YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, Jan. 10, the 10th day of 2015. There are 355 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: Thomas Paine anonymously publishes his influential pamphlet, “Common Sense,” which argues for American independence from British rule.

1861: Florida becomes the third state to secede from the Union.

1863: The London Underground has its beginnings as the Metropolitan, the world’s first underground passenger railway. It opens to the public with service between Paddington and Farringdon Street.

1870: John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: A natural gas explosion rocks Youngstown’s North Side, sending flames 100 feet into the sky near Wick and Lincoln avenues. A gas line was ruptured by crews installing a traffic signal.

Trumbull County is working to secure up to $76,000 from the Ohio Department of Corrections to begin a program for reducing the number of people sent to prison.

A nine-vehicle crash in Route 11 is caused by clouds of graphite created after several bags fell from a tractor-trailer. A Cortland woman is hospitalized.

1975: Al Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, tells 500 teachers and labor leaders at the Mahoning Country Club that the United States is approaching a teacher shortage and that union representation will be a “matter of professional life or death.”

Two men with hats pulled over their faces rob the Youngstown Road branch of the Second National Bank in Warren, escaping with $8,000. Their getaway car is abandoned in the Warren General Hospital parking lot.

1965: The Youngstown Chamber of Commerce hosts a “Salute to General Motors” reception at the Hotel Pick-Ohio. Semon E. Knudsen, General Motors vice president and manager of the Chevrolet division, is the speaker.

David Griffith, director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, announces plans to open three new branches: in Boardman, Austintown and the West Side.

The final report of the Youngstown Community Corp.’s campaign is in, and the United Appeal has $1,074,697 to distribute to the city’s 30 Red Feather agencies in 1965.

1940: Youngstown’s new fire chief, Michael J. Melillo, who resigned Dec. 15 as special assistant state fire marshal, is reappointed to the state post by State Fire Marshal Ray R. Gill. He says holding both posts will allow him to do a better job as Youngstown’s chief.

Louis Austrina, 15, of Brandon Avenue, Struthers, is killed when his bicycle is struck by a pickup truck on E. Midlothian Blvd., the first Mahoning County traffic fatality of 1940.