Today is Tuesday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2004. There are 339 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2004. There are 339 days left in the year. On this date in 1967, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee die in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo I spacecraft at Cape Kennedy, Fla.
In 1756, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born in Salzburg, Austria. In 1880, Thomas Edison receives a patent for his electric incandescent lamp. In 1901, opera composer Giuseppe Verdi dies in Milan, Italy, at age 87. In 1943, some 50 bombers strike Wilhelmshaven in the first all-American air raid against Germany during World War II. In 1944, the Soviet Union announces the end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for more than two years. In 1945, Soviet troops liberate the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland. In 1951, an era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert begins as an Air Force plane drops a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats.
January 27, 1979: A week-long strike by some 86 Lawrence County employees is illegal, says solicitor Frank Verterano, whose written brief alleges that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees failed to exhaust the collective bargaining procedure before striking.
"Health, Hunger and Humanity" will be a new program of Rotary International aimed at alleviating the suffering of the world's children, Clem Renouf of Nambour, Queensland, Australia, tells 400 Rotarians from eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania during a banquet at the Sheraton Inn, West Middlesex. Renouf is Rotary's international president.
Nelson A. Rockefeller, a multimillionaire who became governor and vice president, but saw his dream of the presidency dashed three times, dies of a heart attack at the age of 70.
January 27, 1964: Warren Lahr, one of the Cleveland Browns all-time great defensive halfbacks, speaks at the Youngstown University Grid Vets banquet at the Mahoning Country Club. The honored guests are Coach Dike Beede and his 1963 Penguin football squad.
General Motors Corp. earned $1.6 billion in 1963, a sum never equaled in a calendar year by any corporations. Sales, likewise, set a record at $16.5 billion.
Advertisement: A brand new, never driven 1964 Plymouth Valiant, $1,795 at Al Wagner Motor Sales, 3121 Market St., Youngstown.
January 27, 1954: Mahoning County commissioners Fred a. Wagner and Thomas J. Carney refuse emphatically to fire County Home Superintendent Clarence McMullen despite affidavits citing McMullen for inefficiency. The third commissioner, Edward Gilronan, has worked for more than a year to oust McMullen.
Jimmy Messenger, 11, injured 12 days earlier when he was struck by a car while on safety patrol near Boardman Elementary School, receives a "State of Ohio Certificate of Merit" from Mayor Frank Kryzan. Kryzan and other local dignitaries visited the boy in his home and autographed the casts on his two broken legs.
Iron and steel production at Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co.'s Brier Hill Works will be shut down for nearly three weeks to allow repairing and rebuilding of the blooming mill.
January 27, 1929: Attorneys L.A. Manchester, J.C. Argetsinger and Richard Jones Jr. filed a brief with the Interstate Commerce Commission on behalf of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce seeking permission to build the Youngstown-Ohio River Railroad.
The special tax committee of the Chamber of Commerce, in a letter sent to Youngstown City Council, urges repeal of an ordinance council passed that will add 13 employees to the municipal court staff.
The U.S. Senate appropriates $25,000 to hire 200 policemen, who will be brought to Washington from Baltimore, to maintain order during the inauguration of President-elect Herbert Hoover.