YEARS AGO FOR APRIL 7

Today is Sunday, April 7, the 97th day of 2019. There are 268 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1798: The Mississippi Territory is created by an act of Congress, with Natchez as the capital.

1862: Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

1915: Jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday, also known as “Lady Day,” is born in Philadelphia.

1927: The image and voice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover are transmitted live from Washington to New York in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television.

1953: The U.N. General Assembly ratifies Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden as the new secretary-general, succeeding Trygve Lie of Norway.

1954: President Dwight D. Eisenhower holds a news conference in which he speaks of the importance of containing the spread of communism in Indochina, saying, “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly.” (This becomes known as the “domino theory,” although Eisenhower did not use that term.)

1959: A referendum in Oklahoma repeals the state’s ban on alcoholic beverages.

1962: Nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles tried by Cuba for their roles in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion are convicted of treason.

1966: The U.S. Navy recovers a hydrogen bomb that the U.S. Air Force had lost in the Mediterranean Sea off Spain following a B-52 crash.

1978: President Jimmy Carter announces he is deferring development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation weapon.

198: Space shuttle astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson go on the first U.S. spacewalk in almost a decade as they work in the open cargo bay of Challenger for nearly four hours.

1994: Civil war erupts in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claims the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi; in the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu moderates are slaughtered by Hutu extremists.

2008: Anti-China protesters disrupt the Olympic torch relay in Paris, at times forcing Chinese organizers to put out the flame and take the torch onto a bus to secure it.

Kansas wins the NCAA championship, defeating Memphis 75-68 in overtime.

2009: President Barack Obama caps his eight-day European trip by addressing college students in Istanbul, Turkey; he then makes an unannounced trip to Baghdad, where he visits with U.S. troops and Iraqi officials.

Vermont becomes the fourth state (after Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa) to legalize same-sex marriage.

2014: Pro-Russian acti-vists barricaded inside government buildings in eastern Ukraine proclaim their regions to be independent and call for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine.

Alonzo Mourning, a seven-time NBA All-Star, and NCAA championship-winning coaches Nolan Richardson and Gary Williams are voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Connecticut wins its second NCAA men’s title in four years, beating Kentucky 60-54 in the championship game.

Model and media personality Peaches Geldof is found dead at her home in Wrotham, Kent, England, at age 25.

2018: Opposition activists and local rescuers say at least 40 people are killed in a suspected poison gas attack on the last remaining foothold for the Syrian opposition in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is taken into police custody after a showdown with his own supporters, who try to keep him from surrendering to face prison time for a corruption conviction.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: A groundbreaking marks the beginning of Beachwood Village, a new housing development on 44 acres off Jacobs Road near McKelvey Lake. With 100 homes planned in the $100,000 range, it would be the first major housing development in the city of Youngstown in more than 20 years.

Stephen Strabala pleads not guilty in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court to 61 counts involving the loss of $9.9 million in county funds.

The Greater Youngstown metropolitan area has the least expensive housing of the top 100 markets in the country with a median cost of $63,948 for an existing house.

1979: Norman P. “Nick” Johnson, 70, a humble man who influenced thousands of youngsters whom he coached over a half-century, dies following a long illness.

The Mahoning-Trumbull Fair Housing Association says housing discrimination is not a serious problem in the Mahoning Valley.

Valerie Johnson of Chaney High School is awarded a $1,000 scholarship by the Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Lillian Walker Burke, the first black woman appointed to the bench in Ohio, is the main speaker.

1969: David B. Carson, 78, retired executive vice president of Sharon Steel Corp. who was a national figure in development of stainless steel, dies in Little Forest Medical Center of complications from a stroke suffered in October.

Fremont Camerino, assistant secretary of McKinley Federal Savings & Loan Association, is named co-chairman of the Niles Community Fund drive.

Nancy Glossbrenner, 10, daughter of Alfred B. Glossbrenner, assistant superintendent of Timken Roller Bearing Co., is fatally injured when struck by a car in Fifth Avenue. She had been visiting her grandparents on Easter Sunday. Her paternal grandfather is board chairman of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and her maternal grandfather is retired vice president of Dollar Savings and Trust Co.

1944: Frank Sinkwich of Youngstown, a star of the National Professional Football League last season, reports for training in the Maritime Service at Sheepshead Bay, N.Y.

Family members receive the first direct word from the Rev. Theodore Bauman, formerly of Youngstown and a missionary in China who escaped the Japanese. Father Bauman was only one of three missionaries who was not captured and is safe at a Maryknoll Mission in Chungking, China.

Cpl. Lloyd M. Sheridan, 18, formerly of Struthers, is reported wounded in Italy and is recovering in an overseas hospital.