YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, Feb. 21, the 52nd day of 2015. There are 313 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1437: James I, King of Scots, is assassinated; his 6-year-old son succeeds him as James II.

1513: Pope Julius II, who’d commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, dies nearly four months after the project was completed.

1613: Mikhail Romanov, 16, is unanimously chosen by Russia’s national assembly to be czar, for a dynasty that would last three centuries.

1885: The Washington Monument is dedicated.

1912: The Great Fifth Ward Fire breaks out in Houston, Texas; although property losses top $3 million, no one dies in the blaze.

1916: The World War I Battle of Verdun begins in France as German forces attack; the French are able to prevail after 10 months of fighting.

1945: During the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima, the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea is sunk by kamikazes with the loss of 318 men.

1964: The first shipment of U.S. wheat purchased by the Soviet Union arrives in the port of Odessa.

1965: Black Muslim leader and civil rights activist Malcolm X, 39, is shot to death inside Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in New York by assassins identified as members of the Nation of Islam. (Three men — Talmadge X. Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson — were convicted of murder and imprisoned; all three were eventually paroled.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: William F. Livorio, a Howland businessman who brought a personal fortune of $1 million to Ohio in 1984, is broke now and facing two years in prison after being sentenced in U.S. District Court on charges of bank and tax fraud.

Johnston Township Clerk Diana Marchese announces that she will challenge incumbent state Rep. June Lucas, D-58th, in the Democratic primary.

1975: Youngstown State University receives 305 applications for 13 openings in the new six-year medical program at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

Three YSU coeds are vying for Greek Ball Queen: Diane Morrison, Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority; Mary Ann Reese, independent, and Judy Barrett, Zeta Tau Alpha.

Youngstown detectives say a 26-year-old Garfield Street man wounded by Salim Awadalla, operator of Berih Food Market on Highland Avenue, had nothing to do with a robbery at the store by two other men. The man was cleared by a polygraph test he took at police headquarters after being released from the hospital.

1965: Ron Towne and Jesse Hall, YU debaters, win outstanding speaker awards at a debaters congress held at Kent State University. The YU team is coached by David Howland. Other members are Larry Winslow and Bonnie Jerio.

The Metropolitan Opera Company of New York celebrates its 40th anniversary of bringing grand opera to Cleveland during the last week of April. Monday Musical Club again acts as Youngstown’s sponsor.

1940: William Hamilton, former Youngstown head of the Nation-Wide News Service, files suit in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court seeking to prevent Western Union Telegraph Co. from discontinuing wire service to horse-race services that supply information to bookies.

The Mahoning County grand jury indicts two Youngstown patrolmen on burglary and larceny charges in connection with tires and other loot taken from a service station.

The Akron operator of a bingo game at the Youngstown Eagles Club that was attracting as many as 500 players a session leaves town and cancels the games after four strangers show up, check out the crowd and suggest that Morris Kaeler meet with them at a downtown hotel “to talk things over.”