Today is Wednesday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2008

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2008. There are 350 days left in the year. On this date in 1920, Prohibition begins in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution takes effect.

In 1547, Ivan IV of Russia (popularly known as “Ivan the Terrible”) is crowned Czar. In 1942, actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother and about 20 other people are killed when their plane crashes near Las Vegas while returning from a war-bond promotion tour. In 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower takes command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in London.In 1964, the musical “Hello, Dolly!” opens on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances. In 1978, NASA names 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who becomes America’s first woman in space, and Guion S. Bluford Jr., who becomes America’s first black astronaut in space. In 1988, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder is fired as a CBS Sports commentator, one day after telling a Washington, D.C., TV station that, during the era of slavery, blacks had been bred to produce stronger offspring. In 1991, the White House announces the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

January 16, 1983: Outspoken freshman councilman George McKelvey, asserting the Vukovich administration lacks credibility, calls for an independent audit of the city’s books before city employees are laid off.

Youngstown area highway engineers and planners have come up with a long list of projects in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties they would like to complete with money from President Reagan’s 5-cent per gallon gasoline tax.

January 16, 1968: A large delegation of the Steel City Parents League asks the Youngstown Board of Education to adopt integrated textbooks, hire more Negro teaches and build an East Side junior high school.

Three Youngstown area industrialists will head a drive to raise $40,000 for the Mahoning Valley Council, Boy Scouts of America. They are Robert E. Williams, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.; John Saunders, president of the General Fireproofing Co., and J.A. Coakley Jr., vice president of finance at Wean Industries, Warren.

January 16, 1958: The Rev. Roland A. Luhman, D.D., one of Youngstown’s foremost clergymen and civic leaders for more than a quarter century, dies of a heart attack suffered in his office at Pilgrim Collegiate Church, where he was pastor.

A 1958 Edsel convertible owned by Richard Dota, 1042 S. Schenley Ave., Youngstown, is stolen wrecked into a tree off Oak Street Extension and gutted by fire.

Youngstown City Council declares Democrat John J. Tobin absent without a valid excuse, which means he has 60 days to appear at a council meeting or his seat will be declared vacant. Tobin fled the city a week earlier during an investigation into insurance fraud.

January 16, 1933: Thomas Marino, 12, of Niles drowns after falling through the ice on Mosquito Creek at the rear of the old Niles car barns.

Mrs. C.J. Shively, wife of the vice president of the Farmers National Bank of Canfield, routs a masked, armed man who invaded her home while she was attending to her ill husband. Despite his warning, “don’t scream or I’ll shoot,” Mrs. Shively ran toward the robber screaming and pushed him through the house and out the door.

Mrs. Mary Bowers, 25, of Pennsy Mine near Mercer, rescues her four small children as fire devours their home. After saving all the children, she collapses, exhausted, through a window and is in Mercer Hospital with cuts, a broken collar bone and burns on her feet.