YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, March 25, the 85th day of 2016. There are 281 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1306: Robert the Bruce is crowned King of Scots.

1776: Gen. George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, is awarded the first Congressional Gold Medal by the Continental Congress.

1865: During the Civil War, Confederate forces attack Fort Stedman in Virginia but are forced to withdraw because of counterattacking Union troops.

1911: Some 146 people, mostly young, female immigrants, are killed when fire breaks out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York.

1947: A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., claims 111 lives.

1954: RCA announces it has begun producing color television sets at its plant in Bloomington, Ind.

1965: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leads 25,000 people to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery after a five-day march from Selma to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks. Later that day, civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, a white Detroit homemaker, is shot and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen.

1975: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness. (The nephew was beheaded in June 1975.)

1985: “Amadeus” wins eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director for Milos Forman and best actor for F. Murray Abraham.

1991: “Dances with Wolves” wins seven Oscars, including best picture, at the 63rd annual Academy Awards; Kathy Bates wins best actress for “Misery” while Jeremy Irons receives best actor for “Reversal of Fortune.”

2001: At the 73rd Academy Awards, “Gladiator” wins best picture; its star, Russell Crowe, is named best actor; Julia Roberts receives the best actress Oscar for “Erin Brockovich”; Steven Soderbergh wins best director for “Traffic.”

2006: In Los Angeles, half a million people march to protest federal legislation to make illegal immigration a felony and build more walls along the border.

2011: Canadian opposition parties bring down the Conservative government in a no-confidence vote, triggering an election that gives Prime Minister Stephen Harper a clear Conservative majority in Parliament.

2015: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani thanks the U.S. Congress for billions of American tax dollars and vows his war-wracked country will be self-reliant within the decade.

British singer Zayn Malik shocks his fans by announcing he is quitting the chart-topping band One Direction.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: A survey of 15 Youngstown homeless shelters and service agencies shows that 450 people, more than 200 of them children, were living in the city’s homeless shelters or on the streets during the summer of 1990.

Miners from the East Fairfield Coal Co. find the fossilized trunks of two lycopsid trees near Petersburg. The lycopsid has been extinct for 300 million years.

A three-month investigation into illegal sports betting ends when Pennsylvania State police and Youngstown police raid nine homes during the NCAA tournament basketball games.

1976: Conneaut’s lakefront is one of three sites under consideration for a $3.5 billion U.S. Steel plant, according to Edgar Speer, board chairman.

In an unexpected move, Youngstown City Council repeals an ordinance giving the controlling board the power to award a franchise for cable television in the city.

Youngstown City Council passes an ordinance allowing city police to issue tickets to the owners of dogs that disturb neighbors by barking.

1966: The second annual Grotto Circus opens at the Struthers Fieldhouse with four shows scheduled over two days.

The seventh annual Youth Traffic Safety Conference takes place at Youngstown Woodrow Wilson High School.

The Lawrence County Association of Retired Persons is looking at the old Pennsylvania Railroad building as a possible headquarters.

1941: Warren racketeer James Munsene and his young business partner, Felix Monfrino, are gunned down at their restaurant, the Prime Steak House on Park Avenue in Warren. Two well-dressed gunmen armed with automatic pistols opened fire without warning and fled.

Youngstown will stop household collection of garbage unless a place can be found to bury what is being collected. The incinerator is out of commission for long-term repairs.

There’s an ambulance with “Youngstown Ohio” painted on its door serving war-torn England. City residents provided the $1,350 to equip and operate the ambulance for a year.