Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2015. There are 338 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1756: Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born in Salzburg, Austria.

1880: Thomas A. Edison receives a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

1901: Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi dies in Milan, Italy, at age 87.

1913: The musical play “The Isle O’ Dreams” opens in New York; it features the song “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” by Ernest R. Ball, Chauncey Olcott and George Graff Jr.

1944: During World War II, the Soviet Union announces the complete end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for more than two years.

1945: During World War II, Soviet troops liberate the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

1951: An era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert begins as an Air Force plane drops a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flat.

1965: “Up the Down Staircase,” Bel Kaufman’s novel about a young, idealistic teacher at a New York inner-city school, is published by Prentice-Hall.

1967: Astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee die in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.

1973: The Vietnam peace accords are signed in Paris.

1977: The Vatican issues a declaration reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on female priests.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: The Rev. Nicholas C. Dattilo, a New Castle, Pa., native, is installed as the eighth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg.

Students at St. Charles School in Boardman have a pep rally for the San Francisco 49ers, who will play the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV. Forty- niners owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. attended St. Charles.

Conngressman James A. Traficant Jr. concedes the chances of GF Corp. building a new plant in the Youngstown area are slim, but he says he feels more optimistic than he did earlier about that happening.

1975: Freshman Jeff Covington drops two foul shots with 22 seconds to go to give the YSU Penguins a spectacular come-from-behind (60-58) victory over Gannon College in front of a hometown crowd of 5,710.

Eugene C. Godward, 16, a sophomore at Ursuline High School, receives his Eagle Scout Award after the 4 p.m. Mass at St. Rose Church in Girard.

United Auto Workers President Leonard Woodcock says the nation’s car makers can’t lower prices because their profit margins have been “paper thin” for more than a year.

1965: Myron E. Roberts, president of Mahoning National Bank, announces that the bank has had one of its best years ever. Total assets increased by $8.6 million to $101.5 million during the year.

Margaret Almasy, Cannon Road, joins the professional staff of the Lake to River Girl Scout Council as a field adviser.

1940: The Interstate Commerce Commission advises President Roosevelt that it recommends against a Lake Erie-Ohio River canal, saying that the savings to shippers would be so great that the railroads would not be able to compete. Canal proponents say the move was not unexpected, pointing out that the ICC is biased toward railroads.

Thieves smash the windows of Pugh Bros. Jewelry at 207 W. Federal St. and Kurjan’s jewelry store at 15 S. Hazel St., taking $500 worth of watches, rings and miscellaneous jewelry.

Paul W. Brink, 25, the Vindicator’s courthouse reporter, is fatally injured when the auto he was driving left the highway and crashed into a culvert on Route 422 near Shelocta, Pa., where he had been visiting relatives.