YEARS AGO FOR APRIL 3

Today is Monday, April 3, the 93rd day of 2017. There are 272 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: George Washington receives an honorary doctor of laws degree from Harvard College.

1860: The legendary Pony Express begins carrying mail between St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento, Calif.

1882: Outlaw Jesse James is shot to death in St. Joseph, Mo., by Robert Ford, a member of James’ gang.

1942: During World War II, Japanese forces begin their final assault on Bataan against American and Filipino troops who would surrender six days later; the capitulation was followed by the notorious Bataan Death March.

1948: President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, designed to help European allies rebuild after World War II and resist communism.

1965: The United States launches the SNAP-10A nuclear power system into Earth orbit; it is the first nuclear reactor sent into space.

1968: The day before he is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous “mountaintop” speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers.

1979: Democrat Jane M. Byrne is elected mayor of Chicago, defeating Republican Wallace D. Johnson.

1982: Maryland college student Stephanie Roper, whose car became disabled, is kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed by two men. (The case inspired creation of the Stephanie Roper Committee and Foundation to lobby for victims’ rights.)

1996: Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski is arrested at his remote Montana cabin.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: Lawrence County District Attorney William Panella says no charges will be filed against Terry Ruppert, 41, of North Beaver Township, who was justified in firing a shotgun at four intruders, wounding one of them.

The Youngstown City School District will spend $125,000 to make The Rayen School accessible to handicapped students after being cited by the U.S. Department of Education.

1977: United Auto Workers Local 69 agrees to a long-term contract with Johnson Bronze Co. in New Castle, Pa., which employees some 350.

Isaac Asimov, author of more than 180 books, will speak on “The Future of Man” during appearances at Youngstown State University and Thiel College in Greenville, Pa.

1967: Marine Lance Cpl. Larry H. Crumbaker, 21, is Salem’s second fatality of the war in Vietnam. Arden Crumbaker reports that his son was reported killed by a gunshot during action against hostile forces at Quang Tri. Salem’s first casualty of the war was Marine Pfc. Robert Labbe.

The Army Corps of Engineers at Pittsburgh authorizes a new survey of local costs for the proposed $1 billion Lake Erie-to-Ohio River canal. Canal skeptics say the first estimate of $95 million in local costs was too conservative.

1942: Youngstown Mayor William Spagnola says he has appointed Traffic Patrolman Andrew Przelomski to head a new vice squad and has given him orders to “clean up the city.”

Plans for providing send-offs for men leaving for the Army are outlined at the organization meeting of the Youngstown Send-Off Committee in The Vindicator’s conference room.

Municipal Judge Peter Mulholland fixed an average of 75 traffic tickets a week in March for a total of 313, twice as many as he voided during March 1941. He set a record of 357 in February.

Walter Griffiths, superintendent of the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Co. merchant mills in the Youngstown district, is assigned to the Corporation’s Washington office as a priorities representative.