YEARS AGO FOR APRIL 12

Today is Thursday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2018. There are 263 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1606: England’s King James I decrees the design of the original Union Flag, which combines the flags of England and Scotland.

1861: The Civil War begins as Confederate forces open fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63; he is succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

1955: The Salk vaccine against polio is declared safe and effective.

1963: Civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Ala., charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit.

1990: At its first meeting, East Germany’s first democratically elected parliament acknowledges responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust, and asks forgiveness of Jews and others who had suffered.

2008: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama concedes that comments he’d made privately during a fundraiser about bitter working class voters who “cling to guns or religion” were ill chosen.

2017: Embattled Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly begins a vacation after reports emerge of settlements reached with five women to keep quiet about harassment accusations.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: The National Weather Service will implement NEXRAD radar, which will do away with 130 offices, including that at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

Five prisoners are beaten to death by other inmates in a riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. Eight corrections officers are held hostage.

Mahoning County Prosecutor James Philomena accuses Judge Michael Gerchak of dismissing murder charges against a defendant after a prosecution witness didn’t appear as an example of a vendetta the judge has against the prosecutor. Gerchak says if Philomena believes that, he should file a formal complaint.

1978: U.S. District Court Judge Leroy Contie dismisses virtually every complaint of racial discrimination lodged against the Youngstown Board of Education in a federal suit filed by the NAACP, ruling that school officials never operated “a dual or intentionally segregated public school system.”

A woman who said she witnessed the Oct. 6 car bombing that killed Cleveland rackets figure Daniel Greene identifies Ronald Carabbia of Poland as a passenger in a car that sped from the scene.

The Miller Brewing Co. terminates its plans to build a $400 million brewery in Northeast Ohio or Western Pennsylvania. Speculation that the brewery would be built in North Jackson helped boost morale after the announced closing of the Campbell Works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.

1968: Normalcy returns to Youngstown, ending three days and three nights of civil unrest stemming from a clash between police and youths at Hillman Street and Falls Avenue. Ohio National Guardsmen are gradually returning home.

The Boardman Zoning Board of Appeals blocks a $300,000, three-story building planned by Travelers Insurance Co. because the Rockdale Avenue site would not have adequate parking.

A group of 126 newsboys are in Lisbon, Portugal, to begin an Iberian vacation sponsored by Parade magazine. Two local newspaper carriers, Gary Vanderburg of Warren and Philip Abelow of Youngstown, are on the trip.

1943: To stretch tire and gasoline supplies, “share the ride” programs are being instituted in every Youngstown district war plant.

Four Pennsylvania towns – Sharon, Sharpsville, Farrell and Wheatland – are removed from the Eastern gasoline shortage area.