YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, April 24, the 115th day of 2016. There are 251 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1792: “La Marseillaise”, the national anthem of France, is composed by Capt. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.

1800: Congress approves a bill establishing the Library of Congress.

1898: Spain declares war on the United States. (The United States responds in kind the next day.)

1916: Some 1,600 Irish nationalists launch the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. (The rising was put down by British forces five days later.)

1953: British statesman Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1962: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieves the first satellite relay of a television signal, using NASA’s Echo 1 balloon satellite to bounce a video image from Camp Parks, Calif., to Westford, Mass.

1970: The People’s Republic of China launches its first satellite, which keeps transmitting a song, “The East Is Red.”

1980: The United States launches an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that results in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.

1990: The space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.

2006: Terrorist bombings kill at least 23 people at a beach resort on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

2011: Pope Benedict XVI offers an Easter prayer for diplomacy to prevail over warfare in Libya and for citizens of the Middle East to build a new society.

2015: President Barack Obama marks the 10th anniversary of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, praising the nation’s spying operations as the most capable in the world. is 19.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: A study outlines $31 million in long-term improvements at Mill Creek Park that include an indoor flower conservatory at Fellows Riverside Gardens, a performing arts pavilion and a new ice rink at the Wick Recreation Area.

Two employee unions file unfair labor practices after the Western Reserve Transit Authority passes a substance-abuse policy requiring drug tests for for all new employees and any employee suspected of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs on the job.

A slowdown in retail activity causes Brentwood Originals to pare its workforce to 200 in a new industrial park along Salt Springs Road.

1976: Volkswagen officials who named two Ohio sites as possible locations for their first U.S. auto plant will meet with Gov. James A. Rhodes within 10 days. Brook Park and Columbus are the Ohio sites while New Stanton, Pa., is a third site under consideration.

The women of Delta Zeta sorority and the men of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity win the 24th annual Greek Sing at Stambaugh Auditorium. The performances by five sororities and eight fraternities were dedicated to Dr. Howard Jones, president emeritus of Youngstown State University.

The Most Rev. William A. Hughes, auxiliary bishop of Youngstown, celebrates mass at St. Michael Church in Canfield to mark the burning of the church’s $550,000 construction mortgage.

1966: The first Chevrolet car, a four-door Impala, rolls off the assembly line at General Motors’ new Lordstown plant.

Carol Denise Sparre, a junior at Cardinal Mooney High School, receives a scholarship to study art and the Italian language in Rome. The award comes from the Foreign Language League Schools in Utah.

Youngstown Patrolman Robert Snyder, 34, ends nine years on the Youngstown Police Department, resigning to take a job at the Lordstown General Motors plant.

1941: A liquor-free recreation hall where young people can eat and dance for a reasonable amount of money is advocated for Youngstown by 500 youths who responded to a survey sent out by Youth Council of Federated Churches.

The Newsboys Club next to Youngstown College is one of the groups helped by the Community Chest. The agency supports supervised athletics and crafts.

Ditch-digging work at the Ravenna Arsenal is complete and 125 workers who were living in a shanty-town near the arsenal grounds are dismissed. The Ohio Department of Industrial Relations had been calling for proper housing for about 60 workers reported living in shacks.