YEARS AGO FOR OCT. 12

Today is Friday, Oct. 12, the 285th day of 2018. There are 80 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1492: Christopher Columbus’ expedition arrives in the present-day Bahamas.

1792: The first recorded U.S. celebration of Columbus Day takes place to mark the tricentennial of Christopher Columbus’ landing.

1870: Gen. Robert E. Lee dies in Lexington, Va., at age 63.

1942: In World War II, American naval forces defeat the Japanese in the Battle of Cape Esperance.

1971: The rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” opens at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway.

1973: President Richard Nixon nominates House minority leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president.

1997: Singer John Denver is killed in the crash of his privately built aircraft in Monterey Bay, Calif.; he was 53.

2000: Seventeen U.S. sailors are killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

2007: Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm over global warming.

2017: The Trump administration says it will “immediately” halt payments to insurers under the Obama-era health care law.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: The proposed federal prison near Lisbon is scaled back to 3,800 prisoners, and the acreage is reduced from 855 to 330. Local opponents say they won’t rest until the project is canceled.

The Lakeview Board of Education is considering buying window screens for Cortland Elementary School because bees are getting inside and stinging students.

1978: Rolls Royce Inc., Britain’s giant aircraft-engine manufacturer, is looking at Youngstown Municipal Airport as the site for a multimillion-dollar U.S. engine plant.

Ted Vannelli, Democratic candidate for Trumbull County commissioner, criticizes the GOP incumbent, Anthony Bernard, for being part of the fight against reinstating Edward Kutevac as planning director, which Vannelli says has cost the county $40,000.

The executive board of CASTLO, which was formed by Gov. James A. Rhodes to help Campbell, Struthers and Lowellville recover from steel mill closings, has been invited to a meeting at the White House.

1968: First Lt. Kenneth Nervie, 23, of West Chalmers Ave., Youngstown, dies of wounds in Vietnam. He was Mahoning County’s 62nd Vietnam War fatality.

Mahoning County Commissioner John Palermo falls in his bathroom and breaks his left arm. His wife slipped on the steps and broke her heel. Finally, their 2-year-old granddaughter, Marie, fell from her bed and broke her collarbone.

Comparative calm prevails in Youngstown after a return to night football with Chaney’s 6-0 victory over South, a contrast to brick and bottle throwing after a game Sept. 27.

1943: A 53-year-old World War I veteran from Beaver Falls, Pa., pulls a bar from his bunk and holds off Mahoning County Sheriff Ralph Elser, four deputies, five city police officers and two detectives for two hours after they tried to remove him from his cell in the Mahoning County Jail.

Sgt. Thomas Carroll from Camp Reynolds snaps handcuffs on the wrists of Myrtle Berringer to demonstrate how he captured a prisoner, then realizes he lost the key. It was a while before the young lady was released.