Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Jan. 15, the 15th day of 2011. There are 350 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1777: The people of New Connecticut declare their independence. (The tiny republic later becomes the state of Vermont.)

1844: The University of Notre Dame receives its charter from the state of Indiana.

1929: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is born in Atlanta.

1943: Work is completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of War (now Defense).

1961: A U.S. Air Force radar tower off the New Jersey coast collapses into the Atlantic Ocean during a severe storm, killing all 28 men aboard.

2009: US Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger ditches his Airbus 320 in the Hudson River after a flock of birds disables both the plane’s engines; all 155 people aboard survive.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986:Rank and file employees of the Sharon Steel Corp. vote 1,311 to 574 to give the company an eight-month concessionary contract.

U.S. Rep. Dennis E. Eckart, D-11th, and the Celeste administration can’t seem to agree on a time line for converting a portion of the Ravenna Arsenal into an industrial park.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge William G. Houser revokes probation for Benny Lee Adams, reinstituting a 2- to 5-year term at the Mansfield Reformatory, after Adams is found to have in his possession a credit card belonging to Gina Tenney, a murdered YSU students.

1971: Youngstown Mayor Jack C. Hunter announces that he will seek the Republican nomination for re-election to a second two-year term.

Ron Smith, Rich Denamen and Billy Johnson spark YSU’s Penguins to an 88-77 victory over Gannon College.

William C. Hill is named manager of the Western Union office at 211 W. Boardman St., succeeding James Bruno, who was promoted to an area communications representative in Dayton.

1961: John Harvey, a basketball star at the former Scienceville High School, is named coordinator of physical education at Tennessee A&1 after earning his doctorate at Columbia.

Six members of Girard City Council vote to oppose a suggested new route for the Keystone Shortway Extension through the city’s South Side.

1936: The W.B. Pollock Co. wins a $100,000 contract for the rebuilding of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.’s “B” blast furnace at Campbell.

Dorothy Fuldheim, a vivacious crusader for neutrality and democracy, gives a stirring lecture at the YMCA to 400 members of the Mahoning Valley Foremen’s Club. Returning from years of travel and study in Europe, she says war is in the air there.

Muriel Knouss of Youngstown, a member of Phi Alpha sorority, is a candidate for the title of Miss Kent State.

John Clayton, 39, of Campbell is killed almost instantly when struck by a westbound streetcar near Stop 9.