Years Ago

Today is Friday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2015. There are 356 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1788: Connecticut is the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1793: Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flies between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J.

1913: Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, is born in Yorba Linda, Calif.

1914: The County of Los Angeles opens the country’s first public defender’s office.

The fraternity Phi Beta Sigma was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

1931: Bobbi Trout and Edna May Cooper break an endurance record for female aviators as they return to Mines Field in Los Angeles after flying a Curtiss Robin monoplane continuously for 122 hours and 50 minutes.

1945: During World War II, American forces begin landing on the shores of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines as the Battle of Luzon begins, resulting in an Allied victory over Imperial Japanese forces.

1957: Anthony Eden resigns as British prime minister for health reasons; he is succeeded by Harold Macmillan.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Lady Luck frowns on the Pittsburgh Steelers, who lose 24-23 in Denver to the Broncos in an AFC playoff game. The Broncos will face the Cleveland Browns for the AFC championship and a spot in the Super Bowl.

A deal to sell the International Harvester building on West Federal Street to a Canfield construction company for $150,000 appears to be falling apart.

Phar-Mor is planning a 72,000-square-foot store in the former Hickory Plaza that will be one of the largest of the chain’s 165 stores.

1975: General Motors Corp.’s Detroit headquarters announces that 2,800 employees will be indefinitely laid off at the Lordstown assembly plant.

Youngstown police on a stakeout at the Lawson Dairy Store on Oak Street shoot and wound a 15-year-old East Side youth during an attempted robbery. The boy is in satisfactory condition at St. Elizabeth Hospital.

The Youngstown Hospital Association rejects three demands regarding pay and working conditions made by nurses who have been on strike since Dec. 23.

1965: Weathermen at the Youngstown Municipal Airport predict the phenomenal January high of 63 degrees will plummet to near zero overnight.

Earl J. King, a Warren taxpayer, asks the Ohio Supreme Court to prevent Trumbull County commissioners from issuing bonds to finance construction of a new jail without a vote of the people.

1940: Five Youngstown district flyers are safe at Nassau, Bahamas Islands, after making an almost miraculous forced landing of their disabled plane on a tiny brush-covered atoll in the Atlantic Ocean. J. Ralph Seidner Jr. was the pilot and the passengers were Robert Myers, James Tobin, Hartford Arkwright and John Bloom.

A three-alarm fire damages the Ben Lazar grocery, Frank Sanders butcher shop and the Lucius Soda grill in a business block at Southern Blvd. and Lucius Ave.

A score of Mahoning Valley Democrats, including Youngstown Mayor William Spagnola, attend the Jackson Day dinner in Columbus.