YEARS AGO FOR FEB. 20

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 20, the 51st day of 2019. There are 314 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1792: President George Washington signs an act creating the U.S. Post Office Department.

1862: William Wallace Lincoln, the 11-year-old son of President Abraham Lincoln and first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, dies at the White House, apparently of typhoid fever.

1905: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, upholds, 7-2, compulsory vaccination laws intended to protect the public’s health.

1907: President Theodore Roosevelt signs an immigration act that excludes “idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons” from entering the United States.

1962: Astronaut John Glenn of Ohio becomes the first American to orbit the Earth as he flies aboard Project Mercury’s Friendship 7 spacecraft.

1999: Movie reviewer Gene Siskel dies near Chicago at age 53.

2003: A fire sparked by pyrotechnics breaks out during a concert by the group Great White at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., killing 100 people and injuring about 200 others.

2018: Students who survived the Florida school shooting on Valentine’s Day travel to Tallahassee to urge state lawmakers to prevent another massacre.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: A proposed Youngstown ordinance would require the inspection of houses for lead hazards and would require their treatment or removal before sale.

Aaron Tyler Jackson, a Lisbon 3-year-old, is one of five children chosen nationwide for a Toys R Us direct mail advertising campaign aimed at showing all kids are typical kids.

The Youngstown Board of Education considers a plan that would give administrators bonuses of up to 5 percent for increasing student test scores and attendance.

1979: Stating there are no safeguards against education unionization, the Salem Board of Education unanimously passes a resolution to oppose creation of a U.S. Department of Education. “Are the teachers going to control education or is the public,” asked Board President Bryce Kendall.

Henry Holquist, 82, disregards pleas by two Youngstown patrolmen that he climb out a second-floor window to escape flames that were destroying a three-story house at 1431 Albert St. He retreats back in the house and is later found dead of smoke inhalation.

The Packard Electric Division of General Motors announces that it is leasing an 115,000-square-foot plant in Hubbard and will hire 115 production and skilled trades workers.

1969: Hillrie Dunlap, president of Zion Hill Brotherhood Club, says that only 100 of Youngstown’s 1,400 employees are Negroes and very few are in managerial positions.

Youngstown’s Model Cities program is having a difficult time getting off the ground with city council delaying action to provide more personnel and approve project boundaries.

The Mid-Winter Festival of Bands sponsored by the instrumental music department of Poland schools will take place in the high school auditorium. Fifth- and sixth-grades are directed by Michael Cardin, and the high school band is directed by James Fagnano.

1944: The Rev. Anthony Stangry, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, returns from the Congress of Americans of Ukrainian Descent in Philadelphia where a resolution in support of a free, independent and democratic post-war Ukraine is approved.

Sgt. Charles Plesic, 32, of Youngstown, got a thrill recently when his brother, Sgt. Joseph Plesic, 22, dropped in to see him at his camp in Italy. Surprised, Charles didn’t recognize him at first.

A cast of 70 performers presents the eighth annual minstrel show of the Holy Name Society of St. Dominic Church in the school auditorium.