YEARS AGO FOR MARCH 29

Today is Wednesday, March 29, the 88th day of 2017. There are 277 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1638: Swedish colonists settle in present-day Delaware.

1867: Britain’s Parliament passes, and Queen Victoria signs, the British North America Act creating the Dominion of Canada, which came into being the following July.

1936: German Chancellor Adolf Hitler claims overwhelming victory in a plebiscite on his policies.

1943: World War II rationing of meat, fats and cheese begins.

1971: Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. is convicted of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

1992: Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton acknowledged experimenting with marijuana “a time or two” while attending Oxford University, adding, “I didn’t inhale and I didn’t try it again.”

2016: President Barack Obama tells the National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta that opioid abuse needs to be a higher-priority issue for the federal government.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: Erika Kneen of Canfield Middle School wins the 59th annual Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee, spelling “equanimity” and “tautology” to edge out Michael Anders of Howland Middle School.

Jim Schmalzreid, a history buff and 17-year veteran of the Girard Police Department, develops a trivia game called “Civil War Command,” which contains 1,288 questions and 52 photos of Civil War participants.

U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. says if the area is to be successful in landing a Pentagon finance defense project, all representatives from Mahoning and Trumbull counties are going to have to work together to win the project, which could bring 7,000 jobs to the area.

1977: The 11th District Court of Appeals overturns a Trumbull County Common Pleas Court ruling that upheld the Warren School district’s rejection of a teacher’s use of accumulated sick leave during her pregnancy. The district said the teacher had not specified an illness related to her pregnancy.

Nearly 10,000 East Ohio Gas Co. customers in the Youngstown area are threatened with loss of service if they do not pay their overdue bills. Due to the severe winter, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio had prohibited utility companies from discontinuing service until March 31.

Salem Mayor Frank Dauria asks Columbiana County Common Pleas Court to order the city’s striking 24 patrolmen and 18 firefighters back to work.

1967: Earl Young, president of the Youngstown Board of Education, says the district needs about $4 million additional, equivalent to 8 mills, to provide salaries, hospitalization and benefits that teachers deserve.

Francis M. Freeman, 43, a Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad brakeman, is killed under the wheels of a freight car while switching cars in the Greenville, Pa., yards.

Two Hubbard brothers, Larry and Richard Jugenheimer, receive their Boy Scout Eagle awards at First Methodist Church.

1942: Two Youngstown district Guernsey breeders, Wade N. Wehr and A.E. Wisler, receive seven of the 24 certificates awarded in Ohio for cows with outstanding lifetime butterfat records.

Alvin J. Griffiths, president of the Young Republican Club of Mahoning County, is elected president of the Ohio League of Young Republicans.

Children in Youngstown public schools are becoming adept in the techniques of air-raid drills.

Lt. John Musial of Youngstown is among the fliers mentioned in a wire story about American pilots training in Australia.