YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2016. There are 349 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1893: The 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, dies in Fremont, Ohio, at 70.

1916: The Professional Golfers’ Association of America has its beginnings as department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker hosts a luncheon of pro and amateur golfers in New York City.

1929: The cartoon character Popeye the Sailor makes his debut in the “Thimble Theatre” comic strip.

1945: Soviet and Polish forces liberate Warsaw during World War II; Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappears in Hungary while in Soviet custody.

1946: The United Nations Security Council has its first meeting in London.

1950: Great Brink’s Robbery takes place as seven masked men hold up a Brink’s garage in Boston, stealing $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and money orders.

1961: President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his farewell address in which he warns against “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

1966: A U.S. Air Force B-52 carrying four unarmed hydrogen bombs crashes on the Spanish coast. (Three of the bombs were quickly recovered, but the fourth wasn’t recovered until April.)

The Simon & Garfunkel album “Sounds of Silence” is released by Columbia Records.

1977: Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, is shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.

1984: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc., rules 5-4 that the use of home-video cassette recorders to tape TV programs for private viewing did not violate federal copyright laws.

1995: More than 6,000 people are killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.

1996: Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine followers are handed long prison sentences for plotting to blow up New York-area landmarks.

Former U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan, D-Texas, dies in Austin at age 59.

2001: Faced with an electricity crisis, California uses rolling blackouts to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of people; Gov. Gray Davis signs an emergency order authorizing the state to buy power.

2006: The U.S. Supreme Court protects Oregon’s assisted-suicide law, ruling that doctors there who helped terminally ill patients die could not be arrested under federal drug laws.

2015: Bill Cosby performs to a welcoming Denver audience, despite a protest by some 100 people chanting “Rape is not a joke!” and “No means no!” outside the theatre.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Chuck and Peg Kollar of Youngstown join parents around the nation expressing pride and concern for a son or daughter on the front lines of Operation Desert Storm, President George Bush’s effort to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Their son, Greg, is a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant stationed somewhere in Saudi Arabia near the Kuwait border.

Sharon Steel Corp. eliminates 16 management- level positions in a move that the steel maker says confirms the commitment by the company’s new owners to reduce expenses.

Ohio’s new attorney general, Lee Fisher, is asked by George Wilson, director of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, for a formal opinion on whether former Gov. Richard Celeste met statutory requirements in sparing the lives of eight death-row inmates.

1976: Youngstown vice squad chief Roger Halbert tells the National Gambling Commission meeting in Cleveland that Youngstown racketeer Joseph “Joey” Naples has been maintaining a lower profile in area gambling operations. Halbert says another Youngstown man, whom he did not identify, has taken over sports betting operations.

The body of Lorraine Cutchall, 28, is found in Garfield Road, bruised and stabbed. Police believe she may have been abducted from the Salem Laundromat on E. State Street.

A 21-year-old Early Road man eludes police after breaking away from two sheriff’s deputies while being transferred from Woodside Receiving Hospital to Mahoning County Jail. He ran to Boardman Street and was lost in mid-afternoon crowds.

1966: A city fireman, Engineer Fred Valenzisi, dies of a heart attack, and two other firemen are injured while fighting a $500,000 fire at the Al Wagner Motor Sales Building on Market Street.

Olin J. Gabriel, manager of the Youth Opportunity Center, will speak on youth job opportunities as part of Jaycees Week.

Lois E. Switzer retires after more than 25 years as postmaster in Elkton.

1941: Pete the Penguin, mascot of Youngstown College and pet of Youngstown, drowns in Crandall Park after getting trapped under the ice while searching for fish.

Dr. Castle W. Foard, director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration’s civilian pilot training program, reports that 30 local youths have applied for training as pilots.

The Canfield Fair receives first-place awards from the Ohio Fair Managers Association for its horse show and sheep and goat entries.