Years Ago

Today is Friday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2014. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine’s Day.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1014: Henry II is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Benedict VIII.

1778: The American ship Ranger carries the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.

1859: Oregon is admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.

1895: Oscar Wilde’s final play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” opens at the St. James Theatre in London.

1903: The Department of Commerce and Labor is established. (It was divided into separate departments of Commerce and Labor in 1913.)

1912: Arizona becomes the 48th state of the union as President William Howard Taft signs a proclamation.

1924: The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. of New York is formally renamed International Business Machines Corp., or IBM.

1929: The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” takes place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang are gunned down.

1949: Israel’s Knesset convenes for the first time.

1963: Federico Fellini’s art-house classic “81/2” is first released in Italy.

1979: Adolph Dubs, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, is kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

1984: Six-year-old Stormie Jones becomes the world’s first heart- liver transplant recipient at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (she lives until November 1990).

1989: Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” a novel condemned as blasphemous.

2004: Guerrillas overwhelm a police station west of Baghdad, killing 23 people and freeing dozens of prisoners.

Twenty-eight people are killed when the glass-and-concrete roof of an indoor water park in Moscow collapses.

2009: Savoring his first big victory in Congress, President Barack Obama uses his weekly radio and Internet address to celebrate the just-passed $787 billion economic stimulus bill as a “major milestone on our road to recovery.”

Jazz drummer Louie Bellson, who’d performed with Duke Ellington and his late wife, Pearl Bailey, dies in Los Angeles at age 84.

2013: Billionaire Warren Buffett agrees to buy H.J. Heinz Co. for $23.3 billion in the richest deal ever in the food industry.

American Airlines and US Airways announced an $11 billion merger that turned American into the world’s biggest airline.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Trumbull County commissioners approve a 1989 budget of $143.5 million, an increase of $200,000 over a year earlier.

State Sen. Charles Henry of Chardon says he will oppose a bill introduced by state Rep. Michael Verich of Warren that would exempt Warren from a state law requiring a municipal court district to have a population of 100,000 to have an elected clerk of courts.

Austintown Township police are replacing their 38-caliber six-shot revolvers with semiautomatic pistols that can be loaded with up to 16-rounds of ammunition.

1974: Councilman William R. Shranko, R-4th, asks the Youngstown Law Department for an opinion on which bingo games are legal under the law.

The Youngstown-Warren area would be eligible for $8 million in federal mass transit subsidies under President Nixon’s proposed program to overhaul the nation’s transit systems.

A series of musical variety type shows is being planned to replace automobile races at the Canfield Fairgrounds over the summer. Some type of grandstand show is planned for every Saturday from May until early August.

1964: A proposal to repeal seniority rights for Youngstown city employees is given first reading by city council over the strenuous objection of John Trimboli, district director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Jim Timmerman and Fred “Red” Jones lead Youngstown University’s cagers to a 101-62 victory over St. Vincent College, giving the Penguins their 19th win and wins in all 13 at home games.

Bud J. Fares, editor of a local weekly night club magazine, is appointed by the county commissioners and city board of control as the city-county civil defense director at an annual salary of $7,920.

1939: Steel output gains a point to 45 percent of capacity as Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. adds an open hearth furnace at Campbell.

Drastic cuts in Mahoning County’s WPA rolls affecting at least 1,000 aliens with only first papers and nearly 1,000 other people eligible for other forms of public assistance are announced by County Director Isadore Feuer.

Members of the Salem Park Commission discuss development of West Side Park, which may include a modern swimming pool.