YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, March 4, the 64th day of 2016. There are 302 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1789: The Constitution of the United States goes into effect as the first Federal Congress meets in New York. (The lawmakers then adjourned for lack of a quorum.)

1791: Vermont becomes the 14th state.

1865: President Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for a second term of office; with the end of the Civil War in sight, Lincoln declares: “With malice toward none, with charity for all.”

1913: The “Buffalo nickel” officially goes into circulation.

1925: President Calvin Coolidge’s inauguration is broadcast live on 21 radio stations coast-to-coast.

1930: Coolidge Dam in Arizona is dedicated by its namesake, former President Calvin Coolidge.

1940: Kings Canyon National Park in California is established.

1952: Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis are married in San Fernando Valley, Calif.

1966: John Lennon of The Beatles is quoted in the London Evening Standard as saying, “We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ’n’ roll or Christianity.” (After his comments caused an angry backlash in the United States, Lennon sought to clarify his remarks, telling reporters, “If I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it.”)

1974: The first issue of People magazine, then called People Weekly, is published by Time-Life Inc., with actress Mia Farrow on the cover.

1996: Comedian Minnie Pearl dies in Nashville, Tenn., at age 83.

2006: President George W. Bush, visiting Islamabad, praises Pakistan’s fight against terrorism as unfaltering, but turns down an appeal for the same civilian nuclear help the United States intended to give India.

2011: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s regime strikes back at its opponents with a powerful attack on Zawiya, the closest opposition-held city to Tripoli, and a barrage of tear gas and live ammunition to smother new protests in the capital.

NASA launches its Glory satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on what is supposed to be a three-year mission to analyze how airborne particles affect Earth’s climate; however, the rocket carrying Glory plummets into the southern Pacific several minutes after liftoff.

2015: The trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged in the Boston Marathon bombing, begins with an acknowledgement from his attorney that the 21-year-old former college student committed the crime but did not deserve to die due to the malevolent influence of his dead older brother, Tamerlan; prosecutors call to the witness stand three women who suffered severe injuries in the blasts.

The Justice Department clears Darren Wilson, a white former Ferguson, Mo., police officer, in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, but also issues a scathing report calling for sweeping changes in city law-enforcement practices.

A House committee investigating the Benghazi, Libya, attacks issues subpoenas for the emails of Hillary Rodham Clinton; the subpoenas from the Republican-led Select Committee on Benghazi comes the same day The Associated Press reports the existence of a personal email server traced back to the Chappaqua, N.Y., home of Clinton.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: State Rep. Ronald Gerberry proposes regulation of massage parlors by requiring licensing of masseuses, that all employees be at least 18 years old, that owners pass criminal background checks and that parlors be open for fewer than 24 hours a day.

The Pyatt Street Market, which opened in 1926, is undergoing renovations under its owners Bill and Janet Umbrel.

Austintown Township trustees close one of the township’s five fire stations, the 53-year-old station at 5340 Mahoning Ave.

1976: The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad roundhouse near New Castle, Pa., is destroyed by fire caused by lightning. Two diesel locomotives are destroyed, and damage is estimated at $1 million.

Youngstown Mayor Jack C. Hunter and the city are sued for $1 million by four city employees who were fired for reportedly participating in an illegal strike.

The Youngstown City School District negotiates a base pay for teachers of $9,255 as of January 1977, giving the district the fifth-highest starting pay for teachers in the state.

1966:Maggi McKissick, a junior, is named Youngstown University’s Best-Dressed Coed in a contest sponsored by Glamour magazine.

Campbell City Council is the first to respond to a suggestion by the mayor of Youngstown that 11 neighboring subdivisions be annexed to the city. Campbell can walk on its won feet, says Councilman Dominic Romeo.

Boardman Faculty Wives elects Mrs. Alfred Taylor president.

1941: New-auto sales, boosted by prosperity in the Mahoning Valley and rumors of higher prices, are the highest in Mahoning County history, with 736 sold in February, compared with 525 a year earlier.

Youngstown and Mahoning County school officials oppose a bill in the Ohio House that would require school buses to be painted red, white and blue. They say orange has proved to be more visible in all weather than any other color.

One hundred WPA workers are being transferred form Niles to work on Route 5, the highway leading to the Ravenna Arsenal.