YEARS AGO FOR FEB. 11

Today is Sunday, Feb. 11, the 42nd day of 2018. There are 323 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1531: The Church of England grudgingly accepts King Henry VIII as its supreme head.

1812: Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signs a redistricting law favoring his Democratic-Republican Party — giving rise to the term “gerrymandering.”

1858: A French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, reports the first of 18 visions of a lady dressed in white in a grotto near Lourdes. (The Catholic Church later accepted that the visions were of the Virgin Mary.)

1862: The Civil War Battle of Fort Donelson begins in Tennessee.

1929: The Lateran Treaty is signed, with Italy recognizing the independence and sovereignty of Vatican City.

1937: A six-week-old sit-down strike against General Motors ends, with the company agreeing to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union.

1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin sign the Yalta Agreement, in which Stalin agreed to declare war against Imperial Japan after Nazi Germany’s capitulation.

1986: Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky is released by the Soviet Union after nine years of captivity as part of an East-West prisoner exchange.

1990: South African black activist Nelson Mandela is freed after 27 years in captivity.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: Youngstown State University Athletic Director Joe Malmisur says the contract of basketball coach John Stroia will not be extended beyond the current season due to the team’s losing record and declining fan support.

Niles Superintendent John Bruno tells the school board that districts are being advised that traditional prayers and addresses offered by clergymen at baccalaureates held in conjunction with graduation ceremonies violate the constitutional division between church and state.

A discussion about committee assignments explodes at a Youngstown Board of Education meeting with board President Anthony Julian tossing his gavel across the room and one board member threatening to file assault charges against another.

1978: William B. Pollock II, retired president of the William B. Pollock Co., is elected president of the Youngstown Hospital Association, succeeding R. Thornton Beeghly.

Ohio health officials are waiting to see whether the Russian strain of the flu that has affected much of the United States is responsible for a flu outbreak causing heavy absenteeism at some Ohio schools.

The parent firms of two steel giants seeking to merge – Lykes Corp. (parent of Youngstown Sheet & Tube) and LTV (parent of Jones & Laughlin) – reports staggering 1977 losses totaling $228 million.

1968: The Rev. Norman Parr, executive director of the Youngstown Area Council of Churches, chairs a meeting of state and local clergy to plan church and social activities over the summer in the South Side and Northeast sections of Youngstown, where poverty is highest.

New seats in Opera red nylon and red and maroon carpeting complete a $110,000 refurbishing of Stambaugh Auditorium.

Peggy Fleming, a 19-year-old Colorado college student formerly from Cleveland, wins the first U.S. gold medal of the Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, skating to a Tchaikovsky routine.

The Franklin, Pa., Hospital plans an $80,000 cobalt therapy center that was approved by the Atomic Energy Commission.

1943: Hotel Pick-Ohio received 50 percent of the net profits of “Sportland,” a marble-board room in the hotel, splitting the take with R.E. Marino, owner of the machines.

Youngstown College will offer a pre-flight aeronautics course for secondary school teachers under the Civil Aeronautics Administration through which the college has been training naval cadets.

Olga Musiychuk and Robert Walton will sing the leads in their last college performances when the Dana Musical Institute presents the Gilbert and Sullivan opera “Pinafore.”