YEARS AGO FOR APRIL 4

Today is Wednesday, April 4, the 94th day of 2018. There are 271 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1818: Congress decides the flag of the United States will consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.

1841: President William Henry Harrison succumbs to pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.

1917: The U.S. Senate votes 82-6 in favor of declaring war against Germany.

1949: Twelve nations, including the United States, sign the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C.

1968: Civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, is shot and killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.; his slaying is followed by a wave of rioting in cities across the U.S.

1975: Microsoft is founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, N.M.

1983: The space shuttle Challenger roars into orbit on its maiden voyage.

1991: Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., and six other people, including two children, are killed when a helicopter collides with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pa.

2013: After the Sandy Hook shootings, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signs into law sweeping new restrictions on weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: Lawyers, consultants and accountants have billed PharMor for almost $9 million in the seven months since the company declared bankruptcy.

Amin Q. Chaudhri, who moved his independent film company from New York City to Sharon, Pa., says Continental Film Group Ltd. is putting together an “historically accurate” film version of “Gunga Din” starring Ben Kingsley and Anthony Hopkins.

George Junior Republic loses the PIAA Class AA championship in Hershey, Pa., on a last-second shot by Carbondale, which had been a 15-point underdog.

1978: An 11-year-old Warren boy, Bernard Armstrong, is in stable condition after undergoing an operation in Louisville, Ky., to reattach his legs, severed by a train behind J&R Glass on West Market Street.

Girard City Council votes to seek voter approval of a permanent half-percent income tax. Mayor Nick D’Eramo says he will veto the legislation.

General Motors’ Chevrolet Division expects to set a record with 3.8 million units in 1978, which will give the Mahoning Valley a boost from Chevrolet production in Lordstown.

1968: James M. Oliver, executive director of the Youngstown Area Community Action Council, says certain changes must occur before he reconsiders staying. The board asks for a list.

A Youngstown Marine, Lance Cpl. William Blunt, 20, is driving a jeep with a 106-mm recoilless rifle on Highway 9 near Ca Lu, Vietnam, to protect 150 Marine engineers.

Gary Morgenstern, 18, of Sharon Pa., is killed and a Sharon minister’s 16-year-old daughter is injured when their sports car slammed into a tree along Yankee Run Road.

1943: A concerted effort is being made to assimilate blind people in Youngstown and Mahoning County into war plants, says John W. Davis, administrative assistant of the Ohio Commission for the Blind.

Another large group of soldiers, most from the Shenango Personnel Replacement Center, attend the USO Center at the Youngstown YMCA on Saturday night and stay over for a party Sunday. About 60 soldiers slept at Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Two hundred delegates from 18 Lutheran Youngstown area congregations vote to establish a downtown servicemen’s club.