Years Ago

Today is Sunday, March 11, the 71st day of 2012. There are 295 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1861: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Ala.

1888: The famous Blizzard of ’88 begins inundating the northeastern United States, resulting in some 400 deaths.

1930: Former President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

1942: As Japanese forces continue to advance in the Pacific during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur leaves the Philippines for Australia. (MacArthur, who subsequently vows, “I shall return,” keeps that promise more than 21/2 years later.)

1962: First lady Jacqueline Kennedy meets with Pope John XXIII at the Vatican.

1965: The Rev. James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, dies after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Ala.

1977: More than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims are freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations join the negotiations.

1985: Mikhail S. Gorbachev is chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.

2011: A magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami strike Japan’s northeastern coast.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich says during a news conference at Youngstown City Hall that he and Cleveland’s city council could not have pursued the economic revitalization of Cleveland if voters had not approved mayoral and council terms of four years. Council had been unable “to get its act together” running every two years, he said.

Youngstown’s 13-year-old, $300,000 aerial truck is heavily damaged when it strikes a building at 1554 Poland Ave. while on a minor run.

1972: Dr. Richard F. Viering, Youngstown superintendant of schools, commends students, parents and community leaders for their role in the return to orderly functions at Hayes Middle School following a week of tension over discipline at the school.

The proprietor and nine other people are arrested for gambling at an after hours bottle club at 209 North Hines St.

1962: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. will install the industry’s largest and fastest line for finishing and shearing hot rolled coils and sheets as part of a $10 million program at the Campbell Works.

Exactly two years after the slaying of S. Joseph “Sandy” Naples and his girlfriend, Mary Ann Vrancich, on the porch of her Youngstown home, Canton police are following a lead into the theft of the murder weapon, a shotgun that had been stolen from a Canton police cruiser.

Henry Katschke, Scout executive for Mahoning Valley Boy Scouts of America, heads a program in which there are 5,591 boys between the ages of 9 and 16 participating in 206 packs, troops and posts.

1937: About 600 salaried employees of the Carnegie-Illinois Corp. in the Youngstown district are among the corporation’s 20,000 office workers who will get a 10 percent pay increase.

Law Director Vern Thomas orders the city finance department to withhold payment of $1,200 from the Bord Disposal Co. to offset overcharges in a scheme by which drivers watered loads of garbage to increase payment.

Mayor Lionel Evans says reduced revenue from sales taxes and other sources is shifting Youngstown back toward operating in the red, and he is prepared to institute “drastic economies” if necessary.