YEARS AGO

Today is Thursday, Feb. 11, the 42nd day of 2016. There are 324 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

660 B.C.: Tradition holds that Japan is founded as Jimmu ascends the throne as the country’s first emperor.

1812: Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signs a redistricting law favoring his Democratic-Republican Party – giving rise to the term “gerrymandering.”

1858: A French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, reports the first of 18 visions of a lady dressed in white in a grotto near Lourdes. (The Catholic Church later accepted that the visions were of the Virgin Mary.)

1862: The Civil War Battle of Fort Donelson begins in Tennessee. (Union forces led by Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant captured the fort five days later.)

1929: The Lateran Treaty is signed, with Italy recognizing the independence and sovereignty of Vatican City.

1937: A 6-week-old sit-down strike against General Motors ends, with the company agreeing to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union.

1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin sign the Yalta Agreement, in which Stalin agrees to declare war against Imperial Japan after Nazi Germany’s capitulation.

1963: American author and poet Sylvia Plath is found dead in her London flat, a suicide; she was 30.

1972: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. and Life magazine cancel plans to publish what had turned out to be a fake autobiography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

1986: Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky is released by the Soviet Union after nine years of captivity as part of an East-West prisoner exchange.

1990: South African black activist Nelson Mandela is freed after 27 years in captivity.

2006: Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shoots and wounds Harry Whittington, a companion during a weekend quail-hunting trip in Texas.

2011: Egypt explodes with joy after pro-democracy protesters bring down President Hosni Mubarak, whose resignation ends three decades of authoritarian rule.

2012: Pop singer Whitney Houston, 48, is found dead in a hotel room in Beverly Hills, Calif.

2013: Pope Benedict XVI announces his resignation during a routine morning meeting of Vatican cardinals. (The 85-year-old pontiff was succeeded by Pope Francis.)

2015: Vowing that Islamic State forces are “going to lose,” President Barack Obama urges Congress to authorize military action while ruling out large-scale U.S. ground combat operations reminiscent of Iraq and Afghanistan.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Budget cuts of nearly 7 percent imposed on state universities by the new administration of Gov. George Voinovich have campuses scrambling to find ways of coping with the shortfall.

Samuel A. Roth, president of Roth Brothers Inc., is elected president of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation.

Ohio and Pennsylvania police are searching for a motive in the murder of Tami Engstrom, 22, of Hubbard, whose dismembered body was found at sites in Brookfield, Venango County and Butler County.

1976: A jury of six men and two women deliberate for just 15 minutes before acquitting Girard Police Chief Anthony Ross of assault and battery on Steve DiFrangia, the father of one of the owners of a coin-operated game room at 409 N. State St.

Paul T. Barran, a veteran employee in the Trumbull County treasurer’s office, is named interim treasurer of the Trumbull County Democratic Party, replacing the former treasurer, Carl N. Lupi.

Youngstown Police Chief Donald G. Baker suspends six young patrolmen on charges of conduct unbecoming an officer in the arrest of an East Side man in December.

1966: Construction resumes at the Lordstown General Motors plant after Teamsters lift picket lines, allowing 1,000 construction workers to return to their jobs.

Youngstown University professors debate whether the U.S. should be involved in Vietnam. About 100 attend the debate between Edward Reilly, who defended the U.S. position, and Elizabeth Sterenberg, who called U.S. involvement “morally and militarily wrong.”

Robert Bathory and Ronald Kinkela win a poster contest by the Mahoning Valley Boy Scouts Council.

1941: Youngstown City Council authorizes a $15,000 bond issue for repair of the Youngstown city incinerator.

Rayen School is favored to win the City Series basketball championship.

Salem Hospital reports that it treated 1,550 patients in 1940.