Years Ago

Today is Friday, Feb. 17, the 48th day of 2012. There are 318 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1801: The U.S. House of Representatives breaks an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson president; Burr becomes vice president.

1897: The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, convenes its first meeting, in Washington, D.C. .

1933: Newsweek is first published by Thomas J.C. Martyn under the title “News-Week.”

1947: The Voice of America begins broadcasting to the Soviet Union.

1964: The Supreme Court, in Wesberry v. Sanders, rules that congressional districts within each state have to be roughly equal in population.

1992: Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison (he is beaten to death by a fellow inmate in November 1994).

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: The Austintown Board of Education adopts a policy recommended by the Mahoning County Board of Education to address issues raised by AIDS; if a student or employee is diagnosed with AIDS his medical condition will be evaluated by a team named by the county to determine whether he will be assigned to a regular or restricted setting within the school.

About 56,000 cable TV subscribers in Warren and Youngstown have seen their fees for service increase, but have also received access to more channels, including Nickelodeon, Discovery, Showtime and Disney channels.

1972: Campbell City Council gives first reading to a 1972 budget of $1.6 million that would include pay raises of 5.5 percent for most city employees, who are entering the fourth day of a strike.

Four students at Hiram College are living in a geodesic dome they built near campus after they found the college had accepted more students than it had dormitory space for.

1962: Mr. and Mrs. Archie Jackson brave flames, heat and smoke to save their three young sons from the bedroom of their home on Belmont Avenue in Niles after fire breaks out at midnight. The parents were awakened by the screams of one of the boys.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge John W. Ford issues a temporary restraining order barring the Struthers Board of Education from replacing William F. Nellis as board clerk, saying the board never voted to nullify the last year of Nellis’s four year contract before naming a new clerk.

1937: William Probst, 28-year-old Ohio Edison Co. electrician, is in serious condition at South Side hospital with severe burns after brushing against a 66,000 volt line at the Lowellville power plant.

U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan says he has received more than 1,200 letters, cards and telegrams urging him to oppose President Roosevelt’s Supreme Court reform.