YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 9, the 314th day of 2016. There are 52 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1620: The passengers and crew of the Mayflower sight Cape Cod.

1872: Fire destroys nearly 800 buildings in Boston.

1935: United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis and other labor leaders form the Committee for Industrial Organization (later renamed the Congress of Industrial Organizations that later merged with the American Federation of Labor to create the AFL-CIO).

1965: The great Northeast blackout begins as a series of power failures lasting up to 131/2 hours leave 30 million people in seven states and part of Canada without electricity.

1970: Former French President Charles de Gaulle dies at age 79.

1976: The U.N. General Assembly approves resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa, including one characterizing the white-ruled government as “illegitimate.”

2006: After 46 seasons as Penn State’s head football coach and a record 409 victories, Joe Paterno is fired along with the university president, Graham Spanier, over their handling of child sex-abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: U.S. Rep. James A Traficant Jr., who is paying off a tax debt of $180,000 tied to mob bribes, wants Congress to stop what he says are “overzealous and abusive” collection techniques used by the Internal Revenue Service.

Bike Nashbar opens a 120,000-square-foot distribution center at the site of the former Patio Doors plant in Canfield. The Boardman-based company is the nation’s largest catalog distributor of bicycles and related equipment.

The city of Youngstown has between $150,000 and $170,000 in outstanding ticket fines, and Chief Bailiff Gerald A. Stone says a program will be instituted that could cost delinquent parking ticket holders $95 per ticket.

1976: Sharon Steel Corp. announces that it will spend $11 million to expand its Warren and Farrell plants.

About 70 members of the Committee for Positive Education, including its president, Mrs. George Abrigg of Youngstown, protest psychological techniques being used in Ohio public schools, telling the Ohio Board of Education that students are being taught “the religion of humanism.”

Seven area schools are included in the 100 school districts in Ohio with the highest teacher pay. Lordstown, where teachers with a bachelor’s degree are paid $9,300, is 15th.

1966: U.S. Reps. Michael J. Kirwan, D-Youngstown, and Frank Bow, R-Canton, with a combined service record of 46 years in Congress, are returned to office – Kirwan for his 16th term and Bow for his 9th term.

Mahoning County voters soundly reject a 2-mill levy to fund Mahoning County Community College, 65,742 to 18,764.

A search of dense woods near Costello, Pa., ends with the discovery of the body of Oscar Smith of Youngstown, who is believed to have died of a heart attack while hunting.

A site bounded by East Federal Street, South Avenue and Front and Walnut streets is proposed for the $3.5 million post office complex.

1941: Wittenberg College Players present a streamlined version of “The Taming of the Shrew.” Margaret Pabst of Volney Road had the lead. Another Youngstowner, Roberta Dana Sans, played Bianca.

Mahoning County deputy sheriffs will have two new cruisers equipped for use as emergency ambulances.

Alfred T. Palmer of the Office of Emergency Management will speak to the Youngstown Camera Club at the Central YMCA. Palmer has been around the world six times, taking still and moving pictures.