Today is Monday, Feb. 23, the 54th day of 2009. There are 311 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Monday, Feb. 23, the 54th day of 2009. There are 311 days left in the year. On this date in 1945, during World War II, U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima capture Mount Suribachi, where they raise the American flag twice. (The second flag-raising is captured in the iconic photo taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal).

In 1633, English diarist Samuel Pepys is born in London. In 1836, the siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas. In 1848, the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, dies in Washington at age 80. In 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington to take office, following word of a possible assassination plot in Baltimore. In 1870, Mississippi is readmitted to the Union. In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission.

February 23, 1984: Youngstown Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro says he will announce the layoff of 20 to 25 city employees as a last resort to balance the city’s budget.

Mahoning County Sheriff James A. Traficant Jr. announces that he will run for Congress as a maverick Democrat and makes his first campaign promise — he will seek to stem the international drug trade with executions.

City Council, reacting to the collapse of the Lincoln Park Bridge, appropriates $30,000 to inspect all city spans.

February 23, 1969: Grease and oil from a car wash find their way into Crandall Park Lake. The 19 swans and 30 ducks who call the lake home won’t go near the water.

Five Youngstown fire companies fight a stubborn hydraulic oil fire for more than three hours at the No. 2 blast furnace at the Campbell Works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and save more than $200,000 worth of hydraulic pumps and motors.

EM2 Harold Hale of Boardman receives a recognition certificate upon completion of seven years of active duty, four of them at the Naval Reserve Training Center on E. LaClede Ave., and JO3 Leon Stennis re-enlists for four years at the center after completing six years of service.

February 23, 1959: Mayor Michael J. Dunn will seek nomination for a second term in the Democratic Party primary.

Pittsburgh Steel Co. announces that it has acquired 78 percent of the Bennett Mining Co. of Hibbing, Minn., from Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and Bethlehem Steel Co.

Ohio senators will vote on a bill that would ban horse racing on Good Friday and a measure that would remove the $65 monthly ceiling on old age pensions.

February 23, 1934: The Youngstown Air Transport Inc. will start a regular air service between Youngstown, Akron and Columbus, using a cabin airplane recently purchased at Cincinnati.

Four Army fliers have been killed, two injured and six planes demolished in Ohio in one week after Army aviators took over air mail deliveries in the state.

Charles Burleigh Galbreath, secretary, librarian and editor of the Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society, a native of Columbiana County who dedicated the spring at the source of Mill Creek Park in the summer 1933, dies of pneumonia at his Columbus home. He was three days short of 76 years old.