Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, March 27, the 86th day of 2013. There are 279 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sights present-day Florida.

1836: The first Mormon temple is dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio.

1912: First lady Helen Herron Taft and the wife of Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Viscountess Chinda, plant the first two of 3,000 cherry trees given as a gift by the mayor of Tokyo.

1977: Five hundred and eighty-three people are killed when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashes into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Mary Rose Oakar, D-Cleveland, tell 300 LTV Steel retirees that work is almost complete on legislation to protect the insurance benefits of retirees of bankrupt companies.

1973: “Stanley,” a 3-year-old, 300-pound lion causes panic in Berlin Center after walking away from the farm of his owners, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Hartman, who weren’t home.

An Austintown couple and two women passengers are killed when a sports car rams their Volkswagen in Market Street at Ridge Avenue. Dead are John C. and Mary Reichert, 44 and 47; Irene Howard, 45, and Louise Harding, 32.

1963: Republic Steel Corp. announces that it will install two basic oxygen steelmaking furnaces each in Warren, Cleveland and Gadsden, Ala., at a cost of $100 million.

City and federal officials agree on procedures for transferring an Air Force hangar at Youngstown Municipal Airport to civilian property.

1938: The Vindicator presents its 70th anniversary edition containing 224 pages, of which 128 are devoted to the history of the Mahoning Valley. Each copy weighs 3 pounds, 2 ounces.

Frank Purnell, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., returns from a trip to the South and says “they don’t know there is a depression or recession down in Texas.” He was visiting Sheet & Tube’s oil well supply subsidiary, Continental Supply Co. in Dallas.