Saturday, January 27, 2007
Today is Saturday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2007. There are 338 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 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.
January 27, 1982: Ten members of two United Autoworkers locals at Lordstown join other union officials in Washington, D.C., to lobby for a bill that would eventually require U.S. automakers to use 90 percent American-made parts in their cars.
Public officials and economic development experts from the Youngstown area rally behind state Rep. Arthur Wilkowski in what may be a last-ditch bid to locate a testing center for a high-speed passenger train in Trumbull County.
The Mahoning Valley Sanitary District awards a 3.3 million contract to a Canton firm for construction of new lagoons and a recycle-backwash system to stop pollution of Meander Creek.
January 27, 1967: Lavere Force, 22, is killed in an explosion while trying to light a furnace in a new rental home on Emerson Avenue which was owned by his father and occupied by Mrs. Donald Jones, whose husband, Capt. Jones, was recently cited for heroism in Vietnam. Mrs. Jones, who was not home at the time, lost all her furnishings.
Dr. Albert Pugsley, president of Youngstown University, tells a meeting of the Youngstown Council of Churches that he wouldn't hesitate to allow a Communist to speak on campus "because I have faith in these kids and know that the 'way-out' group is in the minority."
The first of two Boardman police officers accused of possession of stolen property is bound over to the Mahoning County grand jury. Bond is continued at 8,000. A microscope missing from the Boardman High School was found during a search of the officer's home.
January 27, 1957: Dr. John Heberding, "father of the X-ray in Youngstown hospitals," dies of cancer at the Glenwood Avenue home of his daughter. He was 74.
Youngstown's two television stations and two radio stations are knocked off the air and the Brownlee Woods area is plunged into darkness when three 2,400-volt power lines fall with spectacular blue flashes at E. Boston Ave. and Hunter St. WKBN-TV was off for about three minutes before switching to auxiliary power; WFMJ-TV was off for 40 minutes when a transmitter tube affected by the outage failed.
January 27, 1932: The Youngstown Foundation, a fund set up to administer charitable bequests, gives 25,000 to the Youngstown Hospital Association for maintenance and operating, and 15,000 to the Community Corp. for food, clothing and other necessities.
Legislation to construct a swimming pool and bath house at Borts Field on Youngstown's West Side by which it is hoped to provide employment for 900 men is presented to city council by councilman Michael Kirwan.