YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2015. There are 348 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1893: The 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, dies in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70.

1929: The cartoon character Popeye the Sailor makes his debut in the “Thimble Theatre” comic strip.

1944: During World War II, Allied forces launch the first of four battles for Monte Cassino in Italy; the Allies are ultimately successful.

1950: The Great Brink’s Robbery takes place as seven masked men hold up a Brink’s garage in Boston, stealing $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and money orders. (Although the entire gang was caught, only part of the loot was recovered.)

1975: The undercover cop drama “Baretta,” starring Robert Blake, premieres on ABC-TV.

1977: Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, is shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.

1994: The magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake hits Southern California, killing at least 60 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

2014: President Barack Obama orders new limits on the way intelligence officials access phone records from hundreds of millions of Americans.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Thousands of layoffs at General Motors Corp. plants have nearly depleted the company’s fund for supplemental unemployment benefits.

Nature’s Bounty, a New York company that manufactures vitamins and related products, is seeking a variety of public financing options to build a plant in North Jackson that the company says could employ 700 people.

Mahoning County Commissioner Leonard Yurcho, a smoker who often lights up during weekly meetings, refuses to support a resolution by Commissioner Thomas J. Carney to ban smoking in the Courthouse, except in private offices. Yurcho initially thought Carney was joking, then advised him to put the motion on the agenda for the next meeting.

1975: Richard Pryce Jr., 48, operator and pharmacist of Pryce Pharmacy in Bristollville, wrests the gun from a would-be robber and shoots him in the back. Dan C. Reiser, 21, is pronounced dead at the scene by Trumbull County Coroner Joseph Sudimack Jr.

Don H. Shaw, 21, of Monticello, N.M., is charged with possession of dangerous ordnance after Highway Patrolman Jerry Weidner finds a grenade and six rifles in Shaw’s car at the I-80/I-76 interchange.

Mahoning County’s first grand jury of 1975 indicts two men and a juvenile for the aggravated murder of North Side jeweler Edward Ulrich Knobloch, who was killed at his shop-home at 1621 Elm St. on Dec. 4.

1965: Cardinal Mooney’s speech team, coached by Denny Barrett, wins its 16th consecutive tournament at Dayton. The team includes Diane Babnick, Judy Baumbaugh, John Zimmerman, John Kirkwood, Janet Fortino and Linda Branigan.

St. Elizabeth Hospital announces a four-week refresher course for inactive registered nurses.

Ohio’s first snowstorm of the season has everything bogged down as temperatures fall as low as 5 below and snow is as deep as 12 inches near Lake Erie.

1940: Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Arthur L. Limbach announces that the Ohio delegation is the first in the nation to pledge its support for a third term by President Franklin Roosevelt.

Two brothers living in an isolated one-room shack halfway between the General Fireproofing Co. and the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. warehouse are burned to death in a fire sparked by an overheated stove. Dead are Ray Fiskus, 45, and Bert, 52.

The Youngstown Park and Recreation Board increases the salary of Park Supt. Thomas Pemberton from $315 to $375 a month. The pay of 10 park policemen is increased from $144 to $150 a month and 10 caretakers from $148 to $154.