50 Years Ago

■The decision Tuesday to allow a girl to play in the Northampton Little League has met with reluctant acceptance by most male coaches in the county but has been hotly opposed by women sports leaders. “I think it’s ridiculous,” remarked Agnes “Gush” Valenta, a founder of the softball Lassie League and the youth director of the state’s Amateur Softball Association.

■Smith College will open its centennial year Sept. 8 with “more elaborate trappings than usual” at the traditional opening convocation. Congressman Silvio O. Conte and state Sen. John Olver will be on hand, along with the presidents of the Five Colleges, trustees of Smith College, and distinguished alumnae.

25 Years Ago

■A town for 214 years, Easthampton became the commonwealth’s newest city Wednesday when Gov. A. Paul Cellucci signed a bill to officially change its designation. Easthampton has technically been a city since 1996, when the Town Meeting form of government was replaced with a mayor and council.

■The Northampton City Council’s three-member Ordinance Committee is backing a proposed city law that aims to preserve the character and aesthetics of the downtown. Called the Central Business Architecture Ordinance, the plan has been in the works the past year by a seven-member committee. The ordinance seeks to maintain the downtown’s pedestrian scale, as well as the historic and architectural character of its buildings.

10 Years Ago

■James Foley, who has been beheaded by Islamic State extremists, was remembered on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as a warm, outgoing, and generous man whose compassion and integrity drove him to tell the stories of those who were voiceless, even if that meant risking his life in war zones. Foley graduated in 2003 from the Master of Fine Arts Program for Poets and Writers at UMass.

■Transperformance XXIV: Off the Map, the Northampton Arts Council’s annual end-of-summer music festival to benefit local arts enrichment and schools, will celebrate its 24th season Aug. 26 with an evening of geographically inspired musical acts.