years ago

years ago

Today is Thursday, Feb. 18, the 49th day of 2016. There are 317 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1516: Mary Tudor, the Queen of England who came to be known as “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestants, is born in Greenwich.

1546: Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, dies in Eisleben.

1861: Jefferson Davis is sworn in as provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala.

1885: Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is published in the U.S. for the first time (after being published in Britain and Canada).

1913: Mexican President Francisco I. Madero and Vice President Jose Maria Pino Suarez are arrested during a military coup (both were shot to death Feb. 22).

1930: Photographic evidence of Pluto (now designated a “dwarf planet”) is discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.

1943:Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Chinese leader, addresses members of the Senate and then the House, becoming the first Chinese national to address both houses of the U.S. Congress.

1953: “Bwana Devil,” the movie that heralded the 3-D fad of the 1950s, has its New York opening.

1960: The Eighth Winter Olympic Games formally open in Squaw Valley, Calif., by Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

1970: The “Chicago Seven” defendants are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention; five are convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968 (those convictions later were reversed).

1984: Italy and the Vatican sign an accord under which Roman Catholicism ceases to be the state religion of Italy.

1995: The NAACP replaces veteran chairman William Gibson with Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil-rights leader Medgar Evers.

2001: Auto-racing star Dale Earnhardt Sr. dies in a crash at the Daytona 500; he was 49.

2006: American Shani Davis wins the men’s 1,000-meter speedskating in Turin, becoming the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history.

A Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament is sworn in.

Militants in Nigeria seize nine foreign oil workers, including three Americans (all were released unharmed).

2011: The United States vetoes a U.N. resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as illegal and called for a halt in all settlement building; the 14 other Security Council members vote in favor of the measure.

2015: President Barack Obama, hosting a White House summit on countering violent extremism, says Muslims in the U.S. and around the world have a responsibility to fight a misconception that terrorist groups like the Islamic State are speaking for them.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Increasing bankruptcies and foreclosures are symptoms of a Mahoning Valley where people are making less money than before, says Dr. Anthony Stocks, chairman of the Youngstown State University Economics Department.

Sales of pickup trucks, light vans and SUVs declined 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 1990, cutting into the profitability of the Big Three U.S. automakers. Ford and General Motors announce a combined loss of $2.1 billion for the quarter.

Airport Manager Larry Diemand says the need for increased security ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration in the wake of the Persian Gulf War will cost the Youngstown Municipal Airport an additional $80,000 in 1991.

1976: Two Jacobs Road homes are destroyed, the Free Pentecostal House of Prayer Church damaged and two people injured in an explosion and fire believed to have been caused by a natural-gas leak.

G. Timothy Marks, the new chairman of the Mahoning County Republican Party, tells the Youngstown Area Women’s Republican Club that the party “must be an organization with doors open to all.” Marks succeeds Atty. Elton W. Luckhart.

Youngstown police, acting on “good, hard information,” are searching a muddy, wooded area in McGuffey Heights for the body of Philip “Fleagle” Mainer, a former Youngstown hoodlum who disappeared in the fall of 1974.

1966: Trumbull County commissioners wipe out the last of the county’s eight-year-old debt with a $200,000 payment to the Welfare Department.

A 73-year-old woman and her 54-year-old son arrested for stealing a can of beans from a Warren supermarket tell the court they hadn’t eaten in days. They are sent on their way with a stern warning from Judge James A Ravella and $25 from Ravella and their court-appointed lawyer, Sam Petkovich.

Motorists in Boardman are warned that police are now using radar to monitor speeders.

1941: Local 22 of the Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees says it represents 400 of the city of Youngstown’s 650 employees and asks city council for recognition.

The Youngstown Camera Club opens its exhibit of nearly 200 pictures at the Central YMCA.

Court records show Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Peter B. Mulholland “fixed” 169 parking tickets over 30 days while another judge fixed one, and the third fixed none.