YEARS AGO FOR FEB. 28

Today is Thursday, Feb. 28, the 59th day of 2019. There are 306 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1844: A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton explodes as the ship sails on the Potomac River, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others.

1849: The California gold rush begins.

1911: President William Howard Taft nominates William H. Lewis to be the first black assistant attorney general of the United States.

1942: The heavy cruiser USS Houston and the Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth are attacked by Japanese forces during the World War II Battle of Sunda Strait; both are sunk shortly after midnight March 1 with a total loss of more than 1,000 men.

1953: Scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick announce they have discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

1975: Forty-two people are killed in London’s Underground when a train smashes into the end of a tunnel.

1993: A gunbattle erupts at a religious compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents try to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh on weapons charges; four agents and six Davidians are killed as a 51-day standoff began.

1996: Britain’s Princess Diana agrees to divorce Prince Charles.

2013: Benedict XVI becomes the first pope in 600 years to resign, ending an eight-year pontificate.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: Dealers at a gun show at the old Bargain Port store on Raccoon Road say handgun sales are brisk on the day before the Brady Law goes into effect, which will institute a five-day waiting period on sales.

Youngstown will pay the highest Workers Compensation penalty in the state in 1994. The city will pay $4 million and is working on ways of reducing claims.

Girard’s historical society home, the Barnhisel House, will get $2,300 for exterior cleanup and landscaping from a Community Development Block Grant.

1979: Thomas Travers, board chairman of Commercial Shearing, reports fiscal-year first-quarter earnings of $56 million, an increase of 31 percent, and net income of $4.6 million.

Columbiana County commissioners announce the county is withdrawing from the Northeast Ohio Employment and Training Consortium.

The state auditor reports that the Western Reserve Transit Authority purchased about $628,000 in fuel from Ashland Petroleum Co. without competitive bidding.

1969: Fortunes of the long-ailing Erie Lackawanna Railway are looking good again, John Fishwick, new chairman, tells the 11th annual meeting of the Youngstown Area Chamber of Commerce at the Mural Building.

The proposed merger of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and Lykes Corp. is in the “shareholders’ best interest,” Sheet & Tube maintains in the wake of the resignation of Fred Tod Jr., a director.

Advertisement: A word from Theron at the Country Store in Columbiana: Every Friday you can join hundreds of people who drive from many miles around to enjoy our delicious all-you-can-eat fish dinners, $1.25.

1944: Youngstown College will offer a number of non-tuition courses in engineering, science and management under the auspices of the U.S. Office of Education.

Most Youngstown shoppers introduced to the token system for buying rationed foods accepted the little red and blue disks as “ration change.” Some were confused.

Cyril L. Palmer is appointed manager of the United Air Lines station at Youngstown Municipal Airport.