Years Ago

Today is Sunday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2011. There are 349 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1883: The U.S. Civil Service Commission is established.

1919: Pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes the first premier of the newly created republic of Poland.

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.

1935: Fugitive gangster Fred Barker and his mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, are killed in a shootout with the FBI at Lake Weir, Fla.

1978: NASA names 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who becomes America’s first woman in space, and Guion S. Bluford Jr., who becomes America’s first black astronaut in space.

1991: The White House announces the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. joins a dozen other congressmen in filing a suit challenging the constitutionality of the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction bill that calls for automatic cuts if Congress and the president fail to meet balanced budget targets.

Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste announces support for Traficant’s proposal to build a canal linking Lake Erie and the Ohio River.

Youngstown State University receives two proposals from potential developers to turn the historic Pollock House into a university inn.

1971: New York consultants recommend that the public transit systems of Youngstown and Warren be consolidated and undertake transportation for 35 local school districts in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

M. Dewey Crum, 72, one of the founders of the Dunning Crum bottling company, dies in North Side Hospital at 72.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development approves construction of a 14-story, $2.3 million apartment building for the elderly at Champion and Wood streets.

1961: President Eisenhower’s proposed budget includes $2.6 million to begin construction of the West Branch Reservoir and $7 million for the Shenango Reservoir.

Salvation Army workers turn over to Youngstown police an envelope containing $11,500 in U.S. Savings Bonds purchased between 1942 and 1957 by a Struthers insurance man, Anthony Butchy, who died in 1959. The envelope was found in a magazine at the SA warehouse.

1936: Former Mayor Mark E. Moore is building a new stone mansion with a three-car garage on a farm in Milton Township northwest of North Jackson.

Gasoline in Youngstown is up a half cent a gallon, to 19.5 cents, and kerosene is up the same, to 13 cents a gallon.

One of the four men killed in an explosion at the town hall in Pendleton, Ind., is identified as Charles McLain, 56, a toolmaker from Warren, Ohio.

Henry Sims Dyer, an assistant fire chief who maintained until the day he retired in 1913 that horse-drawn fire wagons were superior to motorized trucks, dies of infirmities at his home. He was 79.