Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 22, the 22nd day of 2014. There are 343 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1498: During his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrives at the present-day Caribbean island of St. Vincent.

1901: Britain’s Queen Victoria dies at age 81.

1917: President Woodrow Wilson pleads for an end to war in Europe, calling for “peace without victory.” (By April, however, America also was at war.)

1938: Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” is performed publicly for the first time in Princeton, N.J.

1944: During World War II, Allied forces begin landing at Anzio, Italy.

1953: The Arthur Miller drama “The Crucible” opens on Broadway.

1968: The fast-paced, sketch television comedy series “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” premieres on NBC.

1973: The U.S. Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade decision, legalizes abortions using a trimester approach.

Former President Lyndon B. Johnson dies at his Texas ranch at age 64.

1987: Pennsylvania Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, convicted of defrauding the state, proclaims his innocence at a news conference before pulling out a gun and shooting himself to death in front of horrified spectators.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Mahoning County Auditor George Tablack says his office will target the county’s largest delinquent taxpayers after bills are mailed out in a few weeks.

Bishop Edwin C. Boulton of the East Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church kicks off a three-year campaign to generate $15 million to pay pensions to retired clergy during a rally at the Beeghly Center at Youngstown State University.

Val Kepner, a junior at Baldwin Wallace College who played her high school basketball at Badger High in Kinsman, sets an NCAA Division III women’s basketball record for consecutive free throws, hitting 31 straight this season.

1974: The Mahoning County Welfare Department expects tremendous increases in welfare rolls in January because of the bad economy, says Vincent Doria, assistant welfare director.

An Ashland Oil Co. tanker truck is destroyed by fire near East Liverpool, and another truck is struck by gunfire as a strike by independent truckers enters its third day.

Republic Steel Corp.’s Manufacturing Group will abandon its facilities for pre-engineered steel building on Albert Street in Youngstown because sales volume has exceeded production capacity.

1964: Boardman Township police crack a teenage burglary ring that may have staged up to 25 burglaries that netted more than $1,000 in loot.

A federal grant of $214,637 is announced by U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan for planning the first urban renewal project in Youngstown’s central business district.

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” the 21-year-old novel labeled as obscene by some and praised as worthwhile literature by others, will remain on Liberty High School’s reading list after a unanimous vote by the Liberty Board of Education.

1939: Eight Youngstown detectives conduct simultaneous raids at three downtown bookie joints, arresting four men.

William C. Dixon, Ohio relief director, tells a U.S. Senate appropriations committee that Youngstown is one of several cities in Ohio where WPA applicants exceed the jobs available and will be severely hurt if WPA appropriations are cut.

An increase of 42 percent in the Youngstown public library’s book circulation with no increase in overhead costs is reported by Librarian C.W. Sumner.