Today is Sunday, Feb. 22, the 53rd day of 2009. There are 312 days left in the year. On this date in

February 22, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Sunday, Feb. 22, the 53rd day of 2009. There are 312 days left in the year. On this date in 1732, the first president of the United States, George Washington, is born in Westmoreland County in the Virginia Colony.

In 1784, a U.S. merchant ship, the Empress of China, leaves New York for the Far East to trade goods with China. In 1862, Jefferson Davis, already the provisional president of the Confederacy, is inaugurated for a six-year term following his election in November 1861. In 1889, President Grover Cleveland signs an enabling act paving the way for the Dakotas, Montana and Washington to become states. In 1909, the Great White Fleet, a naval task force sent on a round-the-world voyage by President Theodore Roosevelt, returns after more than a year at sea. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge delivers the first radio broadcast from the White House as he addresses the country over 42 stations. In 1934, Frank Capra’s romantic comedy “It Happened One Night,” starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, opens at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. In 1959, the inaugural Daytona 500 race is held in Daytona Beach, Fla.; although Johnny Beauchamp is initially declared the winner, the victory is later awarded to Lee Petty. In 1980, the U.S. Olympic hockey team upsets the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y., 4-3. (The U.S. team goes on to win the gold medal.) In 1984, 12-year-old David Vetter, who had spent most of his life in a plastic bubble because he had no immunity to disease, dies 15 days after being removed from the bubble for a bone-marrow transplant.

February 22, 1984: An odor and off-taste that showed up in Mahoning Valley Sanitary District water is attributed to algae. John Tucker, chief engineer, says the algae growth was accelerated by a recent warm spell. The water is safe to drink.

Pennsylvania Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer will be the guest speaker at the annual Lincoln Day Dinner of Sharon Republicans.

The Ohio Controlling Board releases $70,000 for a four-county study of the economy of the Lake-to-River region of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties.

February 22, 1969: The Rev. Spurgeon N. DuLaney, 76, pastor of Newton Falls-Braceville First Baptist Church, is killed by a car while crossing First Street SW in Warren.

A former Youngstown man, Ronald Bennett, 28, is one of four Washington, D.C., policemen wounded in a gunfight in which a berserk civilian killed two women and wounded the police officers, before killing himself.

Some 80 youths, 13 to 22, attend a meeting of Youngstown Organization of United Teens at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church to discuss the social, recreational and education programs they would like to see developed.

February 22, 1959: Ohio Bell Telephone Co. workmen erect a 20-foot cross at Lake Park Cemetery to honor the Rev. George Bernnard, author of the hymn “The Old Rugged Cross,” who died in the fall of 1958.

With temperatures ranging between 16 and 25 degrees, there will be ice skating at Wick Park and Borts Field, says Edward A. Finamore, superintendent of Youngstown parks.

Joe Boland, the radio voice of the Fighting Irish and a former Notre Dame football star and coach, will speak at the St. Patrick’s Day dinner sponsored by the Mahoning County Board of Ancient Order of the Hibernians.

February 22, 1934: Gen. Edward Markham, Army engineer chief, recommends that private interests in Youngstown raise $3 million as the local share of a Beaver-Mahoning canal that would link Youngstown to the Ohio River.

L.W. Sherman, agent at the county experimental farm at Canfield, says Mahoning County’s peach crop may have been severely damaged by recent intense cold.

The Mahoning County Courthouse, City Hall, banks, the public library, post office and city schools are closed for Washington’s Birthday.