YEARS AGO

March 11, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Thursday, March 11, the 70th day of 2010. There are 295 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1861: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted during a convention in Montgomery, Ala.

1888: The famous Blizzard of ’88 begins inundating the northeastern United States, resulting in some 400 deaths.

1942: As Japanese forces continue to advance in the Pacific during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur leaves the Philippines for Australia. (MacArthur, who subsequently vows, “I shall return,” keeps that promise more than 21‚Ñ2 years later.)

1965: The Reverend James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, dies after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Ala.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: A caravan of 35 cars and vans leaves Youngstown for Detroit, carrying about 200,000 letters from Mahoning Valley residents asking that the new Saturn plant be located here.

First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Youngstown breaks ground for its new 30,000 square foot headquarters on Boardman Poland Road.

1970: Two executives of General Motors Corp.’s Lordstown plant are among 13 Fisher Body factory managers injured when an elevator plunges from the second floor to the basement of a GM building in Warren, Mich. John B. Sutherland suffered a broken leg; Orman Perkins, a broken ankle.

1960: Irwin Such, editor in chief of Steel Magazine, tells 400 Youngstown district steel and iron executives that the 1960s will be a decade of fabulous growth, with the steel industry adding at least 10 million tons in steelmaking capacity.

Alfred J. Knight, 81, of Highland Avenue, Poland Township, is in satisfactory condition in South Side Hospital after spending four days in his home without heat. Night time temperatures dropped into the single digits.

1935: Over a million and a half dollars in Youngs-town national bank notes — one of the oldest forms of paper money in existence in the United States, dating back to 1863 when national banks were given the right to issue their own money — are being retired under the new U.S. Treasury plan.