Today is Saturday, Jan. 19, the 19th day of 2008. There are 347 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Saturday, Jan. 19, the 19th day of 2008. There are 347 days left in the year. On this date in 1807, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is born in Westmoreland County, Va.

In 1809, author Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston. In 1861, Georgia secedes from the Union. In 1937, millionaire Howard Hughes sets a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds. In 1955, a presidential news conference is filmed for television for the first time, with the permission of President Dwight Eisenhower. In 1966, Indira Gandhi is elected prime minister of India. In 1977, in one of his last acts of office, President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D’Aquino, an American who had made wartime broadcasts for Japan.

January 19, 1983: The U.S. economy, crippled by recession from the start of 1982 to the finish, declined 1.8 percent during the year, the sharpest drop in GNP since 1946. Meanwhile the Congressional Budget Office is predicting double digit unemployment through 1983 and budget deficits that could swell to $300 billion in 1987 without new taxes and spending cuts.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approves a rate increase of 10.4 percent for the Ohio Water Service Co., significantly less than what the company had asked.

Three creditors, including a Lowellville trucking company, petition U.S. Bankruptcy Court to declare the defunct Youngstown Steel Corp. bankrupt. The action has stopped the federal government’s movement to sell Youngstown Steel’s spike mill and other property at CASTLO Industrial Park.

January 19, 1968: Mahoning County’s first-half 1967 real estate tax collection will have an all-time high charge of $14.9 million, and increase of $757,421 over a year earlier.

Lt. Edward J. Harris Jr., 26, of Lowellville is reported killed in action in Vietnam He is Mahoning County’s 48th casualty of the war.

January 19, 1958: The number of people allegedly involved in the insurance fraud plot operated by John J. Tobin has expanded to 10 with the arrest of a part-time office girl at the insurance agency and a printer who allegedly reproduced forms, letterhead and newspaper clippings used to file false accident reports.

Dr. Howard W. Jones, president of Youngstown University, says construction will begin by May 1 on a new $1.4 million science building.

Work is nearly complete on the new $250,000 Our Lady of Perpetual Help elementary school in McDonald. It contains 12 classrooms and a large all-purpose room.

January 19, 1933: The Youngstown Chamber of Commerce promises a thorough inquiry into electricity rates being charged Youngstown area merchants after receiving a report from the Mahoning Drug Club.

Youngstown Mayor Mark Moore is named to the board of directors of the National Rivers & Harbors Congress, which will put into effect a new policy on endorsing specific projects and will work for their accomplishment.

Fire believed to be of incendiary origin destroys the Unity School near East Palestine. The one-room frame building was built in 1894.