YEARS AGO

Today is Thursday, Jan. 8, the eighth day of 2015. There are 357 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1790: President George Washington delivers his first State of the Union address to Congress in New York.

1815: The last major engagement of the War of 1812 ends as U.S. forces led by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson defeat the British in the Battle of New Orleans. (Given the slowness of communications at the time, the battle took place even though the United States and Britain had already signed a peace treaty.)

1863: America’s First Transcontinental Railroad has its beginnings as California Gov. Leland Stanford breaks ground for the Central Pacific Railroad in Sacramento. (The transcontinental railroad was completed in Promontory, Utah, in May 1869.)

1912: The African National Congress is founded in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

1935: Rock-and-roll legend Elvis Presley is born in Tupelo, Miss.

1959: Charles de Gaulle is inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union address, declares an “unconditional war on poverty in America.”

1965: The Star of India and other gems stolen from the American Museum of Natural History in New York the previous October are recovered from a bus depot locker in Miami.

1975: Judge John J. Sirica orders the early release from prison of Watergate figures John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder.

1982: American Telephone and Telegraph settles the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.

1998: Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is sentenced in New York to life imprisonment.

2011: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., is shot and critically wounded when a gunman opens fire as the congresswoman meets with constituents in Tucson; six other people are killed, 12 others also injured. (Gunman Jared Lee Loughner is sentenced in November 2012 to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years.)

2010: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas, appears in federal court in Detroit; the judge enters a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

Vice President Joe Biden’s mother, Jean Biden, dies in Wilmington, Del., at age 92.

2014: Emails and text messages obtained by The Associated Press and other news organizations suggest that one of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s top aides engineered traffic jams in Fort Lee in September 2013 to punish its mayor for not endorsing Christie for re-election; Christie responds by saying he’d been misled by the aide, and he denies involvement in the apparent act of political payback.

Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas are elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Hector Colon takes over as chief of Youngstown’s 170-member fire department, the first Hispanic fire chief and at 43 one of the youngest in history.

Ann Horm, a straight-A student at Bristol High School, is one of only two Ohio students selected to participate in the week-long U.S Senate Youth Program in Washington, D.C.

Warren Township Fire Chief Ralph Jones thinks gas-well drilling should be more accountable, and he is pushing for direct notification of the township before drillers start a well.

1975: The Trumbull County Board of Education names StanleyWoofter president for 1975.

The Mahoning County Board of Health declares itself in opposition to Montgomery County, Md., hauling its solid waste to Smith Township.

George C. Brainard Sr., 89, of Chardon, former General Fireproofing president who was nationally known in the banking field, dies in Hillcrest Hospital, Mayfield Heights.

1965: U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan receives assignments in the 89th Congress, including chairman of the Public Works Committee.

Ohio Gov. James Rhodes announces a billion- dollar budget for education — the biggest in the state’s history.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources recommends spending $6.6 million in improvements, including $1 million to be used on state parks.

1940: Howard L. Bevis, Harvard University professor and former Ohio Supreme Court justice, is elected president of Ohio State University.

Finnish families in Youngstown will hold a benefit dance and a party at the Girard Legion Hall and donate proceeds to the Finnish Relief Fund being collected locally by The Vindicator.

Sam Gasperoni, 30, a Hillsville, Pa., truck driver, is killed instantly at Slippery Rock, Pa., when his truck loaded with coal for the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., careens down a hill, snapping a telephone pole and striking a restaurant.