Today is Thursday, Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2015. There are 322 days left in the year.

February 12, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1554: Lady Jane Grey, who’d claimed the throne of England for nine days, and her husband, Guildford Dudley, are beheaded after being condemned for high treason.

1809: Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, is born in present-day Larue County, Ky.

1818: Chile officially proclaims its independence, more than seven years after initially renouncing Spanish rule.

1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded.

1914: Groundbreaking takes place for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1915: The cornerstone is laid for the Lincoln Memorial.

1924: George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” premieres in New York.

1940: The radio play “The Adventures of Superman” debuts with Bud Collyer as the Man of Steel.

1959: The redesigned Lincoln penny — with an image of the Lincoln Memorial replacing two ears of wheat on the reverse side — goes into circulation.

1963: A Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 720 breaks up during severe turbulence and crashes into the Florida Everglades, killing all 43 people aboard.

1973: Operation Homecoming begins as the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict takes place.

1995: Iron Butterfly bass player Philip “Taylor” Kramer disappears; four years later, his skeletal remains are found inside his wrecked minivan in a ravine near Malibu, Calif.

1999: The Senate votes to acquit President Bill Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice.

2005: Former presidential candidate Howard Dean is elected national Democratic chairman during the party’s winter meeting.

“The Gates,” a 16-day art exhibit created by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, debuted in New York’s Central Park with the unfurling of saffron-colored fabric banners suspended from 16-foot-high frames.

2010: On the day the Winter Olympics opens in Vancouver, British Columbia, Nodar Kumaritashvili, a 21-year-old luger from the republic of Georgia, is killed in a high-speed crash during a practice run.

Three University of Alabama-Huntsville professors are gunned down during a faculty meeting; police charge neurobiologist Amy Bishop with capital murder. (Bishop later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)

2014: Legislation to raise the U.S. federal debt limit and prevent a crippling government default clears Congress.

Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland tie for gold in the Olympic women’s downhill at Sochi; it is the first gold-medal tie in Olympic alpine skiing history.

Actor-comedian Sid Caesar, 91, dies in Beverly Hills, Calif.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: A strike by 114 clerks and custodians against the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County enters its 12th day with the libraries still closed and no talks scheduled.

To keep tighter control on gasoline use, Warren is no longer allowing off-duty police officers and detectives to take their city vehicles home, ending a policy begun about four years earlier.

Despite Mayor Pat Ungaro’s strong support for the proposal, the Youngstown Park and Recreation Commission votes not to release 3.5 acres at the abandoned Chase swimming pool site for construction of a shelter for homeless women and children.

1975: Dr. Richard Boyd, superintendent of Warren City School District, tells the board of education that 125 employees, including 76 teachers, will be laid off effective July 1 unless additional funds are received.

Gov. James A. Rhodes’ plan to put an increase in the state gasoline tax on the June ballot gets a boost when President Ford announces that he is releasing $2 billion in highway trust funds, but Ohio could claim its $100 million only if it has matching funds.

A 53-year-old West Marion Avenue man on probation from Virginia for rape and other sex offenses is charged with rape and abduction in the rape of a 5-year-old South Side girl.

1965: U.S. pilot Lt. Cmdr. Robert Shumaker of New Wilmington, Pa., is shot down and captured by North Vietnam during a U.S.-South Vietnamese airstrike.

Fred Adams, vice president of American Motors Corp., is the speaker at Packard Music Hall in Warren for the Automobile Dealers Association of Eastern Ohio.

1940: Mrs. George L. Fordyce, the former Grace Walton, for many years one of the city’s leaders in business and civic life, dies of a heart attack at her home at 265 Crandall Ave. She was 81.

Kathryn Bruder Packard, widow of W.D. Packard, one of the creators of the first Packard automobile, dies at her home at 1320 Mahoning Ave. NW, Warren. Her husband’s will provides $150,000 for a memorial music hall and an endowed band for Warren, but he specified that the bequest should not become effective until after her death.

Mrs. Guy Joyner and her three sons, Donald, Thomas and Jack, ranging in age from 9 to 12 years, flee to safety from their smoke-filled home at 565 Willis Ave. when fire breaks out in a clothes chute, sending flames to the second floor.