Years ago...

Today is Sunday, March 18, the 77th day of 2007. There are 288 days left in the year. On this date in 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, are killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.
In 1766, Britain repeals the Stamp Act of 1765. In 1837, the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, is born in Caldwell, N.J. In 1922, Mohandas K. Gandhi is sentenced in India to six years' imprisonment for civil disobedience. (He is released after serving two years.) In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agrees to join Germany's war against France and Britain. In 1959, President Eisenhower signs the Hawaii statehood bill. (Hawaii becomes a state on Aug. 21, 1959.) In 1962, France and Algerian rebels agree to a truce. In 1965, the first spacewalk takes place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether. In 1974, most of the Arab oil-producing nations end their embargo against the United States. In 1977, Marien Ngouabi, the military president of the Republic of the Congo, is assassinated. In 2001, John Phillips, who co-founded the Mamas and the Papas and wrote its biggest hits, dies in Los Angeles at age 65.
March 18, 1982: The families of Tadeusz Muchacki and Kryzysztof Kowalski arrive in Youngstown from Poland and take residence at the Mahoning Avenue resettlement house maintained by the Eastminster Presbytery next to the Hungarian United Presbyterian Church.
More than 1,200 Youngstown district steel workers have been laid off in the last weeks as Northern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania steel plants cut back production to meet slowing demand.
George Malizia is fined 1,000 on a reduced charge of election falsification arising from a December 1979 special election in Beaver Township. Prosecutor Vincent Gilmartin says it would not have been difficult to get a conviction on the more serious charge of voter fraud, but he doubted that Malizia would have received any jail time on that conviction.
March 18, 1967: A one-room school house at Leffingwell and Knauf roads is moved to the Canfield Fairgrounds where it will placed in the historical village alongside other historical buildings from Mahoning County.
Two 17-year-old boys involved in drinking, seven burglaries at business places, and larceny at a home and the theft of three beer trucks in one night for joy riding, are recommended for commitment to Mansfield Reformatory.
Marae Ohl, a veteran teacher who formed Warren Girl Scout Troop 1 at East Junior High School in 1928, is Trumbull County's first lady of Girl Scouting at Hartford Community Church.
March 18, 1957: The 2,752 Camp Fire Girls of the Youngstown district begin celebrating their 47th birthday the week March 17 to 24 by giving a helping hand to others.
Dr. Ned F. Bauhof, Canton school physician, criticizes the Stark County Medical Society for its refusal to provide free mass inoculations for polio in the public schools. Shots will be given only in doctors' offices, and will be free only for & quot;indigents. & quot;
Pennsylvania Gov. George Leader asks the General Assembly to replace the turnpike commission with a six-member, bipartisan board of unpaid members and to put an end to toll road construction in the state.
March 18, 1932: Kay Donna, granddaughter of G.F. Wagner of Youngstown, is making it good in radio, appearing on programs of station WTAM in Cleveland and soon to go on the networks of the National Broadcasting Co.
The Mahoning County Taxpayers Protective League demands cuts in the cost of operating the county jail, noting that poor families receive just 1.50 a week to feed an entire family, while the county is paying 3.57 a week to feed each inmate.
Efforts to pay Youngstown teachers and other school employees before spring vacation begins have failed. Teachers have eight weeks of back pay coming to them and are hoping school officials will have found the money when school resumes March 28.
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