YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, Sept. 20, the 264th day of 2016. There are 102 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1519: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew set out from Spain on five ships to find a western passage to the Spice Islands. (Magellan was killed en route, but one of his ships eventually circled the world.)

1884: The National Equal Rights Party is formed during a convention of suffragists in San Francisco; the convention nominates Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood for president.

1946: The first Cannes Film Festival, lasting 16 days, opens in France. Among the films honored with the Golden Palm were “The Lost Weekend,” ‘‘Brief Encounter,” ‘‘Rome, Open City” and “Pastoral Symphony”; “The Battle of the Rails” won the International Jury Prize.

1947: Former New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia dies.

1958: Martin Luther King Jr. is seriously wounded during a book signing at a New York City department store when he is stabbed in the chest by Izola Curry. (Curry later was found mentally incompetent; she died at a Queens, N.Y., nursing home in 2015 at age 98.)

1962: James Meredith, a black student, is blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Democratic Gov. Ross R. Barnett. (Meredith was later admitted.)

2011: Repeal of the U.S. military’s 18-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise takes effect, allowing gay and lesbian service members to serve openly.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Youngstown State University faculty members approve a mediator’s report recommending a 5 percent pay raise over two years, averting a threatened strike.

General Motors Corp. suspends production at its van plants in Lordstown and Scarsborough, Ontario, citing a nonspecific quality issue.

The Mahoning County prosecutor’s office drops the charges against Tyrone Ellington, hours after Judge Charles Bannon orders a new trial for the 34-year-old Youngstown man who spent three years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

1976: A 25-year-old man said to be distressed about a problem with a girlfriend, was talked out of jumping from the Market Street Bridge by his mother, police and Father John Susko and William Petrunak, despite ghoulish passers-by who urged him to jump.

Encouraged by a turnout of about 30 people at a Warren Board of Education meeting at Devon School, the board says it will have the last three meetings of the year in schools in the remaining quadrants of the city.

Ruth Van Such, 17, a Campbell Memorial High senior, will present her national-prize-winning speech on Orthodoxy in America during the Bicentennial at the October district meeting of the Federated Russian Orthodox Clubs in Cleveland.

1966: Perc Kelty, president of the Animal Charity League of Youngstown, is named to the board of directors of the U.S. Humane Society.

Leaders of an effort to gain recognition of a union to represent nurses at the Youngstown Hospital Association say they won’t attend a meeting called by the board of directors.

Don Gardner, dean of Youngstown sportscasters, begins his 35th year behind a microphone. He’s heard and seen on WKBN Radio and TV.

Barbara Isaksson is elected football queen at Columbiana High School.

1941: Two bandits are shot dead in a gunbattle with police during a chase that followed a robbery at an Ellwood City, Pa., drugstore.

Verne Wilson, president of the Union National Bank and the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce, appeals for public support for the Youngstown Symphony Society’s goal of selling out Stambaugh Auditorium for the coming season.

The Rip Tavern in the Tod Hotel has a Sunday dinner special: Full-course roast duckling with sage dressing, $1.