YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, April 27, the 118th day of 2016. There are 248 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1521: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines.

1791: The inventor of the telegraph, Samuel Morse, is born in Charlestown, Mass.

1822: The 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, is born in Point Pleasant, Ohio.

1865: The steamer Sultana, carrying freed Union prisoners of war, explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tenn.; death-toll estimates vary from 1,500 to 2,000.

1941: German forces occupy Athens during World War II.

1967: Expo ’67 is officially opened in Montreal by Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.

1973: Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray resigns after it is revealed that he’d destroyed files removed from the safe of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt.

1982: The trial of John W. Hinckley Jr., who had shot four people, including President Ronald Reagan, begins in Washington. (The trial ends with Hinckley’s acquittal by reason of insanity.)

1992: The new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is proclaimed in Belgrade by the republic of Serbia and its lone ally, Montenegro.

Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics win entry into the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

2006: Construction begins on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

2011: Powerful tornadoes rake the South and Midwest; according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more than 120 twisters result in 316 deaths.

2015 : Rioters plunge part of Baltimore into chaos, torching a pharmacy, setting police cars ablaze and throwing bricks at officers hours after thousands attended a funeral for Freddie Gray, who died from a severe spinal injury he’d suffered in police custody; the Baltimore Orioles’ home game against the Chicago White Sox was postponed because of safety concerns.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Youngstown sets a dubious mark with the 17th and 18th homicides reported overnight equalling the death toll for all of 1990.

Carmelo Foti, 63, of Youngstown, who was active in Italian cultural and social affairs and was a strong proponent of teaching the Italian language in area high schools, dies after a long illness.

The Youngstown Consumer Advisory Council tells Mayor Patrick Ungaro that closing Youngstown’s consumer- affairs office will cost residents more money than it will save with the shutdown.

1976: Net income for Lykes-Youngstown Corp. for the first quarter of 1976 is 67 percent lower per share than a year earlier, Joseph T. Lykes, chairman, reports.

The Ohio House Judiciary Committee breaks a deadlock over a Senate charitable gambling bill, approving a measure that would allow most games of chance at church festivals while prohibiting slot machines, roulette wheels and craps.

Campbell police arrest two people and seize heroin valued at $100,000 from a Lettie Avenue home.

1966: The Eastern Ohio All-Stars, a group of baton twirlers, wins a first-place trophy at a National Baton Twirling Association contest in Niles and second place at Pleasant Hills, Pittsburgh. The twirlers are from Poland, North Lima, East Palestine, Negley and New Waterford.

Pfc. Amalio Gonzalez, 22, of 1035 Wilson St., is reported killed in action in Vietnam.

Douglas G. Rogers, Cortland, is awarded a $4,400 four-year scholarship to Valparaiso University. Rogers plans to major in government.

The way is cleared for a study of the need for an Urban League in Youngstown when the Community Chest’s Executive Committee meets in Hotel Pick-Ohio. Atty. Franklin Bennett will head a citizens committee to act on results of the study.

1941: Struthers High School wins the award for best attendance at the Twin Lakes Country Club banquet at the fourth annual Northeast Ohio Scholastic Press Clinic. Struthers had 37 at the clinic.

David G. Evans, a sophomore, is chairman of a Youngstown College committee to raise $500 for war relief.

Joan Kohler, a seventh- grade New Middletown girl, wins the county schools spelling championship in an exciting competition that wore out the judges. Col. L.R Boals, the pronouncer, sent a committee out for extra words.