YEARS AGO FOR APRIL 4

April 4, 2019 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Thursday, April 4, the 94th day of 2019. There are 271 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1841: President William Henry Harrison succumbs to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, 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.

1945: During World War II, U.S. forces liberate the Nazi concentration camp Ohrdruf in 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 many American cities.

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. (It was destroyed in the disaster of January 1986.)

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.

2018: Saying the situation has reached “a point of crisis,” President Donald Trump signs a proclamation directing the deployment of the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border to fight illegal immigration.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: Fairhaven School for the Mentally Retarded in Niles develops a new program to train adult students to work in jobs in private industry rather than in a sheltered workshop. Jamie Bunker, who coordinates the program, says participating businesses provide the students with part-time jobs.

After two months, Food Depot announces that it is abandoning plans to open a discount grocery in the former Peter J. Schmitt warehouse in North Jackson.

Two Youngstown families lose everything when Easter fires destroy their homes, one on the North Side and one on the East Side.

1979: The Salem Area Concerned Citizens group that opposes the $1.9 million low-income housing project asks City Council to seek an injunction to block issuance of a building permit for the proposed 50-unit project.

All 6,500 workers at the Lordstown General Motors plant are furloughed because of parts shortages from a four-day strike by Teamsters.

Bishop James W. Malone, co-chairman of the Ecumenical Coalition, says coalition members were told during a meeting in Washington, D.C., that the Carter Administration will not provide $245 million in loan guarantees to help reopen mills in the Youngstown district.

1969: George Shagnot, 37, of Southington is killed when a lock ring on a tire he was changing blew off and struck him in the face.

Orville Stifel, 21, is accused of mailing a package to Daniel Ronec, 23, who was killed when he opened it at his Lorain home. Stifel was jealous of Ronec because he was to marry Cheryl Jones, Stifel’s former girlfriend.

Children entering Boardman schools in the fall may be immunized by the Mahoning County Health Department at Market Street Elementary School. They will be immunized against polio, measles, smallpox, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

1944: The Youngstown Chamber of Commerce will urge Congress to extend the life of the price control act for one year beyond June.

Mayor Ralph W. O’Neill wants to put an end to traffic ticket “fixing” which is costing the city thousands of dollars a year. Municipal Judge Peter J. Mulholland fixed 4,318 tickets in 1943, an increase of 1,013 over those he fixed in 1942.

Paul C. Bunn, superintendent of Lorain schools since 1935 and president of the Ohio Education Association, is elected superintendent of Youngstown schools. He will assume charge June 1.