YEARS AGO FOR APRIL 3

Today is Tuesday, April 3, the 93rd day of 2018. 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.

1968: Civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivers what turned out to be his final speech, telling a rally of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., that “I’ve been to the mountaintop” and “seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!” (About 20 hours later, King was felled by an assassin’s bullet at the Lorraine Motel.)

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

2008: Ohio State defeats Massachusetts, 92-85, for the National Invitation Tournament title.

2017: A suicide bombing aboard a subway train in St. Petersburg, Russia, leaves 16 people dead and wounded more than 50; authorities identify the bomber as a 22-year old Kyrgyz-born Russian national. A divided Senate Judiciary

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: The Ohio Democratic Party Executive Committee unanimously elects state Sen. Harry Meshel of Youngstown to the $65,000 job of chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, succeeding Eugene Branstool, who took a job in the Clinton administration.

Wick Management Co. of Warren bids $68,000 for Girard’s Washington Elementary School during a 30-minute auction.

The Youngstown Board of Education rebuffs Superintendent Alfred Tutela, who wanted to give administrators raises totaling $14,648.

1978: About 25 pieces of mail are destroyed and many others damaged when one of four young boys dropped a lighted cigarette into a mailbox at the McGuffey Mall.

The Westinghouse Electric Corp. offers to lease its Hermitage Recreation Center ball field to the Sharon and Hermitage Recreation commissions for use as a softball facility.

Alan Scharsu, Fitch High’s 17-year-old star distance runner, nips Ed Leddy by one second to capture the first Easter Seals 10-kilometer run in 28 minutes, 53 seconds.

1968: Harry Spero, 80, a founder and president of the Penn-Ohio Coat, Apron and Towel Supply Co. and United Paper Service Co., with more than 650 employees, dies of a heart attack in his office.

Directors of the Youngstown Symphony Society, interested in acquiring the Warner Theater as a cultural center, reject the latest offer by the building’s owner, Binama Realty, but are still interested in making a deal.

1943: Youngstown public schools return to regular hours with high school classes starting at 8:30 a.m. and elementary at 8:45. Most schools had been opening a half-hour later during the winter to permit pupils to go to school in daylight.

John Pavlechko, 12, of Randolph Street is in fairly good condition at St. Elizabeth Hospital after being shot by a night watchman at a store on Salt Springs Road who said he fired a shot to scare off two boys he saw loitering behind the store. John told his mother that he and a friend were petting a dog when the watchman came running toward them.

There is no postal rule against sending packages or regular letters to soldiers overseas. Packages must be sent first-class mail and weigh no more than one-half pound. Regular mail does not arrive as quickly as V-mail does.