Years Ago

Today is Monday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2012. There are 357 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1793: Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flies between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J.

1861: The Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements and supplies to Federal troops at Fort Sumter, S.C., retreats because of artillery fire.

1931: Bobbi Trout and Edna May Cooper break an endurance record for female aviators as they return to Mines Field in Los Angeles after flying a Curtiss Robin monoplane continuously for 122 hours and 50 minutes.

1945: During World War II, American forces begin landing at Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.

1968: The Surveyor 7 space probe makes a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.

1987: The White House releases a January 1986 memorandum prepared for President Ronald Reagan by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North showing a link between U.S. arms sales to Iran and the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. resurrects a bill aimed at discouraging American companies from closing U.S. manufacturing plants and reopening abroad. Opponents of similar Traficant bill in 1985 said taxing goods manufactured overseas by U.S. companies as imports represented a tax increase on those firms.

Trumbull County commissioners furlough 11 employees in response to a projected deficit in the county’s $13.1 million general fund.

1972: Niles is under pressure to expand its sewage treatment facilities after a report shows that the city dumped an estimated 200 million gallons of raw sewage in the Mahoning River during 1971.

The Mahoning County Democratic Executive Committee decides to cooperate with Gov. John J. Gilligan in promoting the nomination of U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie for the Democratic nomination for president.

1962: The bodies of a woman and five children are recovered from the Hoover Reservoir north of Columbus after the car Mary Helen Rutherford was driving crashed through a guardrail and plunged into the 30-foot-deep lake. The bodies of three missing children have not be recovered.

1937: Nick Nierich, 44, of N. Walnut Street, is instantly killed when a speeding auto strikes him in Federal Street with such force that a fender had to be removed from the car before his body could be extricated. The 26-year-old driver is being held on a suspicion charge.

Youngstown Finance Director Frank W. Barton says city department heads will be required to submit order requests to his office before — not after — purchasing any supplies.