Today is Friday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2009. There are 349 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Friday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2009. There are 349 days left in the year. On this date in 1920, Prohibition begins in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution takes effect, one year to the day after its ratification. (It is later repealed by the 21st Amendment.)

In 1547, Ivan IV of Russia (popularly known as “Ivan the Terrible”) is crowned Czar. In 1919, pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes the first premier of the newly created republic of Poland. In 1942, actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother and about 20 other people are killed when their plane crashes near Las Vegas while returning from a war-bond promotion tour. In 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower takes command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in London. In 1969, two manned Soviet Soyuz spaceships become the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer personnel.

January 16, 1984: Progress for blacks in the Youngstown area has hit racial barriers and stalled, two religious leaders say during Martin Luther King Day seminars held at the First Presbyterian Church.

A four-hour telethon on WYTV Channel 33 in Youngstown raises $27,000 for the United Negro College Fund.

Census Bureau figures show that nearly 6 million women earn more than their husbands and women are the primary wage earners in 12 percent of husband-wife households.

January 16, 1969: Damage is estimated at thousands of dollars as vandals strike five homes in Youngstown and two in Boardman. All the homes were entered while the owners were away and vandalism, not theft, was the apparent motive of the intruders.

Youngstown City Council declines to approve a first phase feasibility study for a new airport terminal until more figures are provided on financing the $4.8 million project.

Three new cadet patrolmen are sworn in by Municipal Judge John J. Leskovyansky. They are Salvatore Traficant, Samuel Lee Dubose and Robert E. Palmer.

January 16, 1959: Frank Brancato, who is linked to the notorious Jungle Inn in Trumbull County, is among those subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury that is probing the rackets in Northeastern Ohio.

Various legal maneuvers, including a motion that the defendants be tried separately, threaten to delay the trial of four young men charged with kidnapping and raping a teenage Struthers girl in November.

January 16, 1934: State Examiner Joyce Ross testifies during the embezzlement trial of Fred Labelle, former secretary-treasurer of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, that Labelle told him his real name is Frederick Albert Epstein and that he is the son of an international adventuress.

Ohio Attorney General John W. Bricker rules that Youngstown City Council must include the entire $868,854 levied as an annual assessment by the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District in the city’s budget, which will result in a .3 mill increase in the city’s tax rate.

Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Lynn B. Griffith praises the county grand jury for opening an investigation into slot machines and gambling rackets in Trumbull County.