YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 4, the 278th day of 2016. There are 88 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1777: Gen. George Washington’s troops launch an assault on the British at Germantown, Pa., resulting in heavy American casualties.

1822: The 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, is born in Delaware, Ohio.

1931: The comic strip “Dick Tracy,” created by Chester Gould, debuts.

1940: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini confer at Brenner Pass in the Alps.

1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit.

The TV series “Leave It to Beaver” premieres on CBS.

1970: Rock singer Janis Joplin, 27, is found dead in her Hollywood hotel room.

1976: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigns in the wake of a controversy over an obscene joke he’d made that was derogatory to blacks.

2006: The domain name wikileaks.org is registered. (the website began publishing leaked classified information in Dec. 2006).

2011: The NBA cancels the entire 114-game preseason schedule because a new collective bargaining agreement has not been reached with the National Basketball Players Association.

2015: President Barack Obama pays tribute to firefighters who died in the line of duty and cited the sacrifices they’d made in service to a grateful nation during an annual memorial service at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: An anticipated loss of 200 to 300 students, coupled with a new contract that provides staff raises, means Youngstown State University will have to cut $400,000 from an already tight budget.

Youngstown Mayor Patrick Ungaro’s annual salary of $69,119 is $2,658 more than the average salary of mayors of Ohio cities with populations exceeding 80,000.

Students in Miles Cuckovich’s auto body class at the Gordon James Career Center in Lordstown turn a Cadillac hearse owned by R.L. Lipton Distributing Co. into a unique pick-up truck.

1976: U.S. Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio re-enacts the dedication address his grandfather, former President William Taft, gave at the 1917 dedication of the McKinley Memorial in Niles. A crowd of about 300 attended the event, sponsored by the Niles Bicentennial Commission.

Nicholas D. Phillips, 50, of Canfield, owner of Nick’s Place at 1009 Market St., is found shot to death in his tavern. About $1,000 is missing.

Robert Pegues, superintendent of Youngstown schools, announces that city school football games will be played during the day, and no games will be played at Rayen Stadium in the wake of vandalism on the North Side after a Friday night game.

1966: A threatened mass resignation of 350 nurses is avoided when the Youngstown Hospital Association agrees to bargain in good faith with the Ohio State Nurses Association.

Boardman Zoning Inspector John Sederland reports new construction permits for the township exceeded $15 million for the first six months of the year. Mayo & Orvets took out an $870,000 permit for an 118-unit apartment complex.

A spokesman for 60 Bancroft School families complains at the Youngstown Board of Education about unrest and the quality of teaching at the school.

1941: Josephine Manchester and Mrs. B.W. Johnson, members of the Red Cross Motor Corps, encourage women to register for Red Cross classes on how to make minor auto repairs.

Two Youngstown lads, Pvts. John Chlysta and John Spenil, are bidding for starting positions on the newly organized Army Air Force team in Oklahoma City.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Erskine Maiden limits picketing at the S.H. Kress Co. to four.