Years Ago
Today is Sunday, March 16, the 75th day of 2014. There are 290 days left in the year.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On this date in:
A.D. 37: Roman emperor Tiberius dies; he is succeeded by Caligula.
1521: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines, where he is killed by natives the following month.
1802: President Thomas Jefferson signs a measure authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
1894: The opera “Thais”, composed by Jules Massenet, premieres in Paris.
1926: Rocket science pioneer Robert H. Goddard successfully tests the first liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn, Mass.
1935: Adolf Hitler decides to break the military terms set by the Treaty of Versailles by ordering the rearming of Germany.
1945: During World War II, American forces declare they have secured Iwo Jima, although pockets of Japanese resistance remained.
1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson sends Congress the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as part of his War on Poverty. (The measure is passed by Congress, and is signed by Johnson in August 1964.)
1968: During the Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre of Vietnamese civilians is carried out by U.S. Army troops; estimates of the death toll vary between 347 and 504.
1974: The Grand Ole Opry House opens in Nashville with a concert attended by President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat.
VINDICATOR FILES
1989: Senate Minority Leader Harry Meshel predicts his chamber will go along with a House-approved bill that could make Ohio the third state after Nevada and New Jersey to legalize casino gambling.
Struthers City Council will draft legislation setting aside a piece of land overlooking Lake Hamilton as the site of a monument honoring the 14 Ohio Marines killed in the 1983 bombing of the Beirut barracks.
The former Sky-Hi Drive-In Theater on U.S. Route 422 in Coitsville is being transformed into the new site of the Victory Assembly of God Church.
1974: Federal officials give the OK for the Western Reserve Transit Authority to buy 50 new buses and the Mahoning Avenue terminal.
Some 500 coal mines accounting for 5 percent of the U.S. production face government closure for failing to comply with federal safety standards.
Edgar Jeffries, former East High all-city star and a sophomore at Washington State University, wins the Bill Rusch Memorial Award given to the player who provided the basketball team with inspirational leadership.
1964: “Automation must not be permitted to make you and me obsolete,” U.S. Sen. Stephen M. Young, running for re-election, tells Youngstown audiences during a campaign sweep through the area.
Louis Gegner, a barber in the college town of Xenia who has been the subject of controversy since 1960 for refusing to cut the hair of Negroes, says he is closing his shop indefinitely following a massive demonstration that brought the arrest of 110 people.
The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Louis S. Kazmirski, dean of Mahoning County Catholic clergy and pastor of St. Stanislaus Church, dies in St. Elizabeth Hospital following an illness of several months.
1939: The Youngstown district is clearly entitled to relief from high freight rates on raw materials needed to make steel, Frederick Delano, chairman of the House National Resources Committee, tells a delegation of Youngstown businessmen visiting Washington, D.C.
Meeting at the Youngstown Club, representatives of 35 Mahoning Valley groups agree to launch a “do or die” fight for the Mahoning-Beaver canal when the House Rivers and Harbors Committee holds hearings in Washington.
Martin “Marty” Flask, ex-convict and bartender at Joe Jennings night club and alleged gambling den in Niles, is shot and killed by his friend, Thomas “Chippy” Mango after a brawl in Mason Street.