YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Feb. 22, the 53rd day of 2016. There are 313 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1732: The first president of the United States, George Washington, is born in Westmoreland County in the Virginia Colony.

1784: A U.S. merchant ship, the Empress of China, leaves New York for the Far East to trade goods with China.

1862: Jefferson Davis, already the provisional president of the Confederacy, is inaugurated for a six-year term after his election in Nov. 1861.

1865: Tennessee amends its constitution to abolish slavery.

1909: The Great White Fleet, a naval task force sent on a round-the-world voyage by President Theodore Roosevelt, returns after more than a year at sea.

1924: President Calvin Coolidge delivers the first radio broadcast from the White House as he addressed the country over 42 stations.

1935: It becomes illegal for airplanes to fly over the White House.

1959: The inaugural Daytona 500 race takes place; although Johnny Beauchamp is initially declared the winner, the victory later was awarded to Lee Petty.

1967: More than 25,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops launch Operation Junction City, aimed at smashing a Vietcong stronghold near the Cambodian border. (Although the communists were driven out, they later returned.)

1974: Pakistan officially recognizes Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan).

1980: The “Miracle on Ice” took place in Lake Placid, N.Y., as the U.S. Olympic hockey team upsets the Soviets, 4-3. (The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.)

1996: The space shuttle Columbia blasts into orbit on a mission to unreel a satellite on the end of a 12.8-mile tether. (The cord broke just before being extended to its full length.)

2006: Insurgents destroy the golden dome of one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines, the Askariya mosque in Samarra, setting off an unprecedented spasm of sectarian violence.

Thieves steal $96 million from a Bank of England cash depot 30 miles southeast of London in Britain’s largest cash robbery. (Six men were later caught, and almost half of the money was recovered.)

2011: A defiant Moammar Gadhafi vows to fight to his “last drop of blood” and roared at supporters to strike back against Libyan protesters to defend his embattled regime.

2015: At the 87th Academy Awards, “Birdman” wins best picture; Julianne Moore receives the best actress Oscar for “Still Alice” while Eddie Redmayne is recognized as best actor for “The Theory of Everything.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Dave Nelson, Animal Charity humane officer, says a Gladstone Avenue man will face 29 counts of cruelty to animals after the dead and decomposing bodies of three dogs, a cat, a chicken, a deer, a goat and other animals, some with ropes around their necks, are found at a Jackson Township farm.

Thirteen Norman Rockwell paintings of Sharon Steel Corp. employees that were commissioned by the company in 1966 are on display at the Butler Institute of American Art. It took legal action to pry the paintings from the grasp of former chairman Victor Posner, who took the paintings to Miami.

The Voinovich administration fires Susan Suso, the state’s development director for the Mahoning Valley, who was appointed in 1983 to the $58,219 job by former Gov. Richard F. Celeste.

1976: The Youngstown-Warren metropolitan area is surging as one of the Ohio-Pennsylvania region’s more-important fast-growing retail marketing areas, says Westone Johnstone, executive vice president of the Youngstown Area Chamber of Commerce.

The original oil painting, “The Spirit of ’76” by Ohio artist Archibald Willard will be on display at Ashtabula Art Center for four days. The painting is valued at $250,000.

Walter Osiniak, 90, president of the Youngstown area unit of the Polish American Congress since its founding in 1945, is honored during a banquet at the Krakusy Hall.

1966: Elizabeth Hartman of Youngstown is nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a blind girl in “A Patch of Blue.”

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge David Jenkins is honored at a dinner marking his retirement after 44 years of service. His son, Elwyn, is filling his unexpired term.

George B. Weir, traffic manager for Standard Slag Co., is elected president of the Youngstown Traffic Club.

1941: Army Air Corps Sgt. Felix LaCivita, a graduate of East High School in Youngstown, is assigned to France Field in the Panama Canal Zone for a two-year tour.

Columbiana Village faces a budget crisis with a projected loss of $1,000.

Ed Pridham is elected president of the St. David Society. Some 500 people are expected at the annual banquet.