Years Ago

March 21, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Sunday, March 21, the 80th day of 2010. There are 285 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1960: About 70 people are killed in Sharpeville, South Africa, when police fire on black protesters; the shooting draws international condemnation. (In 1985, police in Langa, South Africa, open fire on blacks marching to mark the 25th anniversary of Sharpeville; the reported death toll varies between 29 and 43.)

1907: U.S. Marines arrive in Honduras to protect American lives and interests in the wake of political violence.

1940: A new government is formed in France by Paul Reynaud, who becomes prime minister, succeeding Edouard Daladier.

1963: The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay is emptied of its last inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

1965: More than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. begin their march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: A spokesman for Metropolitan Savings Bank says it will reopen as soon federal deposit insurance is finalized, but no date is given.

Warren City Police charge a 15-year-old youth with murder in the weekend shooting death of Charles E. Bates, 14, a student at West Junior High School. His body was found near railroad tracks at Penn Avenue and Victoria Street N.W.

Alan G. Brant, former CEO of Centran Bank in Akron, is named president and chief executive officer of Second National Bank of Warren.

1970: Youngstown State University’s capital improvements program gets a $619,000 boost when the Ohio Board of Regents releases architectural planning funds for three YSU buildings.

A two-alarm fire destroys a large vacant building that formerly housed the National Mattress Co. at Tod and West avenues.

1960: A 3-hour search ends happily after 4-year-old Jimmy Reardon wanders away from his mother at the Hickory Shopping Plaza. The lad started home on his own and managed to walk nearly three miles along several busy highways before a Farrell woman saw him at Mercer Avenue and Capitol Court and called police.

The Youngstown FBI office is investigating an anonymous telephone warning that a bomb was aboard a Washington-bound Capital plane. The aircraft, carrying 53 passengers, including 15 who boarded at Youngstown, was delayed 28 minutes at Friendship Airport in Baltimore while a search uncovered no bomb.

Shenango China in New Castle is closed and 1,000 workers are sent home early after a woman calls twice, at 5:50 and 8:30 a.m., saying a bomb in the plant is set to go off at 8:50 a.m. No bomb was found.

1935: Mayor Mark E. Moore says a gambling den on W. Federal Street between Hazel and Phelps that has been the object of attack by Councilman Arthur Gundry and the Youngstown Metropolitan Area Citizens’ Association has been closed for nearly a week.

In pursuit of a candidate who “will command the respect and support of all citizens, regardless of party, race, class or creed,” a group of 20 Republican executive committee members is seeking to persuade William I. Davies, treasurer of the Mahoning National Bank, to run for mayor.