Today is Saturday, Feb. 17, the 48th day of 2018. There are 317 days left in the year.

February 17, 2018 at 12:00a.m.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1815: The United States and Britain exchange the instruments of ratification for the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.

1865: During the Civil War, Columbia, S.C., burns as the Confederates evacuate and Union forces move in.

1897: The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, convenes its first meeting in Washington.

1968: The original Basketball Hall of Fame at Springfield College in Massachusetts opens to the public.

1996: World chess champion Garry Kasparov beats IBM supercomputer “Deep Blue,” winning a six-game match in Philadelphia.

2008: President George W. Bush rejects proposed Democratic changes to his AIDS relief program, issuing a challenge to Congress from Tanzania to “stop the squabbling” and renew it as is.

2013: Danica Patrick wins the Daytona 500 pole, becoming the first woman to secure the top spot for any Sprint Cup race.

2017: Over the strong objections of environmental groups, the Senate confirms Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt was sworn in later in the day by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: After meeting with President Bill Clinton, U.S. Rep. James A Traficant, D-17th, says all 20 finalists, including the Mahoning Valley, remain in the running for a Pentagon finance center that would employ as many as 7,000.

Citing evidence that second-hand smoke is linked to thousands of cancer deaths, U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant introduces legislation that would ban smoking in federal buildings, including Congress.

Two trucks collide on I-80 in Hubbard Township, sending one through a guardrail and plummeting 20 feet off a bridge. Neither driver was injured.

1978: Bishop John Burt of the Ohio Episcopal Diocese opens a “Save Our Valley” account at the Metropolitan Savings & Loan Association. The Ecumenical Coalition hopes to raise $6 million to $12 million in SOV bank accounts to show the Valley’s commitment toward a takeover of the Campbell Works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.

Two New Castle, Pa., teenage brothers are arrested after the armed hold-up of a gun store, T.E. Stuart Sporting Goods on Elwood Road.

Youngstown Steel Door Co. is the latest industry to feel the pressure of electrical cutbacks, which closed its plant, idling 1,000 employees, after Ohio Edison orders a cut of 25 percent.

1968: A 23-year-old filling station attendant, Ali Bagheri, is in critical condition after being shot during a robbery at the Humble Service Station, 1315 Belmont Ave.

Sgt. Henry Marshall of Youngstown, a 12-year veteran of the Marine Corps, is killed in action in South Vietnam, the 50th Mahoning County serviceman to die in conflict there.

A head-on collision on Afton Avenue, Boardman, injures five people, including four students, Paul, Patrice, Mary and Kevin Kemper and Andrew Fidram.

1943: Lt. Robert A. Saunders, well-known to Youngstowners as the pilot of a Flying Fortress named “Butch,” has flown his crippled ship back to an allied bomber station in England for a second time after taking heavy fire during a bombing raid.

Completing Berlin Dam and flooding the $6.6 million reservoir to catch winter’s water for summer’s war use, is at a standstill due to a Portage County restraining order that keeps the flood gates from being closed.

There is a greater possibility of air raids in the Mahoning Valley this spring than ever, says Charles Daley, director of Mahoning County’s Civilian Defense.