YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, Sept. 25, the 269th day of 2016. There are 97 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1513: Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and sights the Pacific Ocean.

1690: One of the earliest American newspapers, Publick Occurrences, publishes its first – and last – edition in Boston.

1775: American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen is captured by the British as he led an attack on Montreal. (Allen was released by the British in 1778.)

1789: The first United States Congress adopts 12 amendments to the Constitution and sends them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments become the Bill of Rights.)

1890: President Benjamin Harrison signs a measure establishing Sequoia National Park.

1919: President Woodrow Wilson collapses after a speech in Pueblo, Colo., during a national speaking tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles.

1932: The Spanish region of Catalonia receives a Charter of Autonomy (however, the Charter was revoked by Francisco Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War).

1956: The first trans- Atlantic telephone cable officially goes into service with a three-way ceremonial call between New York, Ottawa and London.

1957: Nine black students who’d been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., because of unruly white crowds are escorted to class by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

1960: For the first time since 1927, the Pittsburgh Pirates clinch the National League pennant to play in the World Series.

1962: Sonny Liston knocks out Floyd Patterson in Round 1 to win the world heavyweight title at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

1978: Some 144 people are killed when a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collide over San Diego.

1981:Sandra Day O’Connor is sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

1991: Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie dies in Lyon, France, at age 77.

2006: The Louisiana Superdome, a symbol of misery during Hurricane Katrina, reopens for a New Orleans Saints game. (The Saints defeated the Atlanta Falcons, 23-3.)

2011: Wangari Maathai, 71, the first African woman recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, dies.

2014: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announces his resignation after six years of service.

2015: House Speaker John Boehner abruptly announces his resignation.

During a visit to New York City, Pope Francis offers comfort to 9/11 victims’ families at ground zero, warnings to world leaders at the United Nations and encouragement to schoolchildren in Harlem.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Anthony C. Julian, Youngstown Board of Education member, says the school district could save $753,000 over the next decade by refinancing loans for energy conservation projects.

The first section of the long-awaited Beaver Valley Expressway, the “missing link” of state Route 60, will open to motorists by November, Turnpike officials say.

John C. Marous, former president of the board of trustees of the University of Pittsburgh, says he was generally aware of the retirement package given to outgoing president Wesley W. Posvar, but did not know it provided for Posvar to receive his $201,000 annual salary for life.

1976: A three- to four- year, $1.5 million plan for rebuilding Cascade Park in New Castle is unveiled after a tour of the park by state and local officials.

GF Business Equipment Inc. management blames a number of factors – including loss of business during a lengthy strike – in the company’s decision to abandon plans for a new Youngstown plant.

Joseph J. Romeo, a Chaney High graduate and freshman at Youngstown State University, is the first recipient of the Albert Shipka scholarship of $1,000 a year for four years.

1966: Following a day-long meeting in Detroit with automakers and other customers, Robert E. Williams, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube, predicts that the steel business will be strong and stable for some time to come.

Singers Gino Genevis, a Vienna Schools guidance counselor; Pat Gray, Farrell radio announcer, and Harry Swartz, a Bell Telephone representative in Sharon, are making a name for themselves as the Fraternity Brothers. They cut a record, “Sad Little Boy” for Columbia.

1941: Film Producer Harry M. Warren, who started in the film business with a nickelodeon in New Castle, Pa., testifies before a U.S. Senate subcommittee that Sen. Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota was one of the men who encouraged him to make “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” in 1939. Sen. Nye now criticizes “Confessions” as interventionist propaganda.

Ohio Edison Co. seeks a 36 percent increase in Youngstown’s street-lighting bill for 1942.

Niles City Council approves a 12 percent reduction in light and water rates.

Store owners in Youngstown with penny- cigarette gambling machines on their premises will have to pay a $50 tax.