Years Ago

Years Ago

Today is Thursday, March 12, the 71st day of 2015. There are 294 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1664: England’s King Charles II grants an area of land on the East Coast of present-day North America known as New Netherland to his brother James, the Duke of York.

1857: The original version of “Simon Boccanegra,” an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, is poorly received at its premiere in Venice, Italy. (Verdi offered a revised version in 1881.)

1912: The Girl Scouts of the USA has its beginnings as Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Ga., founds the first American troop of the Girl Guides.

1925: Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen dies.

1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers the first of his 30 radio addresses that came to be known as “fireside chats,” telling Americans what is being done to deal with the nation’s economic crisis.

1938: The Anschluss merging Austria with Nazi Germany takes place as German forces cross the border between the two countries.

1940: Finland and the Soviet Union conclude an armistice during World War II. (Fighting between the two countries flares again the following year.)

1955: Legendary jazz musician Charlie “Bird” Parker dies in New York at age 34.

1968: President Lyndon B. Johnson wins the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota places a strong second.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: The loss is estimated at $250,000 in an overnight explosion and fire at Diamond Steel Construction at 8270 Raub Ave., Boardman.

Warren’s Csaba Kur, a Hungarian-born artist who emigrated to the U.S. in 1951, will have his bust of Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kussoth placed permanently in the great Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

Anna Marie Kosek, president of the Beaver Local School District board of education, says the district has “nowhere to go but up” after hitting rock bottom during a 46-day teacher strike that ended March 5.

1975: Central Tower, a prominent Youngstown landmark, is in the process of being sold to Emil Koledin of the Wessex Corp. in Sharon, Pa., and will undergo extensive cleaning and rehabilitation.

Youngstown and Liberty police combine forces and raid a home at 4700 Sampson Drive, netting what one detective described as “an extremely large amount of suspected hard narcotics.”

1965: A height advantage and 60-percent shooting average helps Boardman High to a 88-78 victory over Youngstown North and a place in the finals in the Class A tournament at South High Field House.

The Erie Mining Co. at Hoyt Lakes, Minn., which provides taconite to Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and two other steel makers, plans a $50 million expansion.

1940: WFMJ radio will become an affiliate of the NBC Blue network, one of the world’s leading broadcast systems.

Four Youngstown pool rooms whose licenses Mayor William B. Spagnola had ordered held up pending an investigation into their alleged links to the Big House number operation are cleared for licenses by vice squad Chief Dominic Moore.

A two-alarm fire destroys a building on S. Phelps Street downtown that housed the Log Cabin and the Grand Bowling Alleys.