Years Ago

Today is Monday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2012. There are 350 days left in the year. This is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1912: A day before reaching the South Pole, British explorer Robert Scott and his expedition are bitterly disappointed to find evidence in the form of a rock cairn and dog sled tracks showing that Roald Amundsen of Norway and his team had gotten there ahead of them. (Scott and his party perish during the return trip.)

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. (It is later repealed by the 21st Amendment.)

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

1942: Actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother and 20 other people are killed when their plane crashes near Las Vegas, Nev., while en route to California from a war-bond promotion tour.

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

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: United Airlines announces cancellation of its service at Youngstown Municipal Airport effective in April.

Niles police and firefighters join forces in proposing a tax levy to aid both departments.

1972: Mrs. Frank A. Nemec, wife of the president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and Lykes Brothers Steamship Co., christens the S.S. Alemeria Lykes during a launching ceremony in Quincy, Mass. The ship is one of the world’s largest dry-cargo ships with a displacement of 51,000 long tons.

Power failures in Liberty and Vienna townships delay two flights at the Youngstown Municipal Airport, interrupt two high school basketball games and leave Liberty Plaza shoppers in the dark on a Saturday night.

1962:Cash bus fares will increase a penny to 30 cents, but the Youngstown Transit Co. will offer a book of 40 tickets at 25 cents each.

Eugene Brady, a Michigan contractor, testifies in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court that he was solicited for a $35,000 bribe by Trumbull County Democratic Party Chairman Frank Cickelli for a sewage disposal contract.

1937: The U.S. Steel Corp. announces a $60 million expansion program which is likely to provide considerable new business for United Engineering and Foundry Co.

During a lecture at Stambaugh Auditorium promoted by the Youngstown Education Association, Sen. Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota says keeping the U.S. out of war starts with taking the profit out of war and keeping Americans at home, minding their own business.