YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, March 6, the 66th day of 2016. There are 300 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1836: The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, falls to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.

1853: Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” premieres in Venice, Italy.

1857: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and could not sue for his freedom in federal court.

1933: A national bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed at calming panicked depositors takes effect.

1935: Retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., dies in Washington two days before his 94th birthday.

1944: U.S. heavy bombers stage the first full-scale American raid on Berlin during World War II.

1953:Georgy Malenkov is named premier of the Soviet Union a day after the death of Josef Stalin.

1970: A bomb being built inside a Greenwich Village townhouse by the radical Weathermen accidentally goes off, destroying the house and killing three group members.

1981:Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time as principal anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”

1983: In a case that draws much notoriety, a woman is gang-raped atop a pool table in a tavern in New Bedford, Mass., called Big Dan’s; four men are later convicted of the attack.

1998: The Army honors three Americans who’d risked their lives and turned their weapons on fellow soldiers to stop the slaughter of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.

2006: South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds signs legislation banning most abortions in his state (abortion- rights groups were able to get enough signatures to put the measure to a vote, and the ban was rejected in the November election).

2011: The space shuttle and space station crews hug goodbye after more than a week together, but save their most heartfelt farewell for Discovery, which is on its final voyage after nearly three decades.

2015: During a town hall at South Carolina’s Benedict College, President Barack Obama says racial discrimination from police in Ferguson, Mo., is “oppressive and abusive” as he calls for criminal-justice reform as part of the modern struggle for civil rights.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: A house burglar who has baffled police for months makes his first mistake when he uses a bank card taken from a Canfield home at an automatic-teller machine that took a clear picture of him.

After a Vindicator reporter questions $33,000 in purchases made by the Niles police and fire departments, city Auditor Ann Ford said her office will issue a memo to all department heads reminding them that major purchases must be channeled through the board of control.

Pete Gabriel says the 13th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Youngstown will be as much about showing the red, white and blue as the wearing of the green.

1976: The obligation of appointing someone to the vacant seat on the Youngstown Board of Education to fill the term of the late Louis Marciella falls to Mahoning County Probate Court Judge Charles P. Henderson after members of the school board fail to agree on a candidate.

Speaking in Youngstown, Ned Williams, director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, says he does not know of one plant that left Ohio because of EPA standards or demands. He disputed an allegation that the EPA played a role in the closing of Rockwell International’s bumper plant in Newton Falls, saying the industry shift to smaller cars reduced the need for large bumpers produced in Newton Falls.

A new 12-bed Coronary Medical Intensive Care unit opens at South Side Hospital, a part of a $1.4 million Youngstown Hospital Association project.

1966: William Hanson Bowie, nationally known sculptor fromYoungstown, is featured in the Christian Science Monitor.

Construction of the West Branch Reservoir nears completion. It will eventually hold 25 billion gallons and provide flood control and recreation.

1941: Three relatives of Mahoning County commissioners are employed in the relief administration, despite a law that forbids the hiring of any relative of a commissioner or the auditor of that department.

East Palestine makes the switch from manual to dial telephone service, eliminating the jobs of six to 10 telephone operators.

Warren’s three police cruisers belong in a junkyard, Police Chief B.J. Gillen tells city council in a bid for new equipment.