YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, Feb. 26, the 57th day of 2016. There are 309 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1616: Astronomer Galileo Galilei meets with a Roman Inquisition official, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who ordered him to abandon the “heretical” concept of heliocentrism, which held that the Earth revolved around the sun, instead of the other way around.

1815: Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from exile on the Island of Elba and heads back to France in a bid to regain power.

1904: The United States and Panama proclaim a treaty under which the U.S. agrees to undertake efforts to build a ship canal across the Panama isthmus.

1916: Actor-comedian Jackie Gleason is born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

1919: President Woodrow Wilson signs a congressional act establishing Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

1929: President Calvin Coolidge signs a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

1945: Authorities order a midnight curfew at nightclubs, bars and other places of entertainment across the nation.

1952: Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that Britain has developed its own atomic bomb.

1966: South Korean troops sent to fight in the Vietnam War massacre at least 380 civilians in Go Dai hamlet.

1970: National Public Radio is incorporated.

1986: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Robert Penn Warren is named the first poet laureate of the United States by Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin.

1993: A truck bomb built by terrorists explodes in the parking garage of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.

2006: On the final day of the Turin Winter Olympics, Sweden beats Finland 3-2 to win the men’s hockey gold. Germany finishes first in overall medals with 29 and golds with 11, while the Americans win 25 medals overall, nine of them gold.

2011: In a statement, President Barack Obama says Moammar Gadhafi has lost his legitimacy to rule and urges the Libyan leader to leave power immediately.

2012: Trayvon Martin, 17, is shot to death in Sanford, Fla., during an altercation with neighborhood-watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who said he’d acted in self-defense. (Zimmerman was subsequently acquitted of second-degree murder.)

2015: Internet activists declare victory over the nation’s big cable companies after the Federal Communications Commission votes 3-2 to impose the toughest rules yet on broadband service to prevent companies such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from creating paid fast lanes and slowing or blocking web traffic.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: The Holiday Inn in Boardman gets the top score on a survey of guests at all 1,376 of the chain’s motels. General Manager Len Lesko credits the motel’s employees for the success.

A private religious school, New Castle Christian Academy, will open in the former Arthur McGill Elementary School on New Castle’s North Hill in September.

Youngstown’s Greg Richardson scores an upset victory over World Boxing Council Bantamweight Champion Raul Perez with a unanimous 12-round decision in Inglewood, Calif.

1976: St. Elizabeth Hospital and the North and South Side hospitals cancel all general visiting hours in response to a flu outbreak. Immediate family of seriously ill patients still will be able to visit.

A 15-year-old Austintown youth is permanently committed to the Ohio Youth Commission in Columbus after pleading guilty in juvenile court to aggravated robbery of the Calcutta Branch of Potters Savings and Loan Co. in East Liverpool.

The Boardman Board of Education is weighing whether to put up new lights at the existing football field at Boardman Center Middle School or launch a campaign for $300,000 for a new field on the grounds of Boardman High School.

1966: The Mahoning County Community College Board of Trustees takes an option on a 220-acre site at Route 224 and Tippecanoe for construction of a $20 million community college.

Francis “Spike” McLaughlin, former Canfield basketball coach, makes good on his promise to walk from Canfield to Struthers for a game against Austintown. His Cardinals respond with a 53-43 win over Fitch.

Salvation Army Capt. Janice Hopwood of Youngstown is leaving for missionary work in Peru.

1941: Churches throughout the Mahoning Valley will join in a Lenten effort to raise money that will be used to help those suffering the ravages of war in Europe and Asia.

The Youngstown Chamber of Commerce is rebuffed by the Ohio Senate taxation committee in an effort to have the state drop a 1-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax.

Ohio Highway Patrol troopers continue a crackdown on overweight trucks, arresting 26 drivers near Salem.