YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Feb. 2, the 33rd day of 2015. There are 332 days left in the year. This is Groundhog Day.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1653: New Amsterdam — now New York City — is incorporated.

1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, is signed.

1887: Punxsutawney, Pa., holds its first Groundhog Day festival.

1914: Charles Chaplin makes his movie debut as the comedy short “Making a Living” is released by Keystone Film Co.

The musical “Shameen Dhu,” featuring the song “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral,” opens on Broadway.

1915: Israeli statesman Abba Eban is born in Cape Town, South Africa.

1925: The silent film “The Lost World,” based on the Arthur Conan Doyle novel about explorers who encounter living prehistoric animals in South America, has its world premiere.

1932: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra record “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” for Brunswick Records.

1964: Ranger 6, a lunar probe launched by NASA, crashes onto the surface of the moon as planned but fails to send back any TV images.

1980: NBC News reports the FBI had conducted a sting operation targeting members of Congress using phony Arab businessmen in what became known as “Abscam,” a code name protested by Arab-Americans.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: A survey of utility rates by the Ohio Office of Consumers Counsel shows Youngstown ranks third highest of the eight largest cities with an average monthly cost of $143.05 for electric, gas and telephone.

Thousands of invalid and forged signatures are spotted on Columbiana County petitions calling for a statewide referendum to allow casino gambling, causing the drive to fail in the county.

Big-time college sports has become a “plantation system” in which black athletes are the slaves and white coaches, athletic directors and sports writers are the masters, Dr. Harry Edwards, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, tells a group of about 240 people at Youngstown State University.

1975: The Youngstown district, which has about 25,000 workers in Warren and Lordstown tied to the automobile industry, has a lot at stake in the current petroleum crisis that could repopularize the pint-size car market.

John H. Yerian, 63, of Poland, chairman of the Moreman-Yerian insurance company and past president of several Youngstown area service organizations, dies at his winter residence in Hillsboro Beach, Fla.

Joseph Rook, vice president of financial affairs, says 56 percent of the full- time students enrolled at Youngstown State University receive some type of financial assistance. The 4,809 students received a total of $744,730.

1965: Gov. James Rhodes announces a request that the 106th General Assembly authorize a record $188 million in the 1966-67 budget for the Ohio Department of Mental Hygiene and Correction.

An Associated Press poll of 58 sports editors on the standings of Ohio’s high school basketball teams places Boardman High School, which has a 13-0 record, in the top 10.

1940: A plan to reserve both sides of Wick Avenue between Rayen and Madison avenues exclusively for “cultural purposes” is both advanced and bitterly attacked by property owners in the area during a planning commission hearing at the Butler Institute of American Art.

The installation of new equipment clears the way for 3,625 customers of the Ohio Bell Telephone Co. in Girard and Niles to go to direct dialing, relegating the the operator’s request, “Number please,” to history.

More than 1,200 people, many waiting outside in freezing temperatures, attend the first performances in Youngstown of “Gone With the Wind” at the Warner Theater.