YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, Sept. 16, the 260th day of 2016. There are 106 days left in the year.

ASsociated Press

On this date in:

1498: Tomas de Torquemada, notorious for his role in the Spanish Inquisition, dies in Avila, Spain.

1908: General Motors is founded in Flint, Mich., by William C. Durant.

1953: “The Robe,” the first movie presented in the wide-screen process CinemaScope, has its world premiere at the Roxy Theater in New York.

1966: The Metropolitan Opera officially opens its new opera house at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts with the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra.”

1976: The Episcopal Church, at its General Convention in Minneapolis, formally approves the ordination of women as priests and bishops.

1994: A federal jury in Anchorage, Alaska, ordered Exxon Corp. to pay $5 billion in punitive damages for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

2006: The Vatican says Pope Benedict XVI “sincerely” regrets offending Muslims with his reference to an obscure medieval text characterizing some of the teachings of Islam’s founder as “evil and inhuman.”

2015: Eleven Republican presidential candidates debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., wrangling over immigration, gay marriage and foreign affairs.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Youngstown wants to begin curbside recycling for more than 30,000 homes by November so that the city does not lose a $211,000 allocation from the Mahoning County Solid Waste District.

Dennis Vitt, a member of the Mahoning County Board of Elections, says experts will be brought in to determine the cause of a multitude of health problems being reported by employees at the Mahoning County South Side Annex in the Uptown area of Market Street.

Bernie Kosar rallies the Cleveland Browns in the final minutes of a hard-fought battle with the Cincinnati Bengals, putting place kicker Matt Stover in position to kick the winning field goal with four seconds on the clock. The Browns win, 14-13.

1976: Dorothy Ryan of Liberty Township is elected president of the Ohio State Council of Senior Citizens to complete the term of her late husband, Irving, who would have been president until September 1977.

Two police officers are slightly injured during a foot chase that ended in the arrest of three teenagers suspected of stealing hubcaps from the parking lot of the Park Vista Residence on Youngstown’s North Side. Patrolman Larry Kovac strained his arm, and Patrolman Paul Gaines suffered a knee strain.

Fifty-nine Youngstown-area students are among 15,000 semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.

1966: The Mahoning County Board of Education approves a resolution to sponsor a $3.3 million vocational school, provided enough of the county’s 12 school districts join the effort.

Crisp fall weather continues shattering Youngstown records. A low of 30 overnight brings frost to some areas.

The Girard Board of Education announces that a new transportation plan will provide buses for all children who live a mile or more away from their schools.

1941: Mahoning County will send 81 young men to Cleveland for induction into the Army. Several are men who just observed their 21st birthday and registered for the draft within the past two months.

Roland Alexander is the new president of the Panther Club, champions of the Social Service League.

New fall ties in silk, rayon and wool are on sale at McKelvey’s for $1 to $1.50. There’s a wide selection of styles: Baratheas, stains, repps and knits.

The Truscon Steel Co. in Youngstown wins a $1 million contract for materials for a new Douglas bomber plant in Tulsa, Okla.