YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, Feb. 17, the 48th day of 2017. There are 317 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1815: The United States and Britain exchange the instruments of ratification for the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.

1863: The International Red Cross is founded in Geneva.

1897: The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, convenes its first meeting in Washington.

1947: The Voice of America begins broadcasting in Russian to the Soviet Union.

1964: The Supreme Court, in Wesberry v. Sanders, rules that congressional districts within each state have to be roughly equal in population.

1986: Johnson & Johnson announces it will no longer sell over-the-counter medications in capsule form, following the death of a woman who had taken a cyanide-laced Tylenol capsule.

2007: Senate Republicans foil a Democratic bid to repudiate President George W. Bush’s deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq. .

2012: Congress votes to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and to renew unemployment benefits for millions more.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: The mayors of Niles and Youngstown express concern about the civil-rights record of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District after seven discrimination charges are filed over a three-year period.

Trumbull County Domestic Relations Judge Peter Panagis, 62, announce that he will retire in April.

With three landfills, Mahoning County accepted more out-of-state garbage and trash in 1990 than any other county, at 594,463 tons.

1977: Two Youngstown parochial schools are closed because of high absenteeism attributed to flu-like symptoms.

Striking Warren firefighters return to work, but police are mulling their response to a temporary restraining order barring a walkout.

A federal grand jury in Pittsburgh returns a five-count indictment charging Farrell Mayor Francis Petrillo with conspiracy, extortion and making false statements to a grand jury.

1967: A man being held in a brutal murder and the suspect in an armed robbery escape from Trumbull County’s new modern jail, using a piece of angle iron to pry open their cell door.

The Mill Creek Park Citizens Committee passes a resolution asking legal action against the dumping of raw sewage into waterways and lakes in Mill Creek Park.

A low bid of $74,924 submitted by Pennsylvania Drilling Co. of McKees Rocks to Col. J.E. Hammer, Pittsburgh district engineer, for drilling test holes for the Lake Erie-Ohio River Waterway.

A hearing in Columbus for opponents of the bill to make Youngstown University a state university is held, but no opponents appear. Several state representatives speak in favor of the bill.

1942: Water Commissioner Innocenzo Vagnozzi, declaring that he was “speaking for the mayor,” asks Youngstown City Council to reconsider its action refusing funds for a 24-hour guard at the city’s four booster stations and four water tanks.

A special election will take place in Youngstown in March on a proposed special tax levy of 1.187 mills, which would enable the city government to finance general operating and war emergency activities.

Many men who placed in classes 1-B and 4-F for dependents or slight physical disabilities will be called for military service after 16,158 Mahoning County men enrolled in the nation’s third selective-service registration.