YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, March 29, the 88th day of 2015. There are 277 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1638: Swedish colonists settle in present-day Delaware.

1812: The first White House wedding takes place as Lucy Payne Washington, the sister of first lady Dolley Madison, marries Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd.

1882: The Knights of Columbus is chartered in Connecticut.

1936: German Chancellor Adolf Hitler claims overwhelming victory in a plebiscite on his policies.

1943: World War II rationing of meat, fats and cheese begins.

1962: Jack Paar hosts NBC’s “Tonight” show for the final time, although the network airs a repeat the following night. (Johnny Carson debuted as host in October.)

1971: Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. is convicted of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre. (Calley ended up serving three years under house arrest.)

A jury in Los Angeles recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders.

1973: The last United States combat troops leave South Vietnam, ending America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.

1974: Eight Ohio National Guardsmen are indicted on federal charges stemming from the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University. (The charges were later dismissed.)

1992: Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton acknowledges experimenting with marijuana “a time or two” while attending Oxford University, adding, “I didn’t inhale, and I didn’t try it again.”

2005: As Terri Schiavo enters her 12th full day without food or water, the Rev. Jesse Jackson prays with her parents and joins conservatives in calling for Florida lawmakers to order her feeding tube reinserted.

Atty. Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. dies in Los Angeles at age 67, and former U.S. Sen. Howell Heflin dies in Sheffield, Ala., at age 83.

2010: Pop singer Ricky Martin confirms he is gay.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. of Poland, D-17th, sponsors an amendment that would ban foreign countries from participation in the supercollider project if the president finds that country’s trade practices discriminate against U.S. business.

Russia’s Vaganova Academy of the famed Kirov Ballet will give 10 performances in its inaugural U.S. tour, and two of those will take place in mid-July in Warren and Youngstown.

Jeff Lampkin, International Boxing Federation cruiserweight champion, is found guilty in Youngstown Municipal Court of two traffic violations and not paying 13 parking tickets.

1975: Boardman Police Chief Grant Hess warns that expedient arrests will be made to break up unruly gangs of teenagers after township police respond to a rowdy gang of almost 100 youths at the McDonald’s restaurant and to a house on Forestridge Drive where Cardinal Mooney students attempted to crash a party of Boardman High School students.

The Mahoning County Sheriff’s office is holding two men suspected in the attempted arson of a light airplane stored at Miller’s Airport in Smith Township.

“You cannot project the future from the past,” Dr. Leonard T. Skeggs Jr. tells 950 members of the Youngstown State University Class of 1975 at its winter commencement.

1965: “Student Nurse Week” begins in the Youngstown-Warren area. Bonnie Kunrod, student nurse at St. Elizabeth Hospital, is chairman of the observance.

Virginia Tadler, Camp Fitch director, announces Girls Village directors for the coming season: Nancy J. Gunn, Susan Kroll and Carol Ann McDonough.

Margaret Sherwood Oppedal, formerly of Leetonia, who works for the SS HOPE, receives the E.R. Squibb award for her outstanding contributions to pharmacy and/or biochemistry and to the public health.

1940: Frank Purnell, president of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., is elected to the board of governors of Youngstown College.

Warren P. Williamson Jr., president of WKBN Broadcasting Co., is appointed by county commissioners to the board of trustees of the Mahoning County Tuberculosis Sanatorium.

Florence Swanson, 18-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Swanson, 243 Kenilworth Ave. SE, Warren, is an example of a small-town girl making good in New York City, where she has been signed by John Robert Powers to a modeling contract and assigned to model for Lord & Taylor.