YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Thursday, Jan. 21, the 21st day of 2016. There are 345 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1793: During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, is executed on the guillotine.

1861: Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other Southerners whose states have seceded from the Union resign from the U.S. Senate.

1908: New York City’s Board of Aldermen passes an ordinance prohibiting women from smoking in public establishments (the measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr., but not before one woman, Katie Mulcahey, was jailed overnight for refusing to pay a fine).

1915: The first Kiwanis Club, dedicated to community service, is founded in Detroit.

1924: Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin dies at age 53.

1954: The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched at Groton, Conn. (However, the Nautilus did not make its first nuclear-powered run until nearly a year later.)

1968: The Battle of Khe Sanh begins during the Vietnam War.

1976: British Airways and Air France inaugurate scheduled passenger service on the supersonic Concorde jet.

1977: President Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

1982: Convict-turned- author Jack Henry Abbott is found guilty in New York of first-degree manslaughter in the stabbing death of waiter Richard Adan in 1981. (Abbott later was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison; he committed suicide in 2002.)

1994: A jury in Manassas, Va., finds Lorena Bobbitt not guilty by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding her husband, John, whom she’d accused of sexually assaulting her.

2006: Rescuers in West Virginia find the bodies of two miners who’d disappeared after a conveyor belt caught fire deep inside a coal mine.

2010: A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, vastly increases the power of big business and labor unions to influence government decisions by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress.

2011: Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, seriously wounded in a shooting rampage, is transferred from the University Medical Center trauma center in Tucson to Texas Medical Center in Houston to undergo months of therapy.

2015: Defying President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio announces that he’s invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand before Congress and push for new sanctions against its archenemy Iran. (Netanyahu addressed Congress on March 3, 2015.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1991:State Sen. Charles E. Henry of Auburn, R-32nd, says he is sponsoring legislation to do away with differentiated high school diplomas in Ohio before the new system starts in the 1993-94 school year.

Peace, unity and racial harmony are emphasized at the Martin Luther King Jr. observance at Price Memorial AME Zion Church.

The New York Giants end the San Francisco 49ers’ chance for a Super Bowl three-peat, winning the NFC championship, 15-13.

1976: Fire damages two rooms on the fifth floor of the Hotel Ohio, leading to the evacuation of 200 tenants and the injury of seven.

A Western Reserve Transit Authority bus drags Lloyd Billis, 7, to death on Dearborn Street after dropping the boy off near his home. The boy was riding the WRTA bus from Covington School.

Two GATX maintenance men die instantly when they are crushed by a crane while installing an electrical conduit in the company’s Masury plant. Mercer County Coroner John K. Mohney rules the deaths of John P. Krtiz, 53, and Ralph Herring, 47, industrial accidents.

1966: Michael V. DiSalle declares himself out of the race for the Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio.

The sanctuary of First Baptist temple is remodeled at a cost of $35,000. The congregation raised $16,125 during 1965 in a drive headed by Henry Dekker.

1941: Mrs. Dora Stewart is installed as president of Rose-Elma Protectors’ Club during a ceremony at the home of Mrs. Amanda James on Judson Avenue.

Dr. J.L. Scarnecchia establishes a $150 scholarship at Youngstown College in memory of his parents, Orazio and Cleonice Scarnecchia.

J.S. Douglas of Struthers Is elected president of the newly organized Junior Chamber of Commerce.