YEARS AGO FOR FEB. 23

Today is Friday, Feb. 23, the 54th day of 2018. There are 311 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1685: Composer George Frideric Handel is born in present-day Germany.

1836: The siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.

1848: The sixth president of the U.S., John Quincy Adams, dies in Washington, D.C., at age 80.

1927: President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission.

1942: The first shelling of the U.S. mainland during World War II occurs as a Japanese submarine fires on an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, Calif., causing little damage.

1945: During World War II, U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima capture Mount Suribachi, where they raise two American flags.

1954: The first mass inoculation of schoolchildren against polio begins in Pittsburgh.

1965: Film comedian Stan Laurel, 74, dies in Santa Monica, Calif.

2008: Former United Auto Workers president Douglas A. Fraser dies in Southfield, Mich., at age 91.

2017:Seeking to tamp down growing unease in Latin America, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly pledges during a visit to Mexico City that the U.S. will not use its military to enforce immigration laws and that there would be “no mass deportations.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: Ohio Bancorp, parent of Dollar Savings & Trust Co., reports a $20 million loss for 1992. A proposed merger with PNC Bank Corp. of Pittsburgh is off.

Youngstown-based Phar-Mor Inc. announces the closing of 31 more stores as part of its restructuring. The chain will be down to 224 sites, from a high of 310.

Youngstown schools Treasurer Ralph Loganzo and Superintendent Al Tutela say they were able to erase a $5.3 million deficit in 1977, but there’s no more room to trim, and a $631,000 deficit in 1978 portends even larger shortfalls in coming years.

1978: Daily testimony in the Trumbull County Common Pleas trial of John Tidwell in the 1973 murders of C. Walter and Dorothy Holmquist continues to draw crowds.

Byron A. Bell, an escapee from Lucasville penitentiary, has been charged by the FBI in at least nine bank robberies, including one at the Niles Bank branch in the Village Plaza and the Girard Federal Savings and Loan at Liberty Plaza.

Two 15-year-old East Side boys plead not guilty in Mahoning County Juvenile Court to murder charges in the death of a 3-year-old Campbell boy who was killed by a rock thrown from a Madison Avenue Expressway overpass.

1968: General Motors introduces a new electric vehicle, an experimental Army truck that can climb a 60-degree grade carrying two tons of supplies.

John and Patricia Penny of Poland escape injury when natural gas explodes at their Peek’s Cleaners shop.

Fire causes $600 damage at the Tod Hotel and causes the evacuation of 50 tenants from upper floors.

Raises for teachers and other employees contributed significantly to a $1.1 million increase in operating costs for the Youngstown City School District.

1943: Mike Slatsky, former Campbell resident, chief petty officer in the quartermaster corps, is reported missing in action in the Solomon Islands.

The Triangle Raincoat Co. and Moyer Manufacturing Co. are altering their factories to conform with Youngstown building and fire codes.

Members of the Quota Club meet in the Chapel of the Friendly Bells, where Mrs. Walter Swearingen explains the symbolism of the chapel’s beautiful windows.