YEARS AGO FOR MARCH 30

Today is Good Friday, March 30, the 89th day of 2018. There are 276 days left in the year. The Jewish holiday Passover begins at sunset.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1822: Florida becomes a U.S. territory.

1867: U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reaches agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”

1870: The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, takes effect.

1964: John Glenn withdraws from the Ohio race for the U.S. Senate because of injuries suffered in a fall.

The original version of the TV game show “Jeopardy!,” hosted by Art Fleming, premieres on NBC.

1981: President Ronald Reagan is shot and injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley Jr.; also wounded were White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and a District of Columbia police officer, Thomas Delahanty.

2002: Britain’s Queen Mother Elizabeth dies at 101.

2013: Phil Ramone, 79, the masterful award-winning engineer, arranger and producer, dies in New York.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: Mahoning County officials say the theft of more than $100,000 over three years from the tuberculosis clinic went undetected because of a lack of checks and balances within the clinic administration.

The Youngstown-Warren area ranks next to last, behind only Canton, in projected growth of jobs in Ohio’s eight major metropolitan areas during the 1990s.

Sparkle Market in Boardman pulls the meat from its shelves after an overnight tip to police that it was intentionally tainted with AIDS-infected blood. The FBI, Mahoning County Health Department and Food and Drug Administration have been called in.

1978: The Mahoning County grand jury returns two indictments in child-abuse cases, including one that involved the death of a North Side tot, and expresses its alarm at “the number and severity of child abuses that are occurring.”

New Castle police arrest a 21-year-old city man after a burglary at Rose Jewelry at 20 N. Mill St. and find 10,000 Valium pills and a .38-caliber pistol in his car.

Three local sports figures are honored at the 13th annual Vestibule Club dinner: Edward DeBartolo Jr., owner of the San Francisco 49ers; Jeff Covington, YSU record-setting cager, and Tom Matey, star lineman for the Little Liberty Leopards in the Po Warner league.

1968: U.S. District Court accepts a $50,000 offer from Dutch Pantry Inc. of Philadelphia for the operating assets of the Dog House Inc. over an offer by a group of area businessmen. Dog House operated more than 200 restaurants in 33 states, each built in the shape of a doghouse.

The body of Kenneth M. Frick, a Slippery Rock College student abducted along with another man and two coeds, is found buried about 5 miles north of Mercer, Pa. State police are searching for four men who kidnapped the two couples and molested the two women.

Salem issues 19 building permits during March for $127,200 worth of new construction and improvements.

1943: John R. Elliott, manager of Youngstown Municipal Airport, announces an increase in hangar fees. New rates will start at $1.50 a night or $15 per month for small two-passenger planes. Large multimotor planes will be charged $5 per night or $50 per month.

Youngstown City Council votes that all city-owned land not in current use be made available for victory gardens under the supervision of Engineering Commissioner Ralph O’Neill.

City council enacts a 2:30 a.m. War Time closing hour for all taverns and bars at the behest of women’s clubs.