Today is Tuesday, Feb. 26, the 57th day of 2008. There are 309 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 26, the 57th day of 2008. There are 309 days left in the year. On this date in 1919, Congress establishes Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from exile on the Island of Elba. In 1870, an experimental air-driven subway, the Beach Pneumatic Transit, opens in New York City. (The tunnel was only a block long, and had only one car.) In 1907, Congress creates the Dillingham Commission to examine the impact of immigrants on America. (The panel later recommends curtailing immigration from southern and eastern Europe.) In 1929, President Coolidge signs a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park. In 1940, the U.S. Air Defense Command is created. In 1945, a midnight curfew on nightclubs, bars and other places of entertainment is set to go into effect across the nation. In 1952, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that Britain has developed its own atomic bomb. In 1979, a total solar eclipse casts a moving shadow 175 miles wide from Oregon to North Dakota before moving into Canada. In 1987, the Tower Commission, which probed the Iran-Contra affair, issues its report, which rebukes President Reagan for failing to control his national security staff. In 1993, a bomb built by Islamic extremists explodes in the parking garage of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.

February 26, 1983: RMI Inc., a major titanium producer with plants in Niles and Ashtabula, is teaming up with the Japanese to use their superior processing technology in producing titanium for American customers.

Sales of existing single-family homes jump a record 15.5 percent in January as homebuyers scramble to take advantage of lower interest rates.

James A. Traficant Jr. says that he will argue for a moratorium on foreclosures and will call people who face the loss of their homes to testify at a hearing March 7 in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

February 26, 1968: Two Youngstown men and a Warren man are killed when their car collides with a tractor-trailer on the Indiana Turnpike near South Bend and bursts into flames. Dead are Foster Dawson, 35, and Arnold Wallace, 29, of Youngstown, and Julius Jackson, 47, of Warren.

Volney Rogers Junior High School is invaded by vandals who smashed windows and blackboards and flooded a major section of the building.

Dr. William H. Bunn Jr., president of the Heart Association of Eastern Ohio, says more than 8,000 workers raised at least $70,000 in their door-to-door canvass of Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties. The Heart Association goal is $113,000.

February 26, 1958: The Youngstown Hospital Association exceeds its building-fund campaign by $118,000, raising $1,225,019.

Youngstown police ask the Ohio Bell Telephone Co. to discontinue telephone service to American Billiards at 261 E. Federal St., which has been identified by The Vindicator as one of a group of gambling spots operating in the city.

Youngstown City Engineer James C. Ryan asks City Council to approve a $10,000 expansion at Youngstown Municipal Airport to provide space for installing $700,000 worth of additional weather bureau and radar equipment.

February 26, 1933: By a vote of 260 to 46 the House of Representatives approves a resolution by Youngstown Rep. John Cooper prohibiting the Justice Department from spending any funds to equip the federal prison at Lewisburg to manufacture metal office furniture.

George D. Sheridan, secretary of the Ohio Merchants Association, tells a group at the Youngstown Club that a sales tax being proposed in the Ohio Legislature would ruin retail merchants in Ohio.

Twenty cars are towed by Officers Nelson and Byerly in continuation of a drive launched by Traffic Commissioner Carl Olson against violators of the city’s no parking ordinance.