YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Oct. 31, the 305th day of 2016. There are 61 days left in the year. This is Halloween.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1517: Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

1926: Magician Harry Houdini dies in Detroit of peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.

1941: Work is completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, begun in 1927.

1968: President Lyndon B. Johnson orders a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hopes for fruitful peace negotiations.

1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards.

1999: EgyptAir Flight 990, bound from New York to Cairo, crashes off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.

2011: Palestinians win their greatest international endorsement yet with full membership in UNESCO, but the move prompts the U.S. to cut off payments to the Paris-based cultural agency.

2015: A Russian passenger airliner crashes in a remote part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula 23 minutes after taking off from a popular Red Sea resort, killing all 224 people on board.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: St. Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center will phase out its 80-year-old school of nursing and become the major clinical training site for a bachelor of science in nursing degree that will be offered by Gannon University.

A Struthers police officer is indicted by a federal grand jury in Cleveland on charges of brutality and intimidating witnesses.

The Youngstown Board of Education agrees to offer for sale the closed Butler School on Rayen Avenue to Mahoning County for use as a minimum security jail.

1976: On the eve of the election, The Vindicator’s straw poll shows Georgia Democrat Jimmy Carter will win Mahoning and Trumbull counties, but lose Columbiana to Republican President Gerald Ford.

The Youngstown Hospital Association increases daily room rates at its North and South Side units from $79.20 to $87 per day for semiprivate rooms and from $88.50 to $97.50 for private rooms.

Trumbull County election officials are expecting a record turnout of more than 89,000 voters because of hotly contested local races and Ohio’s pivotal position in the presidential election.

1966: Award-winning journalist Simeon S. Booker, a Youngstown native, will speak at a dinner meeting of the Alpha Nu Chapter of Iota Phi Lambda sorority at the Idora Park Ballroom.

Vincent E. Johnson, a state examiner in Youngstown since 1953, is named examiner-in-charge of the Municipal Division, District 4, of the Ohio Bureau of Inspection and Supervision of Public Offices.

State Chevrolet is having a “Smart Food Shoppers Sale” with an Impala two-door hardtop selling for 89 cents a pound; a new 1967 Bel Air for 79 cents a pound and a 1967 Biscayne for 69 cents a pound.

Vandals invade Pineview Memorial Park on Youngstown Road Southeast in Warren, desecrating religious statues and grave markers.

1941: Dr. Tom Douglas Spies, research scientist in the vitamin field, tells physicians and other health professionals at the Youngstown Club that vitamins should only be prescribed in the case of a specific deficiency.

The old Commercial National Bank property, now occupied by the Bond Clothing Co. at 23 W. Federal Street, is sold to a Boston financier. The bank realized $215,000 net after paying all commissions.

The work of building the new Berlin Reservoir may begin some time in December or January so it can begin taking the “top” off 1942-43 season floods and aid in furnishing water for Youngstown’s 1943 dry season.