YEARS AGO FOR APRIL 21

Today is Sunday, April 21, the 111th day of 2019. There are 254 days left in the year. Today Christians observe Easter.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1509: England’s King Henry VII dies; he is succeeded by his 17-year-old son, Henry VIII.

1789: John Adams is sworn in as the first vice president of the United States.

1836: An army of Texans led by Sam Houston defeats the Mexicans at San Jacinto, assuring Texas independence.

1910: Author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, dies in Redding, Conn., at age 74.

1918: Manfred von Richthofen, 25, the German ace known as the “Red Baron” who was believed to have downed 80 enemy aircraft during World War I, is himself shot down and killed while in action over France.

1926: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is born in Mayfair, London; she is the first child of The Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and the Queen Mother.

1930: Fire breaks out inside the overcrowded Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, killing 332 inmates.

1942: The first edition of “The Stranger” (“L’Etranger”), Albert Camus’ highly influential absurdist novel, is published in Nazi-occupied Paris by Gallimard.

1975: With Communist forces closing in, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu resigns after nearly 10 years in office and flees the country.

1976: Clinical trials of the swine flu vaccine begin in Washington, D.C.

1977: The musical play “Annie,” based on the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip, opens on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,377 performances.

1998: Astronomers announce in Washington that they have discovered possible signs of a new family of planets orbiting a star 220 light-years away, the clearest evidence to date of worlds forming beyond our solar system.

2009: Calling on Americans to volunteer, President Barack Obama signs a $5.7 billion national service bill tripling the size of the AmeriCorps service program.

The sole survivor of a pirate attack on an American cargo ship off the Somali coast is charged as an adult with piracy in federal court in New York.

2014: More than 30,000 people defiantly run the Boston Marathon a year after the deadly terrorist bombings; American Meb Keflezighi wins the men’s race in 2:08:37 while Kenya’s Rita Jeptoo successfully defends her title, finishing in a course- record 2:18:57.

Win Tin, 85, a prominent journalist who became Myanmar’s longest-serving political prisoner after challenging military rule, dies in Yangon.

2016: Prince, one of the most inventive and influential musicians of modern times, is found dead at his home in suburban Minneapolis; he was 57.

2018: North Korea announces it will suspend nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches ahead of its summits with South Korea and the United States.

Barbara Bush is remembered as the “first lady of the Greatest Generation” during a funeral in Houston attended by four former U.S. presidents and hundreds of others.

Actor Verne Troyer, best known for his role as “Mini-Me” in the “Austin Powers” movies, dies in Los Angeles at the age of 49; a coroner later ruled that the death was suicide by alcohol intoxication.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: Alfred Tutela, superintendent of Youngstown City Public Schools, is under consideration for the superintendency of the Wachusett School District outside Boston.

Lordstown School District is honored by Gov. George Voinovich for being the first school district in the state to reach a 100 percent passage rate on the state ninth-grade proficiency tests.

The Shenango Valley Shuttle Service wins a $600,000 federal grant to build a “park and ride” facility in downtown Sharon.

1979: About 5,000 production line workers at the General Motors van and passenger car plants at Lordstown walk off the job over new work rules and the firing of one employee and disciplining of 19 others.

A traffic accident at Shirley Road and Detroit Avenue cuts power to about 3,000 Ohio Edison customers and knocks out traffic lights along South Avenue and at other South Side and Boardman intersections.

Phi Sigma Epsilon fraternity and Zeta Tau Alpha sorority win Greek Sing at Stambaugh Auditorium, sponsored by Youngstown State University’s Panhellenic and Interfraternity councils.

1969: The once elegant Lincoln Hotel, which has stood at Lincoln Avenue and North Phelps Street for 67 years, will be razed to make room for Youngstown State University’s new $1.2 million business administration building.

Rene Carpenter, wife of astronaut Scott Carpenter, will be the first speaker in the Youngstown Junior League’s Town Hall lecture series for 1969-70.

An Austintown Fitch High School senior and an Army veteran who were going steady are found asphyxiated in a car parked with its engine running in Austintown near state Route 11. Dead are Susan M. Frketich, 17, and Thomas Macabobby, 22.

1944: Mrs. Margaret Hannay LaRoche, 21, of Salem, widow of Coastguardsman Gayhart LaRoche, lost in action last month, joins the SPARS, the Coast Guard auxiliary, and is invited to the White House as a guest of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt before she reports for training.

Cleveland Mayor Frank J. Lausche, Democratic candidate for governor, urges unionists to cease planning for a post-war monopoly before they incur the ill will of the mass of citizens.

Sgt. James C. Mossey, formerly of Salem, is back in the United States after completing 50 operational missions on Marauder medium bombers in Western Europe.