YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, Feb. 27, the 58th day of 2016. There are 308 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1801: The District of Columbia is placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

1911: Inventor Charles F. Kettering demonstrates his electric automobile starter in Detroit by starting a Cadillac’s motor with just the press of a switch, instead of hand-cranking.

1922: The Supreme Court, in Leser v. Garnett, unanimously upholds the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right of women to vote.

1933: Germany’s parliament building, the Reichs-tag, is gutted by fire; Chancellor Adolf Hitler, blaming the Communists, uses the fire to justify suspending civil liberties.

1939: The Supreme Court, in National Labor Relations Board v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., effectively outlaws sit-down strikes.

1943: The U.S. government begins circulating 1-cent coins made of steel plated with zinc (the steel pennies proved unpopular, since they easily were mistaken for dimes).

1951: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, is ratified.

1973: Members of the American Indian Movement occupy the hamlet of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the site of the 1890 massacre of Sioux men, women and children. (The occupation lasted until May.)

1986: The U.S. Senate approves telecasts of its debates on a trial basis.

1991: Operation Desert Storm ends as President George H.W. Bush declares that “Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is defeated.”

1997: Divorce becomes legal in Ireland.

2011: Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of World War I who’d also survived being a civilian prisoner of war in the Philippines in World War II, dies in Charles Town, W.Va., at age 110.

2015: Actor Leonard Nimoy, 83, world famous to “Star Trek” fans as the pointy-eared, purely logical science officer Mr. Spock, dies in Los Angeles.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Facing budget restraints, the Western Reserve Transit Authority suspends indefinitely its Downtown Trolley, which transported people to and from downtown and the Youngstown State University campus.

Arrica Reichle, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A.E. Vea of Liberty Township, reports that her husband, Hal, a pilot who attended Warren Harding High School and Hiram College, was killed in a helicopter crash behind enemy lines in the Persian Gulf war.

Commercial InterTech begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CTEK and trading at 167/8.

1976: The Ohio House Judiciary Committee defeats amendments to an anti-crime bill that would have banned the sale of cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials and would have required firearms dealers to be licensed by the state.

Mahoning County residents are appearing in a steady stream at the courthouse to protest higher valuations that appeared on the first-half 1975 tax bills property owners are receiving.

A $10,000 settlement is reached in a $300,000 wrongful-death suit filed against the city of Youngstown by Sallie B. Watson, the mother of Richard Watson, who was arrested by police for drunkenness and placed in a cell, where he bled to death from three gunshot wounds unnoticed by police.

1966: General Motors’ new Lordstown assembly plant is nearing completion.

A Youngstown dentist, Dr. Robert Morrison, his wife and four children learn during a month on a reservation in Montana that American Indians are isolated from mainstream American society.

Mahoning County commissioners and the Mahoning and Ohio Welfare departments are negotiating the construction of a new building to house the staff of combined public-assistance agencies in Youngstown.

1941: Judge David Jenkins sentences a 26-year-old purse-snatcher to an indeterminate term in the Mansfield Reformatory as a warning to “thugs who manhandle women.”

Youngstown Manufacturing Inc., which manufactures aluminum trim for no defense customers, has to curtail operations because virtually all aluminum is being diverted to defense contractors.

The Youngstown College basketball team closes its 1940-41 campaign with a 64-40 win over Hiram College and a season record of 14 wins, eight losses.