YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, April 20, the 111th day of 2016. There are 255 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1792: France declares war on Austria, marking the start of the French Revolutionary Wars.

1861: Col. Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army. (Lee went on to command the Army of Northern Virginia, and eventually became general-in-chief of the Confederate forces.)

1863: President Abraham Lincoln signs a proclamation admitting West Virginia to the Union, effective in 60 days (on June 20, 1863).

1889: Adolf Hitler is born in Braunau am Inn, Austria.

1912: Boston’s Fenway Park hosts its first professional baseball game while Navin Field (Tiger Stadium) opens in Detroit. (The Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders 7-6 in 11 innings; the Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps 6-5 in 11 innings.)

1914: The Ludlow Massacre takes place when the Colorado National Guard opens fire on a tent colony of striking miners; about 20 (accounts vary) strikers, women and children died.

1916: The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Wrigley Field (then known as Weeghman Park); the Cubs defeat the Cincinnati Reds 7-6.

1945: During World War II, allied forces take control of the German cities of Nuremberg and Stuttgart.

1968: Pierre Elliott Trudeau is sworn in as prime minister of Canada.

1972: Apollo 16’s lunar module, carrying astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke Jr., lands on the moon.

1999: The Columbine High School massacre takes place in Colorado as two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shoot and kill 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.

2006: President George W. Bush welcomes Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House; the ceremony is interrupted by a protester who shouts to Bush to stop the Chinese leader from “persecuting the Falun Gong.”

Two Western photojournalists, including Oscar-nominated film director Tim Hetherington, are killed in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata while covering battles between rebels and government forces.

2010: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, kills 11 workers and causes a blow-out that begins spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. (The well finally was capped nearly three months later, on July 15.)

2015: The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., wins the Pulitzer Prize for public service for an examination of the deadly toll of domestic violence, while The New York Times collects three awards and the Los Angeles Times two.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: American Welding and Manufacturing Co. of Warren is preparing to distribute profit-sharing checks to its employees, a far cry from a year earlier, when there were serious doubts that the company would survive.

Talks aimed at averting the furlough of 20 Youngstown municipal employees unravel, and Law Director Edwin Romero says layoff notices will go into the mail Monday morning unless something changes over the weekend.

Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., minority whip of the U.S. House, speaks at the annual Columbiana County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner at the Timberlanes Restaurant in Salem. “If we fail to reform America, we will inevitably fail to lead the planet by the year 2010,” Gingrich tells the group.

1976: U.S. Rep. Charles J. Carney announces that the Department of Labor has awarded $4.2 million in emergency public employment funds to the Northeast Ohio Manpower Consortium that covers Youngstown, Warren, and Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Ashtabula counties.

One or two sticks of dynamite are exploded under the front seat of a 1975 Buick owned by Lanny Burton, business agent of Structural Iron Workers Local 207 while the car was parked outside the union hall on Bev Road.

Ohio will pay $76,970 to the lawyer picked by Gov. James A. Rhodes to defend him during the 16-week trial of a civil suit filed by the parents of students killed at Kent State University. A U.S. District judge found in favor of Rhodes and the other defendants in the suit that sought $46 million in damages.

1966: The Youngstown Board of Education appoints Morris Abramovitz, principal of Science Hill Elementary School, project director for the new remedial reading program at a salary of $12,000.

Ohio Water Service informs Poland Village Council that water-softening facilities will be in operation in May. Gene McCullough is named street commissioner, replacing Don Weyer, who resigned.

1941: Residents who want cracked or broken sidewalks rebuilt at nominal cost, with labor furnished by the WPA are told to get their orders into the city engineering department.

Aut Mori Grotto Monarch Earl Hoffman will direct a parade through downtown Youngstown marking the 20th anniversary of the Grotto. One hundred candidates from the area and Pittsburgh will be initiated.

Jack McPhee, nationally known collegiate referee and athlete, will direct the YMCA’s Camp Fitch starting May 22. Many improvements, including a football field and baseball diamond, have been added.