Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 26, the 57th day of 2014. There are 308 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1815: Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from exile on the Island of Elba.

1904: The United States and Panama proclaim a treaty under which the U.S. agrees to undertake efforts to build a ship canal across the Panama isthmus.

1919: President Woodrow Wilson signs a congressional act establishing Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

1929: President Calvin Coolidge signs a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

1945: Authorities order a midnight curfew at night clubs, bars and other places of entertainment across the nation.

1952: Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that Britain has developed its own atomic bomb.

1962: After becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, astronaut John Glenn tells a joint meeting of Congress, “Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge have always paid dividends in the long run.”

1984: The last U.S. Marines deployed to Beirut as part of an international peacekeeping force withdraw from the Lebanese capital.

1987: The Tower Commission, which had probed the Iran-Contra affair, issues its report, which rebukes President Ronald Reagan for failing to control his national security staff.

1993: A truck bomb built by terrorists explodes in the parking garage of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.

1994: A jury in San Antonio acquits 11 followers of David Koresh of murder, rejecting claims they’d ambushed federal agents; five were convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

2004: Two church-sanctioned studies documenting sex abuse by U.S. Roman Catholic clergy say that about 4 percent of clerics have been accused of molesting minors since 1950 and blamed bishops’ “moral laxity” in disciplining offenders for letting the problem worsen.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Struthers Mayor Howard W. Heldman proposes that the 16 jobs of civilian police dispatchers be eliminated, saving the city $31,000.

Kim Lazor scores 16 of her 31 points in the fourth quarter to lead Howland’s girls to a 59-41 victory over Boardman in the Division I District Tournament.

The St. Joseph Hospital Auxiliary holds its annual charity ball at the Avalon Inn.

1974: Three former Loblaw stores in Youngstown and two in Warren will be reopened by a Pennsylvania company operating under the name Bilow.

Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge David F. McLain sentences Paul J. Bacik, 45, to life in prison after he was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Patricia, 44, in their Warren home.

L&M Shirt and Trophy easily wins the team championship in the 42nd City Bowling Tournament with team members Dave Yahn, John Kaminski, Greg Patoray, Lou Osborne and Jack Clark rolling a 3,335.

1964: The Reuben McMillan Free Library Association approves the construction of four branch libraries, including one for $162,000 at 1344 Fifth Ave. that will be named for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice John H. Clarke.

The Youngstown Printing Co. submits the only bid for printing voting machine and absentee ballots for the May primaries. The total cost is $9,370 for machine ballots and $1,832 for absentee ballots.

Federal agents are called in to investigate the theft of 2,000 phenobarbital pills from Civil Defense disaster supplies from a tunnel area at the University of Akron.

1939: As many as 100 men and women will be given work indexing the files of Youngstown newspapers, W.H. Harding, Akron supervisor of professional and technical WPA projects, announces. The project is sponsored by the Ohio Archeological and Historical Society in cooperation with The Vindicator and the Youngstown Library.

Japan’s invasion of China, the “Buy American” campaign and Germany’s acquisition of the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia, have combined to bring a boom to Salem district potteries. About 1,700 men and women are working in Sebring potteries, compared to a few hundred not long ago.

Carl L. Watson, state director of the WPA, says it is “only logical” that Youngstown and Mahoning County labor will be used exclusively in construction of the $2.8 million airport.