Today is Sunday, Jan. 11, the 11th day of 2015

Today is Sunday, Jan. 11, the 11th day of 2015. There are 354 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1815: Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, is born in Glasgow, Scotland.

1861: Alabama becomes the fourth state to withdraw from the Union.

1908: President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims the Grand Canyon National Monument (it became a national park in 1919).

1913: The first enclosed sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, goes on display at the 13th National Automobile Show in New York.

1927: The creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is proposed during a dinner of Hollywood luminaries at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

1935: Aviator Amelia Earhart begins an 18-hour trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., that made her the first person to fly solo across any part of the Pacific Ocean.

1939: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, the British foreign secretary, meet with Italian leader Benito Mussolini in Rome.

1942: Japan declares war against the Netherlands, the same day that Imperial Japanese forces invade the Dutch East Indies.

1964: U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issues “Smoking and Health,” a report that concludes that “cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.”

1965: The Beach Boys record their version of “Do You Wanna Dance?” by Bobby Freeman at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood.

1977: France sets off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

1989: Nine days before leaving the White House, President Ronald Reagan bids the nation farewell in a prime-time address, saying of his eight years in office: “We meant to change a nation and instead we changed a world.”

1995: Fifty-one people are killed when a Colombian DC-9 jetliner crashes as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena — however, 9-year-old Erika Delgado survives.

2005: President George W. Bush nominates federal Judge Michael Chertoff to be Homeland Security chief, succeeding Tom Ridge of western Pennsylvania.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi publicly acknowledges for the first time that parts of Iraq probably wouldn’t be safe enough for people to vote in upcoming elections.

James Griffin, founding member of the 1970s pop group Bread, dies in Franklin, Tennessee, at age 61.

2010: A federal judge in San Francisco begins hearing arguments in a lawsuit aimed at overturning Proposition 8, California’s voter- approved ban on same-sex marriage. (Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker later overturned the ban; his ruling was upheld on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.)

2014: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 85, dies eight years after a devastating stroke left him in a coma.

Alex Rodriguez gets the most severe punishment in the history of baseball’s drug agreement when an arbitrator rules the New York Yankees player was suspended for the entire 2014 season as the result of a drug investigation.

Gracie Gold wins her first U.S. figure skating title at the championships in Boston; Charlie White and Meryl Davis win a record sixth straight U.S. ice dance title.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Youngstown Fire Chief Hector Colon says quick action by a work crew that pierced a gas line in front of Jones Hall and by responding East Ohio Gas and safety forces averted a possible catastrophe that could have involved YSU buildings and a nearby church.

Police investigators from the Mahoning Valley, western Pennsylvania and New York state meet at state police barracks in New Castle, Pa., to compare notes on a possible serial killer who targets prostitutes, especially at truck stops.

Four days before the AFC championship game in Cleveland with the Denver Broncos, Browns fever is taking hold in the Mahoning Valley. Fans hold a rally at the “Most Magnificent McDonalds in America” at East Market Street and North Road in Warren.

1975: Speaking to 600 people at the Sokol Center in Youngstown, James A. Harris, president of the National Education Association, says the NEA has overall concerns about education in the United States, while the American Federation of Teachers cares only for teacher welfare. The address comes a day after Al Shanker, AFT president, spoke in the Youngstown area.

Juan Brantley, 17, a senior on the Struthers basketball team, collapses and dies during the Campbell-Struthers game at Struthers Field House.

The Boys Club of Youngs-town marks its fifth anniversary with a birthday cake and candles.

1965: Two freight trains collide at a crossing near Wooster killing six trainmen, four of them from New Castle, Pa. Those from this area were C.C. Druschel, Carl Duckworth, G.S. Williams and A.R. Lewellyn.

Coach Ralph Johnson’s Youngstown University swim team defeats Cleveland Fenn, 54-40.

The American Football League calls off the league’s All-Star Game after black players packed their bags and left New Orleans, complaining of racial discrimination.

1940: The Youngstown Rotary Club says it will delay its annual minstrel show until the fall, at which time it will be part of the club’s effort to raise money to fight infantile paralysis.

The Ohio Edison Co. announces plans to spend $6.5 million on improvements in 1940, including $1.5 million in the Youngstown district.

Francis Green, 23-year-old proprietor of a gasoline station at 7240 Market St., Boardman Center, is shot in the thigh when he grapples with a robber. Green is in good condition at South Side Hospital.