YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 18, the 18th day of 2017. There are 347 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1778: English navigator Captain James Cook reached the present-day Hawaiian Islands, which he named the “Sandwich Islands.”

1892: Comedian Oliver Hardy is born in Harlem, Ga.

1936: Nobel Prize-winning author Rudyard Kipling, 70, dies in London.

1943: During World War II, Jewish insurgents in the Warsaw Ghetto launch their initial armed resistance against Nazi troops, who eventually succeeded in crushing the rebellion.

1967: Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the “Boston Strangler,” is convicted in Cambridge, Mass., of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. (Sentenced to life, DeSalvo was killed in prison in 1973.)

1988: A China Southwest Airlines Ilyushin 18 crashes while on approach to Chongqing Airport, killing all 108 people on board.

1993: The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is observed in all 50 states for the first time.

2012: President Barack Obama rejects the Keystone XL pipeline project.

2016: Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, 67, dies in New York.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: Canfield City Manager Charles Tieche fires Police Chief Terry Shidel for insubordination after Shidel refused to wear a uniform.

Blowing snow and temperatures in the mid-20s couldn’t keep 5,000 fans from lining downtown streets for a victory parade for the Youngstown Statue University Penguins, NCAA Division 1-AA national champions.

YSU trustees unanimously approve a new contract for Jim Tressel that will make him head football coach through 2000 and athletic director no later than 1995. His salary for 1992-93 will be $66,300.

1977: Supplies of natural gas and electricity continue to deteriorate in the Youngstown district during an extended period of below-zero temperatures. Many area schools and businesses are closed.

Mrs. Neil Wood, a teacher who was embroiled in a book censorship dispute in W.Va. in 1973, and Dr. James Davis, an English professor at Ohio State University, speak to Niles teachers and warn that censorship is on the rise in the U.S. and there’s a movement to “destroy public education as we know it.”

John T. Smith, who succeeded to the presidency of the Greater Youngstown AFL-CIO after the death of Al Shipka in 1975, wins re-election to a two-year term.

1967: Four area educators participate in a “Computers in Education” seminar sponsored by General Electric Co. in Cleveland. They are Arthur Genuske, Richard Selby and Morris Kirk of Boardman, and C.E. Jones of Hubbard.

Ernie Shavers, ex-Newton Falls football player, beats heavyweight champion John Henry in the Youngstown Golden Gloves Amateur Tournament semifinals. Henry had beaten all comers for two years.

Relatives of Alexander Luzzi of Youngstown, who died of a heart attack while hunting near Boardman, are searching for his two beagles that disappeared.

1942: Robert Stewart of Poland, winner in the district Prince of Peace contest, will take part in the state semi-finals in Columbus.

The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions says three Ohioans are among its missionaries on Hainan Island of the South China coast where Japanese forces reportedly killed all American religious workers. The Ohioans were Alice H. Skinner of Cleveland, the Rev. David S. Tappan of Circleville and the Rev. John F. Steimer of Pandora.

The sum of $16,000 as well as 2,500 pairs of socks, 1.000 pairs of sea-boot stockings, 500 sweaters, 500 scarves and 75 boxes of miscellaneous clothing is sent to England by the Youngstown Committee of British War Relief Society.