Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Feb. 18, the 49th day of 2012. There are 317 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1546: Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, dies in Eisleben.

1564: Artist Michelangelo dies in Rome.

1735: The first opera presented in America, “Flora, or Hob in the Well,” is performed in present-day Charleston, S.C.

1885: Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is published in the U.S. for the first time.

1953: “Bwana Devil,” the movie that heralded the 3D fad of the 1950s, has its New York opening.

1970: The “Chicago Seven” defendants are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention; five are convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968 (those convictions were later reversed).

1984: Italy and the Vatican sign an accord under which Roman Catholicism ceases to be the state religion of Italy.

2001: Auto racing star Dale Earnhardt Sr. dies in a crash at the Daytona 500; he was 49.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Ford Motor Co. announces a record profit of nearly $3.3 billion in 1986, surpassing its larger rival, General Motors Corp., for the first time since 1924, when Henry Ford was in the midst of turning out Model Ts. GM reports earnings of $2.9 billion.

Hourly employees of Sharon Steel Corp. must accept terms of a four-year concessionary contract or risk the loss of the company, Walter Sieckman, the chief operating officer, tells nearly 1,000 workers during a meeting at Sharon High School.

1972: Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Clyde W. Osborne dismisses lawsuits brought by two Valu King grocery stores that sought an injunction to bar Boardman police from enforcing Ohio‘s Sunday sales law.

Youngstown police raid a Willis Avenue home and confiscate almost $500 in counterfeit $5 and $10 bills hidden under boards on a back porch

1962: The Salvation Army opens its new $500,000 rehabilitation center at 574 Mahoning Ave. in a former warehouse.

Charles G. Nichols, president of the G.M. McKelvey Co., will lead an effort in support of construction of a Lake Erie-Ohio River canal.

Mahoning County residents turn out in record numbers for the second day of the Sabin oral polio vaccine distribution, with 93,805 doses distributed at 19 centers operated by the Mahoning County Medical Society.

1937: Justice of the Peace Joseph Repasky of Coitsville Township resigns in the midst of an investigation of five squires and constables launched by county Prosecutor William A. Ambrose.

Hamilton Noss, 30, of New Castle dies instantly when he jumps in front of a locomotive at the Mahoningtown station. Noss, a well-known amateur actor, was said to have been in ill health.

The Mahoning County Liquor Dealers Association lines up in support of Sen. Maurice W. Lipscher’s bill to outlaw Sunday liquor sales in Ohio.