Today is Saturday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2009. There are 320 days left in the year. This is

Today is Saturday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2009. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine’s Day. On this date in 1929, seven hoodlums, rivals of the Al Capone gang in Chicago, Illinois, are murdered in what becomes known as the “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

In 1893, the United States annexes Hawaii by treaty. In 1899, the U.S. Congress approves, and President William McKinley signs, legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections. In 1920, the League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago. In 1946, the first all-electronic computer is introduced at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounces Joseph Stalin’s policies at the Soviet Communist Party conference. In 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducts a televised tour of the White House. In 1972, U.S. trade restrictions against China are relaxed, putting China on same basis as the Soviet Union.

February 14, 1984: Warren City Council’s finance committee presents to council a $476,000 plan to repair and improve the Municipal Justice building, more than double the cost of the proposal council agreed to earlier.

Federal agents seize more than $60,000 cash from Patricia Hobbs Martines, the widow of Pagan motorcycle gang leader Antonio Martines, who died in a gun battle with federal agents near Hubbard.

February 14, 1969: The Youngstown Hospital Association receives $300,000 in Hill Burton funds toward a $1.6 million expansion in outpatient services at South Side Hospital.

Salaries of senators and representatives increase from $30,000 to $42,500 a year, the biggest increase in the history of Congress and a far cry from the one-time scale of $6 per day.

The Ohio Department of Education criticizes the Youngstown Board of Education for a lag in expanding vocation education at the Choffin Vocational School.

February 14, 1959: A North Side woman, her four children and a friend from Girard die when their car plunges into the Pocatalico River about 16 miles north of Charleston, W. Va., during a weekend vacation trip. Dead are Mrs. Madeline Russell, and her children, Madeline Lee Bowden, 13; Iris Bowden, 11; Juanita Bowden, 8, and Kim Bowden, 9, and Mrs. Phillip Spangler, 52.

Shenango Valley leaders are organizing to raise the community’s share of the proposed $28 million Shenango River Dam. More than 90 percent of the cost will be paid by the federal government.

February 14, 1934: Beaver-Mahoning canal backers welcome a new plan of waterway development for the United States, which will be passed on by a presidential board, free of congressional log-rolling.

Frank Purnell, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., says the company will enter the hot strip field, building a Steckel type hot strip mill, the first of its kind.

National news broadcaster Lowell Thomas, in Youngstown to speak at a Foreman’s Club dinner, tells his audience he’s reporting from the Hotel Ohio in Youngstown and quotes a Vindicator story by Ernest N. Nemenyi reporting that steel production is up to 45 percent and railroad traffic is increasing.