YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Feb. 16, the 47th day of 2015. There are 318 days left in the year. This is Presidents Day.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1804: Lt. Stephen Decatur leads a successful raid into Tripoli Harbor to burn the U.S. Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates during the First Barbary War.

1862: The Civil War Battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee ends as some 12,000 Confederate soldiers surrender; Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s victory earns him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant.”

1868: The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is organized in New York City.

1923: The burial chamber of King Tutankhamen’s recently unearthed tomb is unsealed in Egypt by English archaeologist Howard Carter.

1945: American troops land on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines during World War II.

1959: Fidel Castro becomes premier of Cuba a month and a-half after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

1961: The United States launches the Explorer 9 satellite.

1968: The nation’s first 911 emergency telephone system is inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.

1977: Janani Luwum, the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, and two other men are killed in what Ugandan authorities say was an automobile accident.

1988: Seven people are shot to death during an office rampage in Sunnyvale, Calif., by a man obsessed with a co-worker who was wounded in the attack. (The gunman, Richard Farley, is on death row.)

1994: More than 200 people are killed when a powerful earthquake shook Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

1998: A China Airlines Airbus A300-600R trying to land in fog near Taipei, Taiwan, crashes, killing all 196 people on board, plus six on the ground.

2005: The NHL cancels what is left of its decimated schedule after a round of last-gasp negotiations fail to resolve differences over a salary cap — the flash-point issue that has led to a lockout.

2010: Officials report the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taliban’s No. 2 commander, by a joint CIA and Pakistani team. (Baradar was set free by Pakistan in September 2013 in hopes he could help jumpstart Afghanistan’s peace process.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Classroom attendance is running at about 50 percent as a teachers strike at Bristol Local School District enters its second day.

The Howland Board of Education votes unanimously at a special meeting to place a half-percent income tax, rather than a property tax, on the May ballot.

For the first time in its 63 years, the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra is forced to cancel a concert for financial reasons. General Manager Sam Kuba says the May 19 concert will be canceled to make up a $35,000 deficit in the 1989-90 budget.

1975: Some 150 USW mill workers at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.’s blooming mill in Campbell threaten to strike unless 18 jobs eliminated by the company are restored.

Jerry Thorpe, executive secretary of the Automobile Association of Eastern Ohio, reports rebate programs and a strong area advertising campaign have increased local sales above the national average.

Jean Beaulieu, cultural attache to the French consul general’s office in Chicago, is a special guest of honor at the Youngstown Symphony Society’s “Bal de l’Op ra.” The symphony center is transformed into a scene from 19th century Paris for the occasion.

1965: Dom Rosselli’s Youngstown University cagers play their last home game of the season, winning 87-63 over St. Vincent College. Dave Culliver led with 24 points.

Gov. James A. Rhodes addresses a joint session of the Ohio Legislature on the proposed budget. He allocates $798.2 million of the $1.4 billion general fund budget to education.

1940: Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge J.H.C. Lyon refuses to grant citizenship to Dusan Solar, 45, of Campbell on the grounds that Solar had been a member from 1923 until recently of the International Workers Order, a Communist group. Solar, a native of Yugoslavia, was one of 100 aliens appearing before Judge Lyon during naturalization hearings.

Preliminary field surveys to determine the possibility of finding extensive additional oil and gas deposits are being conducted in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties by Magnolia Petroleum Co., which now has about 125 leases in Mahoning County.

Youngstown and Cleveland district factories have been slow in getting started on war munitions manufacture under the War Department’s program to prepare industries for efficient war production, but Col. Philip G. Blackmore, in charge of mobilization in Northern Ohio, predicts that will change.