Today is Thursday, Feb. 7, the 38th day of 2008. There are 328 days left in the year. This is the

Today is Thursday, Feb. 7, the 38th day of 2008. There are 328 days left in the year. This is the Lunar New Year of the Rat. On this date in 1964, The Beatles begin their first American tour as they arrive at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

In 1812, author Charles Dickens is born in Portsmouth, England. In 1857, a French court acquits author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel “Madame Bovary.” In 1861, the general council of the Choctaw Indian nation adopts a resolution declaring allegiance with the South “in the event a permanent dissolution of the American Union takes place.” In 1904, a fire begins in Baltimore that rages for about 30 hours and destroys more than 1,500 buildings.

February 7, 1983: Dr. Sidney Berkowitz, 71, spiritual leader of Rodef Sholom Temple from 1946 to 1983 and a community activist, dies of a heart attack. He was 71.

Rochelle Rosian, 18, a senior at Canfield High School, captures the Ohio Junior Miss title at Mt. Vernon.

February 7, 1968: Two New Castle men are killed when their single-engine Cessna crashes near the Shenango Bowling Lanes while the men were trying to find a model plane that had been lost. Dead are Michael P. Dachko, 48, the pilot, and William C. Smiley, 27.

Earl W. Brauninger is named president of Union National Bank of Youngstown, succeeding A.E. Adams Jr., who moved up to chairman.

February 7, 1958: Joan Chris-topher, a Youngstown University coed, will be crowned queen of the 13th Annual Mardi Gras Dance at the Idora Park Ballroom.

Charles F. Livingston, 87, of 1625 Ohio Ave., founder of the Charles Livingston & Sons Co., dies in North Side Hospital, where he had been a patient for three weeks.

The Youngstown Transit Co. announces that its temporary reduction in the price of weekly passes has ended and passes will go from $2 to $2.75.

February 7, 1933: Interest rates on all mortgage and collateral loans of the Dollar Savings & Trust Co. of Youngstown, which are now 7 percent, will be cut to 6 percent, says Carl Ullman, executive vice president of the bank.

A movement is underway to rebuild and maintain as a historical museum the old charcoal blast furnace at the mouth of Yellow Creek near Struthers where Ohio’s important iron and steel industry was born 130 years ago.