Today is Thursday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2009. There are 329 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Thursday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2009. There are 329 days left in the year. On this date in 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a Judiciary Reorganization Bill that includes a provision to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court; critics accuse Roosevelt of attempting to “pack” the high court with justices who would side with his New Deal policies. (The measure fails in Congress.)

In 1631, the co-founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, and his wife, Mary, arrive in Boston from England. In 1887, Verdi’s opera “Otello” premieres at La Scala. In 1917, Congress passes, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, an immigration act severely curtailing the influx of Asians. In 1940, Glenn Miller and his orchestra record “Tuxedo Junction” for RCA Victor’s Bluebird label. In 1973, services are held at Arlington National Cemetery for Army Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, the last official American combat casualty before the Vietnam cease-fire. In 1989, the Soviet Union announces that all but a small rearguard contingent of its troops have left Afghanistan.

February 5, 1984: Warren Fire Chief Roger Hernon says the city’s paramedic program is on the verge of collapse. Once with a manpower of nine, it is slated to be cut to four, which is too few to continue operation.

Armco Steel puts up several billboards around Middletown, Ohio, proclaiming, “Foreign Steal! Ask Congress to pass the Fair Trade in Steel Act.”

February 5, 1969: A service station attendant in Youngstown and a barmaid in Niles are found shot to death, apparently during similar robberies. Dead are Clarence Sandrock, 53, and Dessiree Jackson, 52.

Dan Maggianetti Jr., former Youngstown police vice squad chief, is appointed Boardman police chief.

The Steel City Parents League reads a statement to the Youngs-town Board of Education demanding an end to suspension from classes and physical punishment as disciplinary measures in city schools.

A 74-year-old Boardman widow was savagely beaten with a tire iron when she surprised a teenage vandal wrecking her car at 7205 Glendale Ave.

February 5, 1959: A federal grand jury in New York is investigating General Motors Corp., the world’s largest producer of cars, as part of a probe by the Justice Department’s antitrust division.

Youngstown City Engineer James Ryan says completion of the city’s arterial highway system by 1969 or 1970 will mean the elimination of downtown traffic bottlenecks.

One man is presumed dead and two blast furnaces are out of operation after a diesel crane and three hopper cars are dumped into the blast furnaces yard when a trestle collapses at the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. Campbell Works.

February 5, 1934: The Mahoning County CWA complaint board issues a ruling that makes all aliens who do not have citizenship papers ineligible for CWA jobs. The names of men guilty of illegal entry who show up on CWA records will be turned over to federal authorities.

During a sermon at Westminster Presbyterian Church, the Rev. S.F. Palmer says many of Youngstown’s leading citizens, including a lawyer, an ex-police chief, a banker and a woman held in high esteem, are landlords of properties that have been turned into houses of ill repute. “The rentals are substantial” and the properties are rundown, indicating that the owners know their properties are being put to illegitimate use, the minister says.