YEARS AGO FOR FEB. 2

Today is Saturday, Feb. 2, the 33rd day of 2019. There are 332 days left in the year. Today is Groundhog Day.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

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

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

1914: Charles Chaplin makes his movie debut as the comedy short “Making a Living” is released by Keystone Film Co.

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

1948: President Harry S. Truman sends a 10-point civil-rights program to Congress, where the proposals get fierce opposition from Southern lawmakers.

1988: President Ronald Reagan presses for additional aid to the Nicaraguan Contras a day ahead of a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives. (The House would reject Reagan’s request for $36.2 million in new aid.)

1990: In a dramatic concession to South Africa’s black majority, President F.W. de Klerk lifts a ban on the African National Congress and promises to free Nelson Mandela.

2009: Hillary Rodham Clinton is sworn in as U.S. secretary of state.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: Gov. George Voinovich calls Youngstown Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro to tell him that Youngstown has been chosen as the site of a new state supermaximum security prison. The $60 million prison will be built on the city’s East Side near McKelvey Lake. (It operates today as the Ohio State Penitentiary.)

Youngstown State University Academic Senate will vote on a resolution asking YSU Trustee Martin J. O’Connell to resign in light of the $1.25 million lawsuit O’Connell filed against the university over a traffic accident after a Penguins football game.

Betty Davis is one of a vanishing breed: a downtown Youngstown elevator operator. She’s worked at the Wick Building since 1979.

1979: Robert L. Powell of East Palestine just returned from Iran where he was an adviser with the Federal Aviation Administration. His description of life in Tehran: chaos, confusion, tension and constant nighttime chanting of “death to the Shah” and “death to America.”

Mahoning and Trumbull counties agree to a joint resolution declaring the Route 422 corridor between Youngstown and Warren as a center for economic development and will seek federal funds for projects there.

Kmart Corp. completes its purchase of the Zayre Department Store on Youngstown-Warren Road (Rt. 422) in Niles and will begin conversion of the building.

1969: Harry D. Hirsch of Canfield, president of Mullins Manufacturing Corp. in Salem and C.M. Hall Lamp Co. in Detroit, says a deal under which Hall would acquire Mullins is near. Mullins is Salem’s largest employer with 600 workers.

Forty members of the Youngstown Ski Club fly from Youngstown Municipal Airport for a week of skiing at Vail and Aspen, Colo.

Business Editor George R. Reiss writes that the impending “wedding” of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and Lykes Corp., two of the most conservative and reputable business firms, promises to be one of the most brilliant events of American merger systems.

1944: Atty. John J. Kane Jr. of 2113 Elm St., assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern Federal District of Ohio, is sworn in as first assistant.

Youngstown restaurants, unable to obtain enough butter for normal business, should begin to serve uncolored Vitamin A-fortified margarine without any apologies since the food product is wholesome and pure, the city health department says.

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