YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Thursday, March 26, the 85th day of 2015. There are 280 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1812: An earthquake devastates Caracas, Venezuela, causing an estimated 26,000 deaths, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

1874: Poet Robert Frost is born in San Francisco.

1892: Poet Walt Whitman dies in Camden, N.J.

1917: The Seattle Metropolitans become the first U.S. team to win the Stanley Cup as they defeat the Montreal Canadiens.

1934: Britain enacts a Road Traffic Act reimposing a 30 mile-per-hour speed limit in “built-up areas” and requiring driving tests for new motorists.

1945: During World War II, Iwo Jima is fully secured by U.S. forces following a final, desperate attack by Japanese soldiers.

Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, 82, dies in Ty Newydd, Llanystumdwy, Wales.

1958: The U.S. Army launches America’s third successful satellite, Explorer 3.

1964: The musical play “Funny Girl,” starring Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice, opens on Broadway.

1979: A peace treaty is signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and witnessed by President Jimmy Carter at the White House.

1982: Groundbreaking ceremonies take place in Washington D.C., for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1990: “Driving Miss Daisy” wins the Academy Award for best picture; its star, Jessica Tandy, is named best actress. Daniel Day-Lewis wins best actor for “My Left Foot” while Oliver Stone is honored as best director for “Born on the Fourth of July.”

Designer Halston dies in San Francisco at age 57.

1997: The bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate techno-religious cult who’d committed suicide are found inside a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

2005: German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stands in for Pope John Paul II during the Easter Vigil Mass at the Vatican. (Ratzinger later succeeded John Paul, becoming Pope Benedict XVI.)

Former British Prime Minister James Callaghan dies one day before his 93rd birthday in East Sussex, England.

2010: The U.S. and Russia seal the first major nuclear weapons treaty in nearly two decades, agreeing to slash the former Cold War rivals’ warhead arsenals by nearly one-third.

A South Korean warship explodes and sinks near a disputed maritime border with North Korea, killing 46 sailors. (South Korea blames North Korea, which denies involvement.)

A truck collides with a van on I-65 in Kentucky, killing 10 Mennonites in the van and the truck driver.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Erroneous U.S. Census forms have been sent to residents of Leavittsburg in Trumbull County telling them they live in Laurelville, about 50 miles south of Columbus.

Warren and Niles area residents are awakened by a loud boom, which police say was caused when workers at Heckett, a company operating on the grounds of Warren Consolidated Industries, dumped a load of hot slag into a gully that had filled with water.

Nature’s Bounty Inc. chooses a 30-acre site in Lordstown for its proposed $3 million vitamin plant.

1975: Gunfire erupts during a robbery at Roch’s Sports Center in Struthers, leaving the store owner, Michael J. Roch, 62, and a Youngstown man suspected of being one of the robbers, wounded.

The Youngstown Board of Trade gives its endorsement to the proposed $8 million upgrade to the Market Street bridge.

The Western Reserve Transit Authority submits a request for $777,623 to the Urban Mass Transit Administration.

1965: Federal Court Judge Girard E. Kalbfleisch declares that government attorneys did not produce a scintilla of evidence that Leo “Lips” Mocera of Warren failed to report income for 1958 through 1961. Mocera testified that he lived on savings during those years and had no income.

Bishop Emmet M. Walsh appoints two Vindicator employees as lay members of the Youngstown Catholic Diocese communications efforts, Ann Przelomski, the assistant city editor, and Tom Murphy, the Niles bureau reporter.

A Labor Department survey finds that nearly half of all U.S. families have more than one income, with working wives providing additional family income.

1940: With only four days left till the deadline, only about half of Mahoning County’s 52,000 motorists have renewed their license plates.

The Trumbull County Fadettes Band, an all-girl musical organization formed in 1933 to permit girls to continue playing after graduation from high school, will present its fifth annual concert at Warren Harding High School. Raymond Dehnbostel is the director.

Dene Chadwick of Columbiana is elected queen of the Hiram College Junior Prom. Ruth Pringle of Girard, a junior at Hiram, will be in charge of the midnight supper that will be served to the seniors.