YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, March 2, the 62nd day of 2016. There are 304 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1793: The first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, is born near Lexington, Va.

1836: The Republic of Texas formally declares its independence from Mexico.

1865: Congress establishes the position of Naval Judge Advocate General.

1877: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes is declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.

1917: Puerto Ricans are granted U.S. citizenship as President Woodrow Wilson signs the Jones-Shafroth Act.

1933: The motion picture “King Kong” has its world premiere at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy.

1939: Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected pope on his 63rd birthday; he takes the name Pius XII.

1942: The original Stage Door Canteen, a wartime club for U.S. servicemen, officially opens its doors in New York’s theater district.

1955: Nine months before Rosa Parks’ famous act of defiance, Claudette Colvin, a black high-school student in Montgomery, Ala., is arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger.

1965: The movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, has its world premiere in New York.

1972: The United States launches the Pioneer 10 space probe, which flew past Jupiter in late 1973, sending back images and scientific data

1985: The government approves a screening test for AIDS that detects antibodies to the virus, allowing possibly contaminated blood to be excluded from the blood supply.

1995: The Internet search-engine website Yahoo! is incorporated by founders Jerry Yang and David Filo.

2006: President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announce a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal in New Delhi.

2011: The Supreme Court rules 8-1 that a grieving father’s pain over mocking protests at his Marine son’s funeral had to yield to First Amendment protections for free speech in a decision favoring the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Minneapolis-based Mesaba Airlines soon will begin making three daily trips from Youngstown Municipal Airport to Detroit as part of the Northwest Airlines regional system.

Poland Township trustees hire Guy Gugliotti Jr. as coordinator of the township’s drop-off recycling program.

Top-seeded Rayen School wins the sectional basketball title with a 70-55 victory in Boardman.

1976: After hearing some residents’ concerns, Austintown Township trustees extend a cordial but cautious welcome to Ohio’s plan for a village of mentally retarded adults on 37 acres of farmland south of County Line Road off state Route 46.

Youngstown police arrest two men and find guns, ammunition and $111 in cash in their car 20 minutes after two robbers beat and robbed Abe Honigman, proprietor of Arco United Family Food Market at 2238 Logan Ave.

Nicholas P. Bernard, who took over as Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman after the death of Jack Sulligan announces his retirement, citing health concerns.

1966: The original town clerk’s record book of the Village of Youngstown, organized in 1802, is part of the B.F. Wirt book collection now housed at the Arms Museum.

The mayor’s human- relations committee releases an 11-month study that found no racial discrimination being practiced in Youngstown hospitals.

The 910th Troop Carrier Group at the Youngstown Air Reserve Base takes high honors for its safety record on land and in the air. Col. Randall Hendricks receives the awards at Andrews AFB in Washington.

1941: The first 12 nurses sign up for the Mahoning Red Cross reserve nursing corps. The goal is 250.

Astatic Microphone Co. on Market Street in Youngstown is enjoying a growing demand for its revolutionary sound recording machines for the home.

Jean Webb, supervisor of art for Youngstown city schools, has a one-person show at the Butler Art Institute that is both varied and forceful.