11

YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, Jan. 8, the eighth day of 2016. There are 358 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1642: Astronomer Galileo Galilei dies in Arcetri, Italy.

1790: President George Washington delivers his first State of the Union address to Congress in New York.

1815: The last major engagement of the War of 1812 ends as U.S. forces defeat the British in the Battle of New Orleans, not having gotten word of the signing of a peace treaty.

1863: America’s First Transcontinental Railroad has its beginnings as California Gov. Leland Stanford breaks ground for the Central Pacific Railroad in Sacramento. (The transcontinental railroad was completed in Promontory, Utah, in May 1869.)

1912: The African National Congress is founded in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

1918: President Woodrow Wilson outlines his Fourteen Points for lasting peace after World War I.

Mississippi becomes the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which establishes prohibition of alcohol.

1935: Rock ’n’ roll legend Elvis Presley is born in Tupelo, Miss.

1959: Charles de Gaulle is inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union address, declares an “unconditional war on poverty in America.”

1975: Judge John J. Sirica orders the early release from prison of Watergate figures John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder.

Democrat Ella Grasso is sworn in as Connecticut’s first female governor.

1976: Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, 77, dies in Beijing.

1982: American Telephone and Telegraph settles the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.

1996: Former French president Francois Mitterrand dies at 79.

2006: The first funerals take place in West Virginia for the 12 miners who died in the Sago Mine disaster six days earlier.

2011: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., is shot and critically wounded when a gunman opens fire as the congresswoman met with constituents in Tucson; six other people are killed; 12 others also are injured. (Gunman Jared Lee Loughner was sentenced in November 2012 to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years.)

2015: Three dissidents are abruptly released in what a leading human-rights advocate said is part of Cuba’s deal with Washington to release 53 members of the island’s political opposition.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Gov. Richard F. Celeste names Atty. Constant Prassinos to serve the unexpired term of Mahoning County Court Judge Michael A. Gerchak, who will assume a seat on common pleas court.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Thomas Moyer orders that Mahoning County ballots be secured while the outcome of the race for Ohio attorney general is investigated.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter C. Economus dismisses a $1.5 million slander suit filed by Atty. James Callen against Don L. Hanni Jr., chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party.

1976: Two Ohio State University students are killed when fire sweeps through the Alpha Rho Chi Fraternity house after pledges cleaning up start a fire in the fireplace to burn wastepaper. Dead are James N. Mitchell, 20, of Washington, Pa., and an unidentified 22-year-old woman.

Thirteen Youngstown policemen and three people who have tried to become patrolmen file suit in U.S. District Court alleging racial discrimination in hiring and promotion practices in the Youngstown Police Department. Among the lawyers filing the suit is Atty. Nathaniel B. Jones, chief legal counsel for the NAACP.

The General Motors facility at Lordstown turns out its 3 millionth vehicle, a pale blue Chevrolet van.

1966: The “Old Barn,” a teenage dance hall on South Avenue that has been the source of many complaints by Boardman residents, is closed by Boardman police after they evacuated some 400 teenagers.

Sharon Steel Corp. plans to sell 225,000 shares of common stock worth about $7.2 million to help finance an expansion program.

The Sebring Rotary Club announces that it will sponsor the one year visit of Myriam Lerman of Argentina, who will live with the families of four Rotary members and will attend McKinley High School.

1941: U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan announces that John E. Doyle, supervisor of the West Side Post Office and a letter carrier for 21 years, has been appointed postmaster, the first man to be promoted to the job from the ranks of postal workers.

At least 25,000 to 35,000 Youngstowners are expected to file federal income tax forms in 1941, double any previous year. The increase is due to rising earnings and a lowering of the federal requirements for paying income taxes.

Four Youngstown men are granted patents: William Gluck, sanding disk attachment; Charles Smalley, an improved suspension system; Lorenzo Marchetta, burnishing tool for finishing shoe edges; George Flory, a furnace draft regulator.