Today is Wednesday, Feb. 18, the 49th day of 2009. There are 316 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 18, the 49th day of 2009. There are 316 days left in the year. On this date in 1885, Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is published in the U.S. for the first time — having been published in Canada and England the previous December.

In 1564, artist Michelangelo dies in Rome. In 1735, the first opera presented in America, “Flora, or Hob in the Well,” is performed in present-day Charleston, S.C. In 1861, Jefferson Davis is sworn in as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala. In 1930, photographic evidence of Pluto — now designated a “dwarf planet” — is discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. In 1960, the 8th Winter Olympic Games are formally opened in Squaw Valley, Calif., by Vice President Richard M. Nixon. In 1970, the “Chicago Seven” defendants are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention; five are convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968. Those convictions are later reversed.

February 18, 1984: The Eastgate Development and Transportation Agency needs a cash infusion of $150,000 — half of it almost at once and the other half in 30 to 60 days — if it is to continue operating.

Classmates of John F. Kennedy High School graduate Stanley Sliwinski present a plaque commemorating Sliwinski’s sacrifice to Gerald Harkleroade, principal of the school. Sliwinski was one of more than 230 Marines killed when a dynamite-laden truck exploded at Marine headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon.

Lisbeth Lloyd, an Austintown native, sings the role of Musetta in the New York City Opera production of La Boheme at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa.

February 18, 1969: The Mahoning County Welfare Advisory Board appeals to the State Welfare Department to raise the reimbursement rate of $4 to $6 a day for patients at the Mahoning County Nursing Home to the $7 to $8.25 rate it is paying to private nursing homes.

Helen Crabtree of Crabtree Stables, Simpsonville, Ky., regarded as the world’s leading authority on saddle seat equitation, is the guest speaker at a dinner meeting of the Mahoning Saddle and Bridle Association

The Mahoning National Bank opens its 12th branch, an office with a cut stone front at 1742 S. Raccoon road.

February 18, 1959: City Engineer James C. Ryan estimates that it will take at least $355,000 to repair the winter damage to city streets.

Rep. Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown is unanimously re-elected chairman of the Democratic National Congressional Campaign Committee.

Work begins on construction of a $334,000, 47-room addition to Woodside Receiving Hospital on Indianola Avenue.

February 18, 1934: O.W. Lenhart, the new superintendent of schools in Lowellvile, was a teacher, an engineer at Republic Iron and Steel Co. and a National Guardsman who saw action on the Mexican border before returning to teaching, coaching and school administration.

With Ohio forced to cut 20,000 CWA jobs, Mahoning County faces the task of trimming 1,026 men from the local CWA rolls.

Despite opposition from the Brotherhood of Operative Potters, 510 members of three potters groups vote to strike plants at East Liverpool and Chester and Newell, W.Va.