YEARS AGO FOR FEBRUARY 2

Today is Friday, Feb. 2, the 33rd day of 2018. There are 332 days left in the year. This is Groundhog Day.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1536: Present-day Buenos Aires, Argentina, is founded by Pedro de Mendoza of Spain.

1653: New Amsterdam – now New York City – is incorporated.

1887: Punxsutawney, Pa., has its first Groundhog Day festival.

1932: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra record “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” for Brunswick Records.

1943: The remainder of Nazi forces from the Battle of Stalingrad surrenders in a major victory for the Soviets in World War II.

1988: President Ronald Reagan presses his case for additional aid to the Nicaraguan Contras a day ahead of a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives.

2008: A gunman kills five women at a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park, Ill., in an apparent botched robbery (the case remains unsolved).

2013: Former Navy SEAL and “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle was fatally shot along with a friend, Chad Littlefield, at a gun range west of Glen Rose, Texas. Suspect Eddie Ray Routh was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

2017: Declaring that religious freedom is “under threat,” President Donald Trump vows to repeal a rarely enforced IRS rule that says pastors who endorse candidates from the pulpit risk losing their tax-exempt status.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: Gov. George V. Voinovich says there was good news for Ohio during President Bill Clinton’s meeting with governors when Clinton vowed to give states more freedom in running their Medicaid programs.

Acknowledging that it faces monumental expenses over the next 20 years for retiree medical expenses, General Motors Corp. says it will take a $20.8 billion after-tax charge against 1992 earnings.

1978: The evacuation of the Trumbull County Nursing Home in Brookfield is being planned because 86 residents are living over a complex of underground mines.

Youngstown, Warren and Niles set in motion plans to reduce government consumption of electricity, setting an example that they hope homeowners will follow, as stockpiles of coal used to generate electricity continue to dwindle during a strike by miners.

Shareholders of Ohio Corrugating Co. in Warren will meet Feb. 23 to discuss liquidation of the company that has been crippled by a strike by 150 production workers.

1968: Two 15-year-old East Side youths are in custody, accused of setting a fire at Science Hill Elementary School, causing the evacuation of 700 students.

Record-high temperatures and more rain on Groundhog Day gives believers in the legend hope that spring is just around the corner.

Ohio revises its school foundation fund by $106,000 to Austintown schools averting a crisis in payment of teachers’ salaries.

1943: Two of Youngstown’s four air-raid sirens arrive. The huge sirens are powered by 140-horsepower Chrysler engines.

Sharon Steel Corp. will furnish zinc-coated, cold-rolled strip steel to the U.S. Treasury Department for new copperless pennies.

Youngstown City Council authorizes the Youngstown Municipal Railway Co. to provide free rides for armed-services personnel in uniform.