Years Ago

Today is Thursday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2010. There are 358 days left in the year. On this date in 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei begins observing three of Jupiter’s moons, which he initially takes to be stars; he spots a fourth moon almost a week later. (Another astronomer, Simon Marius, who claimed to have spotted the moons before Galileo did, later names the Jovian satellites Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.)

In 1608, an accidental fire deva-states the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony. In 1789, the first U.S. presidential election is held. Americans vote for electors who, a month later, choose George Washington to be the nation’s first president. In 1927, commercial trans-Atlantic telephone service is inaugurated between New York and London. In 1942, the Japanese siege of Bataan begins during World War II. In 1949, George C. Marshall resigns as U.S. Secretary of State; President Harry S. Truman chooses Dean Acheson to succeed him.

January 7, 1985: The Ohio Department of Health approves a Certificate of Need for a $4.6 million expansion and renovation of the Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Home in Niles.

Mediterranean tourists don fur coats as a blast of Siberian air stings Europe, killing six in France and bringing snow to Rome for the first time in 14 years.

Dr. Mahendra Prasad is named director of neonatology at St. Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center.

January 7, 1970: Douglas Shasby, district manager of the Ohio Bell Telephone Co., announces plans to spend $13.3 million in the Youngstown district for expansion and improvements in 1970.

Willis C. Smith, who retired in June as superintendent of Mahoning County schools, is named manager of the U.S. census in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

The Youngstown Community Chest budget committee recommends that the Chest buy a building to house central services and several Red Feather agencies.

January 7, 1960: David and Marian Bruce and one of their three small sons, Donald, 7, die when fire sweeps through their home at 137 E. Myrtle Ave. Two brothers, David, 11, and Robert, 3, escaped by jumping from a porch roof into the arms of Anthony Campain, a roomer, who tried to rouse the Bruces.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Erskine Maiden Jr. undercuts the towing monopoly held by Passerelli Brothers in Youngstown after he reverses the conviction of a competing towing truck driver who was charges with interfering with a police officer when he attempted to tow a car from an accident scene with the permission of the car’s owner.

Ohio becomes the first large industrial state to line up officially in support of Vice President Richard Nixon when Ray Bliss, Ohio GOP chairman, announces it is supporting Nixon for president.

January 7, 1935: Louis J. Campbell, the only son of the late James A. Campbell, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., a 1910 graduate of Yale who had been in ill health since serving in the World War, dies in the North Side unit of the Youngstown Hospital. He was 50.

Climaxing a wild opening day, Rep. J. Freer Bittinger, Ashland County Democrat, is elected speaker of the Ohio House by a vote of 69-66 after two Republicans, Edmond Deibel of Medina and Ed King of Vinton, cast their vote for the Democrat. Deibel and King said the Republican choice of Arthur Hamilton of Warren County was a sop to lobbyists.

Sheriff Ralph Elser, a former North Lima school teacher, takes office, replacing W.J. Engelhardt, a Youngstown Police Department veteran who served a single two-year term as sheriff.