Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2006. There are 348 days left in the year. On this date in 1706, statesman, inventor and editor Benjamin Franklin is born in Boston.
In 1806, Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Martha, gives birth to James Madison Randolph, the first child born in the White House. In 1893, the 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, dies in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70. In 1893, Hawaii's monarchy is overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forces Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate. In 1945, Soviet and Polish forces liberate Warsaw during World War II. In 1945, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappears in Hungary while in Soviet custody. In 1961, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower warns against the rise of "the military-industrial complex." In 1966, a U.S. Air Force B-52 carrying four unarmed hydrogen bombs crashes on the Spanish coast. (Three of the bombs are quickly recovered, but the fourth isn't found until April.) In 1991, in the first day of Operation Desert Storm, U.S.-led forces hammer Iraqi targets in an effort to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. In 1994, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake strikes Southern California, killing at least 61 people and causing $20 billion worth of damage. In 1995, more than 6,000 people are killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.
January 17, 1981: All three Mahoning County commissioners say that the county will never again be able to carry 500 employees on its payroll. Even if the permissive sales tax is reinstated, they say, only 16 of more than 200 laid off employees would be called back.
Two prominent Republicans take out candidacy petitions for the Republican nomination as Youngstown mayor, Atty. James E. "Ted" Roberts and Atty. William C. Orton.
A majority of the unions representing Youngstown's municipal workers agree to give the Vukovich administration a 90-day breathing spell before they insist on wage talks.
January 17, 1966: Youngstown Fireman Fred Valezisi collapses of a heart attack and dies while fighting a $500,000, two-alarm fire that roared through Al Wagner Motor Sales at 3121 Market St.
Weekend burglars strike two Federal Street businesses, taking clothing and jewelry, from the Rogers Jewelry Co. and the Bun Clothing Co.
Police in Sandusky, Ohio, crack a ring of some 20 persons who bought 1,375 bottles of codeine-type cough syrup and drank it because it "made them feel cool."
January 17, 1956: Youngstown's city income tax collections for 1955 were 24 percent above a year earlier and set a new record at $2.1 million.
In a move to utilize police manpower and increase effective protection, Police Chief Paul H. Cress assigns nine new night-foot beats and one-man cruiser details.
A price of $64.50 a share is placed on the vast public offering of Ford Motor Co. stock. The Ford Foundation Inc. will reap $642 million from the biggest corporate equity financing in history.
January 17, 1931: Scholarship in Youngstown schools reaches the highest efficiency of recent years with the percentage of failures in the most recent semester decreasing from 10 percent to 9 percent, Dr. J.J. Richeson, superintendent, reports. At a cost of $78 per semester to educate each child, the reduction in failures will save taxpayers $28,000, he says.
A fire believed to have been caused by rats chewing at matches partially destroys the Peach Porcelain Co.'s five-kiln plant in East Liverpool. Damage was estimated at $100,000.
Carl Lancar, whose fine character portrayals in local productions earned him the title of "Youngstown's Lon Chaney" has been doing comedy roles in Hollywood since moving there three years ago. His engagement to Miss Antoinette DiFiore of San Francisco is announced by his sister, Mrs. Marguerite Colao of Youngstown.
Oak Street Grocer Stephen Montella escapes from a crazed gunman who held a pistol to his head and forced him to drive on city streets for a half hour. Montella was slightly injured when he leapt from the moving car at Mahoning and Schenley Avenues.