Years Ago

Today is Sunday, March 20, the 79th day of 2011. There are 286 days left in the year. Spring arrives at 6:21 p.m. Eastern time.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1727: Physicist, mathematician and astronomer Sir Isaac Newton dies in London.

1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel about slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is first published in book form after being serialized.

1899: Martha M. Place of Brooklyn, N.Y., becomes the first woman to be executed in the electric chair as she is put to death at Sing Sing for the murder of her stepdaughter.

1956: Union workers end a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corp.

1969: John Lennon marries Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.

1995: In Tokyo, 12 people are killed, more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin are leaked on five separate subway trains by Aum Shinrikyo cult members.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: The Ohio Department of Transportation says a section of Interstate 80 in Hubbard Township that was repaved as part of a $10.3 million resurfacing project is crumbling and will have to be repaired.

East High School’s athletic department has amassed more than $21,000 in debt to the Youngstown Board of Education and area merchants and has no money in its account to pay it off.

1971: The U.S. Department of Labor will give $285,680 to Republic Steel Corp. to hire and train 125 disadvantaged jobless people, U.S. Rep. Charles J. Carney, D-17, says.

The American Social Health Association gives Youngstown a rating of “good,” the best it grants to local governments for keeping prostitution at a minimum.

Noting that the U.S. District Court hasn’t sat in Youngstown for a few years, Chief Judge Frank J. Battisti issues a reminder that there are traditions in behavior and dress that apply to participants and spectators alike in court. Men are expected to wear jackets and ties, women dresses or skirts, and laughter and other indecorous behavior are out.

1961: A fire and two minor explosions threaten 17 prisoners on the sixth floor of the Mahoning County Jail when a mattress and debris between the walls is ignited, possibly by a discarded cigarette.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. lights three open heaths and will relight others at its Campbell Works, resulting in the recall of hundreds of furloughed steelworkers.

1936: Struthers newest business block, the marble-faced, one-story Reynolds Building, opens with three tenants, Paris Shoes, the Struthers Dress Shop and Meine’s Flower Shop.

The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and Republic Steel Corp. of Youngstown are among 15 steel companies charged with violating the Federal Trade Commission Act by refusing to sell tin plate sheets to some customers.