Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2014. There are 329 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1783: Sweden recognizes the independence of the United States.

1914: “Beat Generation” author William S. Burroughs is born in St. Louis.

1919: Movie studio United Artists is incorporated by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith and Charles Chaplin.

1922: The first edition of Reader’s Digest is published.

1937: President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes increasing the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices; the proposal, which failed in Congress, drew accusations that Roosevelt was attempting to “pack” the nation’s highest court.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Caesarian section rates among hospitals in the five-county northeastern Ohio-western Pennsylvania region range from a low of 16.4 percent at Jameson Memorial Hospital in New Castle to a high of 31.9 percent at Youngstown Osteopathic Hospital.

Boardman High School’s girls’ track coach, Denis Gorski, is named 1988 National High School Coach of the Year for the North Region of the United States.

1974: Two tractor-trailer rigs are destroyed by fire at the Leonard Express Co. terminal in Weathersfield Township, and two more shooting incidents are reported in the Youngstown area as strike by independent truckers continues.

The NAACP, noting that Woodrow Wilson and Chaney High schools are mostly white, demands that the Youngstown Board of Education desegregate city schools by September.

Charles V. Blair, assistant to the president at the University of Akron, is named vice provost for administrative affairs for the new Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

1964: U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown says he will vote for the Civil Rights Bill, saying he has supported anti-discrimination measures Throughout his 28 years in Congress.

Youngstown records its first traffic fatality of 1964 when Lucy Magnolia, 74, is struck and killed in Himrod Avenue after leaving a neighbor’s home where she had gotten help in filling out an income tax form.

1939: Despite Gov. John W. Bricker’s economy moves, which resulted in the elimination of many state jobs in Mahoning County and elsewhere, county Republican Chairman Chad Rose announces that 29 people here will get deputy registrar jobs and 29 have obtained highway positions.

William Loller, secretary of the Youngstown Auto Club, and a group of merchants launch a movement to have Route 422 changed so that it runs through Youngstown’s business district, which would bring 10,000 cars a day through town.

The Youngstown Committee for China Relief completes plans to raise $10,000 during a one-day campaign at local churches.