YEARS AGO

Today is Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 17, the 48th day of 2015. There are 317 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1815: The United States and Britain exchange the instruments of ratification for the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.

1865: During the Civil War, Columbia, S.C., burned as the Confederates evacuated and Union forces moved in. (It’s not clear which side was responsible for setting the blaze, or whether it had been deliberate.)

1904: The original two-act version of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” receives a poor reception at its premiere at La Scala in Milan, Italy.

1913: The Armory Show, a landmark modern art exhibit, opens in New York City.

1925: The first issue of The New Yorker magazine (bearing the cover date of Feb. 21) is published.

1933: Newsweek magazine is first published under the title News-Week.

1944: During World War II, U.S. forces invade Eniwetok Atoll, encountering little initial resistance from Imperial Japanese troops. (The Americans secured the atoll less than a week later.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: The Ohio Democratic Party endorses Youngstown Atty. Stuart J. Banks to run for the state Supreme Court, but endorses state Sen. Lee Fisher of Shaker Heights over Mahoning County Prosecutor James Philomena for attorney general.

Judge James McNally of Mahoning County Juvenile Court takes out petitions to run for a two-year unexpired term on the bench, to which he was appointed when Judge Martin P. Joyce retired.

The Alliance Machine Co. builds a 1,000-ton hot-metal transfer car for Northwestern Steel & Wire Co. in Sterling, Ill. It is the largest car of its type, the company says.

1975: There is extensive damage to stock and to equipment used to manufacture orthopedic shoes from a two-alarm fire that swept through the Stephen’s Shoe Store building at 3307 Canfield Road.

The Warren consulting firm of Lynn, Kittinger and Noble is conducting a preliminary engineering survey on widening Warren-Sharon Road from Brookfield Center to the Pennsylvania line to four lanes.

Youngstown Police Chief Donald G. Baker says his policemen “took proper action” in wounding Clifton Wiley, 22, during a disturbance in Springfield Avenue. Baker says Wiley had a pistol and that crime lab technicians found it cocked, with a shell in the chamber. Baker says “although Wiley had not fired, there is no legal requirement or moral standard that says police must give the other person the first shot.”

1965: Emil G. Bertolini Sr., president and board chairman of Bertolini Bros. Marble Co., dies at age 77.

Atty. Charles H. Owsley is elected president of the International Institute, succeeding Mylio S. Kraja. Owsley spent years abroad as a foreign service officer.

1940: Youngstown police make six “bug” arrests in its first three days under the new vice squad chief, Dominic Moore.

A new billet-heating furnace with a capacity for 30-foot billets will be installed at Republic Steel Corp.’s Warren plant at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars.

David Robert Malcolmson, 8, of Ohltown is fatally injured in a sledding accident when his sled is struck by a car after speeding into Austintown-Ohltown Road near Mineral Ridge.