YEARS AGO FOR MARCH 19

Today is Sunday, March 19, the 78th day of 2017. There are 287 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1863: The Confederate cruiser Georgiana is scuttled off Charleston, S.C., on its maiden voyage to prevent it from falling into Union hands.

1911: First International Women’s Day sees more than 1 million men and women attend rallies in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Issues discussed included women’s right to vote and to hold public office, the right to work, to vocational training and an end to discrimination on the job.

1917: A divided United States Supreme Court, in Wilson v. New, upholds 5-4 the eight-hour work day for interstate railroad workers.

1920: The U.S. Senate rejects, for a second time, the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 49 in favor, 35 against, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.

1931: Nevada Gov. Fred B. Balzar signs a measure legalizing casino gambling.

1942: During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders men between the ages of 45 and 64, inclusive, to register for nonmilitary duty.

1945: During World War II, 724 people are killed when a Japanese dive bomber attacks the carrier USS Franklin off Japan (the ship was saved). Also, Adolf Hitler orders the destruction of German facilities that could fall into Allied hands in his so-called “Nero Decree,” which would be largely disregarded.

1951: Herman Wouk’s World War II novel “The Caine Mutiny” is first published by Doubleday.

1965: The wreck of the Confederate cruiser Georgiana is discovered by E. Lee Spence, 102 years to the day after it was scuttled.

1977: The series finale of “Mary Tyler Moore” airs on CBS-TV, ending the situation comedy’s seven-season run.

1979: The U.S. House of Representatives begins televising its floor proceedings; the live feed is carried by C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network), which is making its debut.

1987: Televangelist Jim Bakker resigns as chairman of his PTL ministry organization amid a sex and money scandal involving Jessica Hahn, a former church secretary.

1997: Artist Willem de Kooning, considered one of the 20th century’s greatest painters, dies in East Hampton, N.Y., at age 92.

2003: President George W. Bush orders the start of war against Iraq. (Because of the time difference, it was early March 20 in Iraq.)

2007: President George W. Bush marks the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war with a plea for patience to let his revised battle plan work; Congress’ new Democratic leaders retort that no patience remained.

A methane gas explosion in a Siberian coal mine kills 110 workers.

Death claims rhythm-and-blues singer-songwriter Luther Ingram at age 69 and TV performer Calvert DeForest, aka “Larry ‘Bud’ Melman,” at age 85.

2012: An assailant on a motorbike opens fire with two handguns in front of a Jewish school in the southern French city of Toulouse, killing a rabbi, his two young sons and a girl. (The gunman, French-born Mohammed Merah, was killed in a gunfight with police after a 32-hour standoff at his apartment; he had also killed three French paratroopers.)

The federal Justice Department announces it has begun an investigation into the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida by a neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman.

2016: A FlyDubai Boeing 737 plunges into the ground near the airport in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, killing all 62 people on board.

A Turkish suicide bomber kills five people, including two Americans, in Istanbul’s main pedestrian shopping street; Turkish officials said the bomber was linked to Islamic State.

Protesters block a main highway leading into the Phoenix suburb where Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is staging a campaign rally alongside Arizona’s contentious sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: James S. Cicarelli, a member of YSU’s athletics advisory committee, says a report that used “pejorative terms” to imply that athletics spending had been increased at the expense of academics and that suggested athletic spending be cut should be ignored.

Ten representatives of Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim sects issue a statement during a press conference at Mount Gilead Baptist Church urging the area’s faithful to pray for a less violent community.

Youngstown Mayor Patrick Ungaro says he is considering contracting out city ambulance service, saying the money and time involved in running it and training qualified paramedics isn’t worth the effort.

1977: Anthony Schaefer, 80, marks his 50th year in the music business in Youngstown. His Schaefer Music Shoppe in the Stambaugh Building has as many as a million pieces of sheet music, from classical scores to the latest by the Rolling Stones band.

Robert Pegues, superintendent of Youngstown City Schools, and the NAACP will challenge a Franklin County Common Pleas Court ruling that shifts 107 acres in Coitsville from the Youngstown district to the Campbell school district.

The drive to raise $3 million for the Youngstown State University Sports Complex has collected nearly $2 million, says campaign chairman Frank C. Watson.

1967: Marine Staff Sgt. Vincent M. Tomalko of Boardman is killed when the truck he was driving struck a mine in the Da Nang area of Vietnam.

The first four area men who held the first draft number – 442 – picked in World War II in March 1942, returned home from the war and still live here: John Calvin, Clem Dawson, John C. Perry and Mike Sabol Jr.

Janet Fratino, Cardinal Mooney senior, takes top honors in dramatic interpretation at the Ohio High School Speech Tournament in Columbus.

The U.S. and Ohio public health departments will conduct a survey to determine the causes of air pollution in sections of Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

1942: Frank E. Hubler, 79, a pioneer in developing half-tone reproduction of newspaper photographs, dies after being struck by a car while en route to work at Youngstown Arc Engraving in The Vindicator building.

Pending strikes and the war effort have put the Congress in no mood to give favorable consideration to the omnibus rivers and harbors bill, which would include funds for a Beaver- Mahoning canal.

Three Youngstown district pilots, Sam Belieff, Irving L. White Jr. and Dwight Shrum, are ferrying American-built fighters from Africa to the Orient and Australia.