Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2014. There are 315 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1473: Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus is born in Torun, Poland.

1803: Congress votes to accept Ohio’s borders and constitution.

1864: The Order of the Knights of Pythias, an international, non-sectarian fraternal organization, is founded in Washington, D.C.

1934: A blizzard begins inundating the northeastern United States, with the heaviest snowfall occurring in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

1945: During World War II, some 30,000 U.S. Marines begin landing on Iwo Jima, where they begin a successful monthlong battle to seize control of the island from Japanese forces.

1942: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, clearing the way for the U.S. military to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans during World War II.

1959: An agreement is signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus its independence.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: The Hickory High-Hermitage School District girls gymnastics team wins the District 10 gymnastic tournament and will go to the PIAA state championships at Shippensburg State College.

Mahoning County Auditor George J. Tablack says he will not block the transfer of a $75,000 grant for creation of a child abuse unit from the Children Services Board to county Prosecutor James A. Philomena.

Two owls are on the mend at Animal Charity on South Avenue, a 5-ounce screech owl that suffered a concussion when it flew into a window and a two-pound great horned owl that was found in a field with a lame wing.

1974: Harry Erickson, 56, of Berlin Center dies after being struck by a hit-skip driver while crossing Dewey Avenue near Hillman Street.

The board of trustees of Youngstown State University rejects a call to enter binding arbitration with YSU’s unit of the Ohio Education Association unless such an action were approved by the attorney general.

H.H. Hunneke, general executive of the Youngstown YMCA, reports a deficit of $40,267 in 1973, continuing a trend of recent years.

1964: David H. Zirwas, 28, of Girard is driven to the Ohio Penitentiary to begin a life sentence two hours after pleading guilty in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to the murder of Benjamin Krawiecki, a Boardman vending machine serviceman.

Clarence C. Hanson of Warren, executive vice president of Ajaz Magnethermic Corp., and Pat Darnall of Niles, a pilot for the company, are in fair condition in a Reading, Pa., hospital after their twin engine plane crashed during takeoff.

Youngstown Mayor Anthony B. Flask declares that Youngstown will not pay 55 percent of Mahoning County’s share of the $863,000 comprehensive transportation study for Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

1939: Former Judge James E. Bennett will head the 21st annual drive for the Community Corporation.

Plans for Youngstown’s proposed big municipal airport at Vienna will get formal approval of the WPA district office at Akron giving it “a clear track to Washington” says Fred L. Roose, district WPA administrator.

Manufacture of new nonglare automobile headlights will begin at General Electric Co.’s Niles plant in a month and more than 500 men have already applied for the 150 jobs that will need filled.