 11’s Area Agency on Aging and transferring it to the Eastgate Development and Transportation Agency.

The Atlantic Richfield Oil Co. agrees to sell its property adjacent to the oil company’s storage facility off Bears Den Road to the Mill Creek Junior Baseball League so that the fields will continue to be available for play. The company had been making the land available for free, but local merchants threatened legal action over noise and parking.

1966: The Mahoning County Community College Board of Trustees approves revisions to its plan recommended by the Ohio Board of Regents. Phase I, which includes the site and initial construction, is scaled down from $11 million to $10 million.

Two 14-year-old Vindicator newspaper boys, Mark S. Curtis of Youngstown and Donald Mickel of Warren, leave on a 12-day tour of the British Isles as part of a group sponsored by Parade magazine.

General Motors organizes a Plant City Committee to guide and coordinate community activities. Edward J. Legeant, Fisher Body plant manager at Lordstown, is named chairman by James Roche, GM president.

1941: Rayen School’s track team, directed by John Russ, begins an ambitious schedule when it meets Boardman in a dual meet at Rayen Stadium.

Student nurses of St. Elizabeth Hospital plan a dance at Mahoning Country Club. Catherine Holway is chairwoman of the benefit affair. Phyllis Rathbone and her musicians will play from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Two women identify Harold Cox and Owen Bickle, both of Coshocton, as the men who struck them and stole their purses Feb. 14. The men are charged in the March 10 murder of Mrs. Alphonsus Foley, 38-year-old mother of nine children.