YEARS AGO

Today is Easter Sunday, March 27, the 87th day of 2016. There are 279 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sights present-day Florida.

1836: The first Mormon temple is dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio, by Joseph Smith Jr.

1884: The first telephone line between Boston and New York is inaugurated.

1912: First lady Helen Herron Taft and the wife of Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Viscountess Chinda, plants the first two of 3,000 cherry trees given as a gift by the mayor of Tokyo.

1933: Japan officially withdraws from the League of Nations.

1945: During World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower tells reporters in Paris that Germany’s main defensive line on the Western Front has been broken.

1958: Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet premier in addition to First Secretary of the Communist Party.

1964: Alaska is hit by a magnitude-9.2 earthquake (the strongest on record in North America) and tsunamis that together claim about 130 lives.

1976: The first section of Washington, D.C.’s Metrorail, 4.2 miles long, is opened to the public.

1977: About 580 people are killed when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashes into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife.

1980: Some 123 workers die when a North Sea floating oil field platform, the Alexander Kielland, capsizes during a storm.

1990: The U.S. begins test broadcasts of TV Marti to Cuba, which promptly jams the signal.

2006: Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testifies at his federal trial that he was supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

2011: Miami’s LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh accomplish something that hadn’t been done in more than 50 years: Each has 30-10 nights – James with 33 points and 10 rebounds, Bosh with 31 points and 12 rebounds, and Wade with 30 points and 11 boards – as the Heat beat the Houston Rockets 125-119.

2015: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announces he would retire the following year.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Sharon hires a Pittsburgh consulting firm to develop a strategy that would provide assistance to low-income families that want to own a home in the city.

The Youngstown Police Department Bomb Squad removes highly volatile sodium metal found in a storage room at South High School. Students on the third floor were sent to the auditorium during removal.

Weathersfield Township trustees suggest that residents may want to incorporate as a village as a matter of self preservation as adjacent cities attempt to annex valuable township property.

1976: Dr. A.L. Gabriel, emeritus director of NotreDame University, tells 902 winter commencement graduates of Youngstown State University that the convictions and faith of the university graduate of today will determine the moral fabric of tomorrow.

Trumbull County deputies and Youngstown police will cooperate in investigating the apparent robbery, abduction and murder of Michael Santoro, 19, who disappeared from the Leon Oil Co. station in South Avenue. His body was found off County Line Road in Hubbard Township.

Members of the Youngs-town Police Department vice and narcotics squads raid two places, rounding up 36 men and seizing a large amount of cash and gambling gear in a second assault on gambling and cheat spots in the city.

1966: James P. Griffin, director of USW District 26, says the large number of steelworkers who live in Western Pennsylvania but work in Mahoning Valley mills should throw their support behind construction of a Lake Erie-Ohio River canal.

Construction projects at Copperweld Steel, two Warren hospitals and a number of Trumbull County schools are draining the area’s dwindling skilled-labor supply.

1941: Mahoning County Sheriff Ralph Elser tells a state meeting of the Ohio Farm Bureau in Columbus that it’s the bureau’s responsibility to rise against the threats that Communists, radicals and fifth columners pose to America.

Lucille Diorio and Alberta Diet will have lead parts in “Poor Dear Edgar,” the East High play. Other cast members are Harry Meshel, Mollie Glasberg, William Hagerty, Earl Krichbaum, Margaret Bernard, Frances Renaldy, Lewis DeLallo and Juanita Winning..

Buy a portable radio-phonograph in a mahogany case at Best Jewelry on Federal Street for $14.95 and receive 10 free records.