Saturday, February 26, 2005
Today is Sunday, Feb. 27, the 58th day of 2005. There are 307 days left in the year. On this date in 1933, Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag, catches fire. The Nazis, blaming the Communists, use the fire as a pretext for suspending civil liberties.
In 1801, the District of Columbia is placed under the jurisdiction of Congress. In 1807, poet Henry Wads-worth Longfellow is born in Portland, Maine. In 1902, American author John Steinbeck is born in Salinas, Calif. In 1922, the Supreme Court unanimously upholds the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees the right of women to vote. In 1939, the Supreme Court outlaws sit-down strikes. In 1960, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeats the Soviets, 3 goals to 2, at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif. (The U.S. team goes on to win the gold medal.) In 1972, President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai issue the Shanghai Communique at the conclusion of Nixon's historic visit to China. In 1979, Jane M. Byrne confounds Chicago's Democratic political machine as she upsets Mayor Michael A. Bilandic to win their party's mayoral primary. (Byrne goes on to win the election.) In 1985, former ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who had served three terms as a U.S. senator and ran as the 1960 Republican vice-presidential nominee, dies in Beverly, Mass., at age 82. In 1997, divorce becomes legal in Ireland.
February 27, 1980: Judge A. Ross Siverling of Ashland County, sitting as a visiting judge in Mahoning County, rules that Youngstown City Council aides, most of them the wives of councilmen, cannot hold their jobs without being tested and qualified through civil service. The ruling concludes that the jobs were created by council to circumvent the city charter, which sets council salaries at $600 a year. The aides receive $8,500.
Two schools, Holy Family School in Poland and Youngstown Christian School, are the first to be closed in the Youngstown area by an outbreak of the flu.
Boardman Police Capt. Glenn Bowers says that the tape of a five-minute interview with Stephen Masters, then a suspect in the murder of his wife, Jodi, was not preserved by Boardman police. Bowers says the recorded statements of nearly 150 witnesses were not preserved, although transcripts were made, and those were kept.
February 27, 1965: Mahoning County's 2,618 retail businesses marked up nearly $389 million in sales in 1963, an increase of 10 percent over the figures five years earlier, says the U.S. Census Bureau.
The public may never see a packet of 250 letters that might shed some light on the personal life of President Warren G. Harding, after a Marion Ohio probate court rules that the letters from Harding to the wife of a Marion department store owner are the property of the woman's daughter.
Fire triggered by a furnace explosion rages through a downtown business block in Ashtabula, causing an estimated $1.5 million in damage.
February 27, 1955: Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co. pledges $1,000 to the Youngstown College library.
A three-minute message from President Eisenhower will be carried on radio and television in Youngstown, part of a nationwide drive to raise $85 million in a national campaign. The Youngstown district quota in the drive is $185,000.
William J. Brown is elected business manager of the Vindicator Printing Co., publishers of The Vindicator, by the company directors. He succeeds his father, William O. Brown, president of the company.
Proclaiming Youngstown "the world's best sandlot center," the National Amateur Baseball Federation, meeting in Birmingham, Ala., awards its national tournament to Youngstown for the 15th consecutive year. The double elimination tournament will be held Sept. 10-18.
February 27, 1930: Youngstown Fire Chief Harry Callen recommends that 35 men, including four battalion chiefs, be added to the fire department and that alarm boxes be installed in hospitals and theaters.
About 300 sympathizers of the "Unemployment Council" join a march on Youngstown City Hall, but find it dark, no city council meeting having been called and no councilmen having shown up on their own to listen.
On the eve of his scheduled execution, Dr. James Shook, former Ohio State University professor, says the story he told of Theora Hix, the coed he murdered, attacking him on the night of the murder was untrue. He said he killed her because she threatened to expose their love affair, threatened to kill him and threatened to kill his wife and child. He snapped under the pressure.
Thirty-eight quarts of beer are seized in a raid at the New Middletown Inn by deputies James and Butler, who arrested the owner, Dennis Crowley.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.