Years Ago

Today is Monday, Feb. 17, the 48th day of 2014. There are 317 days left in the year. This is Presidents Day.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1863: The International Red Cross is founded in Geneva.

1864: During the Civil War, the Union ship USS Housatonic is rammed and sinks in Charleston Harbor, S.C., by the Confederate hand-cranked submarine HL Hunley, which also sinks.

1865: Columbia, S.C., burns as the Confederates evacuate and Union forces move in. (It’s not clear which side set the blaze.)

1897: The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, convenes its first meeting in Washington.

1904: The original two-act version of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” receives a poor reception at its premiere at La Scala in Milan, Italy.

1913: The Armory Show, a landmark modern art exhibit, opens in New York City.

1933: Newsweek magazine is first published by Thomas J.C. Martyn under the title News-Week.

Vindicator files

1989: Rohrer Inc., a Boardman company with 25 employees, bests two competitors, including one from Germany, to win a $1.1 million contract with Westinghouse Electric Co., which is developing a new kind of transformer.

Mahoning County Prosecutor James A. Philomena threatens to sue Auditor George Tablack, who he says is blocking establishment of a special child- abuse unit in the prosecutor’s office.

Former Mayor Frank R. Franko, who served in 1960 and 1961, files to run in the May Democratic primary as a challenger to Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro.

1974: A group of auto dealers on Wick Avenue in Youngstown unveils a 15-passenger van known as the “Wick Sixpress,” that will ferry passengers who leave their cars for servicing at one of the dealerships to their jobs or shopping downtown or to the Southern Park Mall.

Republican mayors of the Youngstown district’s three largest cities, Jack C. Hunter of Youngstown, Arthur C. Richards of Warren and William Thorpe of Niles, suggest that Gov. John J. Gilligan lobby the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further soften Mahoning River pollution standards.

Herbert E. Strawbridge, chairman of the Cleveland-headquartered Higbee Co., expresses confidence in the restoration of Youngstown’s Downtown as a dominant business area in Northeastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania during a visit to the city.

1964: A 19-year-old Youngstown University coed, Alice Seminara, is killed and two male YU students injured, when they are struck by a hit-skip driver in state Route 170 near the Youngstown Municipal Airport after pushing their disabled vehicle from a ditch.

Youngstown police intelligence squad members conduct three bolita raids, arresting five men and a woman and seize $444 and a number of slips on the national Puerto Rican lottery.

Named to The Vindicator’s All-City Basketball First Team, Willie Bryant, South; Fred Holden, Mooney; Mike Canavan, Ursuline; Joe LaVolpa, Chaney, and Rich Buzin, Wilson.

1939: Ohio PWA officials in Columbus say Youngstown will not be permitted to award a bid for construction of City Hall to anyone except the low bidder. The city sought to give the contract to a Youngstown contractor over one from Cleveland.

The Palace Theater is jammed for the opening performance of the Rotary Club’s variety show for the club’s crippled children charities.