YEARS AGO
Today is Friday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2015. There are 349 days left in the year.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On this date in:
1547: Ivan IV of Russia (popularly known as “Ivan the Terrible”) is crowned Czar.
1865: Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman issues Special Field Order No. 15, which decrees that 400,000 acres of land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida would be confiscated, divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves. (The order, which was later revoked by President Andrew Johnson, is believed to have inspired the expression, “Forty acres and a mule.”)
1920: Prohibition begins in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution takes effect, one year to the day after its ratification. (It was later repealed by the 21st Amendment.)
1935: Fugitive gangster Fred Barker and his mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, are killed in a shootout with the FBI at Lake Weir, Fla.
1942: Actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother Elizabeth and 20 other people are killed when their plane crashes near Las Vegas, Nev., while en route to California from a war-bond promotion tour.
1957: Three B-52’s take off from Castle Air Force Base in California on the first non-stop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, which lasted 45 hours and 19 minutes.
1978: NASA selects 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who becomes America’s first woman in space, and Guion S. Bluford Jr., who becomes America’s first black astronaut in space.
1989: Three days of rioting begin in Miami when a police officer fatally shoots Clement Lloyd, a black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claims the life of Lloyd’s passenger, Allan Blanchard. (The officer, William Lozano, was convicted of manslaughter, but then was acquitted in a retrial.)
1991: The White House announces the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
1995: The now-defunct United Paramount Network (UPN) makes its debut by broadcasting the first episode of “Star Trek: Voyager.”
2003: The space shuttle Columbia blasts off for what turned out to be its last flight; on board was Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. (The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.)
VINDICATOR FILES
1990: Western Pennsylvania investigators say they have ruled out a New York serial killer as a suspect in the death of a 31-year-old Youngstown woman whose body was found in August near a Hillsville, Pa., quarry.
U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., D-17th, ranked second among Ohio congressman in appearances on television network news in 1987-88, according to a Southern Illinois University survey. U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes of Cleveland had 20 network appearances; Traficant had 14.
Lowellville is preparing for a two-day summer event marking the 100tth anniversary of its founding. A parade, dedication of a new minipark and a reunion of all Lowellville High School graduates are planned.
1975: Paul N. Wigton, 6584 Mill Creek Blvd., is named manager of Republic Steel Corp.’s Mahoning Valley District, succeeding Richard F. Armitage of 8698 Forest Hill Drive NE, Warren, who retired after 42 years with Republic.
The Ohio National Guard purchases 10 acres on Victoria Road, Austintown, for construction of a $1.2 million armory to replace the Christy Armory at 325 W. Rayen Ave.
Gregory Bell, 20, a clerk at the Ohio Milk Sales on S. Irvine Avenue, Masury, is in guarded condition in St. Elizabeth Hospital after being shot by one of two robbers.
1965: The bodies of two transients are found frozen to death beneath the Cedar Street Bridge. Dead are David Hicks, 54, and Edward Craig, 45, whose bodies were taken to the McCullough Williams Funeral Home.
Steel demand remains high and Youngstown area mills are operating at 83 to 85 percent with eight blast furnaces and 30 open hearths operating.
The entire proceeds of the semi-final bout night of the Youngstown Golden Gloves will be donated to the family of Jerry Como Jr., the 17-year-old boxer who died of an undetected heart ailment following a fight.
1940: A housecoat draped over a light bulb in a girl’s bedroom sparks a fire that drives the Joseph J. Klotzle family of parents, two brothers and three sisters into the cold with nothing but their bed clothes. The family’s Girard house is destroyed, with losses estimated at $8,000.
John P. Kane, 35, proprietor of the Kane Furniture Co., dies in North Side hospital, apparently of injuries from a beating that left him lying unconscious in N. Chestnut Street.
Capt. George McMillin, who was born in Youngstown and graduated from Rayen School before entering Annapolis, is appointed governor of Guam and commandant of the naval station there.