YEARS AGO

years ago

Today is Saturday, March 12, the 72nd day of 2016. There are 294 days left in the year. Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday at 2 a.m. Clocks go forward one hour.

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On this date in:

1664: England’s King Charles II grants an area of land on the East Coast of present-day North America known as New Netherland to his brother James, the Duke of York.

1912: The Girl Scouts of the USA has its origins as Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Ga., founds the first American troop of the Girl Guides.

1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers the first of his 30 radio addresses that came to be known as “fireside chats,” telling Americans what was being done to deal with the nation’s economic crisis.

1940: Finland and the Soviet Union conclude an armistice during World War II. (Fighting between the two countries flared again the following year.)

1980: A Chicago jury finds John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. (The next day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in May 1994.)

1993: Janet Reno is sworn in as the first female U.S. attorney general.

A three-day blizzard that came to be known as “The Storm of the Century” begins inundating the eastern third of the U.S.

2003: Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who’d vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, is found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, who are serving prison terms for kidnapping her.

2006: Four U.S. Army soldiers attack an Iraqi family south of Baghdad; three of them take turns raping a 14-year-old girl, Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi, whose parents and 6-year-old sister had been slain by one of the soldiers, Steven Dale Green, who then killed Abeer. (Green committed suicide in prison in February 2014; the others are serving lengthy sentences.)

2011: A Cuban court finds U.S. contractor Alan Gross guilty of bringing satellite phones and other communication equipment to Cuba illegally while working on a USAID-funded democracy-building program and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. (Cuba released Gross in December 2014).

2015: Two Ferguson, Mo., police officers are shot and wounded in front of the police department during a protest; U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder denounces the shooter as a “damn punk.”

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1991: A federal judge says the city of Youngstown retaliated against Barbara Martin after she complained about being sexually harassed by fellow workers in the water department.

Canfield’s Jenny Kulics is a first-team member of the 1990-91 Associated Press Girls Division II All-Ohio Team. Boardman’s Christine Moschella is named to the second team.

1976: A fast-spreading fire heavily damages the interior of the El Rio restaurant at 4256 Youngstown Road SE in Warren. Chief Bruce LaBaugh, who estimated the loss at $100,000, said five of the 32 firemen called out to fight the blaze were treated for smoke inhalation.

Emil A. “Spitz” Renner, 92, of 43 Gypsy Lane, chairman of the board of the former Renner Brewing Co. in Youngstown and a champion billiards player, dies at the Assumption Nursing Home.

Pat Strange, chairman of Mahoning County Concerned Taxpayers, says that local governments should be able to provide current levels of service while granting tax relief. He predicts dissatisfied taxpayers will defeat future school, health and police and fire levies.

1966: Mahoning County is told that it is unlikely that the county will qualify for federal funds for establishment of a proposed county airport.

The East Palestine Chamber of Commerce in an effort to attract new doctors to the city rents an office that it says will be made available to any doctor who is willing to relocate.

Boardman Methodist Church will break ground for a new church at 6809 Market Street.

1941: Gracie Fields, England’s favorite comedienne, arrives in Youngstown for a benefit at Stambaugh Auditorium in support of Britain’s war effort.

U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan, chairman of the House committee on enrolled bills, hand-delivers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt the lend-lease legislation that will help Britain prepare for war.

The Struthers Junior Chamber of Commerce receives its charter during a ceremony at the Southern Hills Country Club.