YEARS AGO
YEARS AGO
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 19, the 19th day of 2016. There are 347 days left in the year.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On this date in:
1807: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is born in Westmoreland County, Va.
1853: Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Il Trovatore” premieres in Rome.
1861: Georgia becomes the fifth state to secede from the Union.
1915: Germany carries out its first air raid on Britain during World War I as a pair of Zeppelins drop bombs onto Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in England.
1937: Millionaire Howard Hughes sets a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
1942: During World War II, Japan invades Burma (Myanmar).
1955: A presidential news conference is filmed for television and newsreels for the first time, with the permission of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
1960: The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the United States of America is signed by both countries in Washington, D.C.
1966: Indira Gandhi is chosen to be prime minister of India by the National Congress party. (Gandhi, a powerful as well as polarizing figure, served as India’s prime minister from 1966 to 1977, and again beginning in 1980 until she was assassinated in 1984.)
1970: President Richard M. Nixon nominates G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court; however, the nomination is defeated because of controversy over Carswell’s past racial views.
1977: In one of his last acts of office, President Gerald R. Ford pardons Iva Toguri D’Aquino, an American convicted of treason for making wartime broadcasts for Japan.
1981: The United States and Iran sign an accord paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months.
1992: German government and Jewish officials dedicate a Holocaust memorial at the villa on the outskirts of Berlin where the notorious Wannsee Conference had taken place.
2006: Osama bin Laden, in an audiotape that is his first in more than a year, said al-Qaida is preparing for attacks in the United States; at the same time, he offers a “long-term truce” without specifying the conditions.
Death claims soul pioneer Wilson Pickett at age 64 and actor Anthony Franciosa at age 77.
2011: Chinese President Hu Jintao, visiting the White House, declares “a lot still needs to be done” to improve his country’s record on human rights; the exchange with President Barack Obama over human rights is balanced by U.S. delight over newly announced Chinese business deals expected to generate about $45 billion in new export sales for the U.S.
2015: As he heads home from a weeklong trip to Asia, Pope Francis upholds church teaching banning contraception, but said Catholics didn’t have to breed “like rabbits” and should instead practice responsible parenting.
VINDICATOR FILES
1991: Five days into his term, Ohio Secretary of State Robert A. Taft II says his office will conduct its own probe into allegations of voting improprieties in Mahoning County in the attorney general race between Democrat Lee Fisher and Republican Paul Pfeifer.
Brian Fry, president of YSU’s student government, calls for a cooling of tensions between pro-war and anti-war student groups on campus.
U.S. Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who flew 149 combat missions in World War II and Korea, says the technology being used in the Persian Gulf allows today’s pilots to hit targets they can’t even see.
1976: Some 500 primary- grade pupils have been barred from attending Youngstown City Schools for failure to comply with Ohio’s mandatory inoculation law.
Grove City College begins 1976 preparing to combine marking the nation’s bicentennial with celebration of the 100th year of the college’s founding.
For the second-straight year, the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl, beating the Dallas Cowboys, 21-17, in Miami. Lynn Swann is named MVP.
1966: Youngstown will receive new letter-sorting equipment as part of a nationwide postal modernization program costing $65 million.
Eileen Keeney is re-elected to a second term as president of the Girard Federated Women’s Democrat Club. Mrs. Therese Pezdir is named the club’s mother of the year.
Theodore R. Miller, certified public accountant from Pittsburgh, succeeds the late Kenneth C. Smith as controller of Jameson Memorial Hospital in New Castle.
1941: The Youngstown area received direct national defense orders from the Army and Navy totaling $12.3 million between June 1 and Dec. 31, 1940.
The first of 10,000 toy ambulances being sent to district businessmen in the interest of British relief are mailed. R.W. Smith of Youngstown originated the idea and hopes it will catch on nationwide.
Poland Municipal Forest has been transformed into a picturesque recreation spot during the past year with trails, shelters and log bridges made by the National Youth Administration.