YEARS AGO FOR JAN. 17

Today is Thursday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2019. There are 348 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1806: Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, gives birth to James Madison Randolph, the first child born in the White House.

1917: Denmark cedes the Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million.

1929: The cartoon character Popeye the Sailor makes his debut in the “Thimble Theatre” comic strip.

1977: Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, is shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.

1984: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., rules 5-4 that the use of home videocassette recorders to tape television programs for private viewing did not violate federal copyright laws.

1995: More than 6,000 people are killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastates the city of Kobe, Japan.

1996: Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine followers are handed long prison sentences for plotting to blow up New York-area landmarks.

1998: The Drudge Report says Newsweek magazine has killed a story about an affair between President Bill Clinton and an unidentified White House intern, the same day Clinton gives a deposition in Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against him in which he denies having had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

2014: President Barack Obama orders new limits on the way intelligence officials access phone records from hundreds of millions of Americans; the president also signs a $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund the federal government through the end of September 2014.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: About 2,000 die-hard Penguins fans brave arctic weather to show up at Beeghly Center to celebrate the YSU football team’s national championship.

The emphasis is on the youth at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance attended by 300 at Bethel Baptist Church.

1979: Warren Superintendent Anthony Berarducci says that large budget cuts will be coming to the city school district unless a tax levy is approved.

Juvenile Court Judge Martin P. Joyce binds two teenagers over to the Mahoning County grand jury to be tried as adults in the murder of Ann G. O’Neill, 69, outside a North Side bowling alley in October.

The Health Systems Agency of Eastern Ohio recommends a progressive reduction of hospital beds in the four-county area to bring it within the national guideline of 4 beds per thousand population.

1969: A new 1,000-seat motion-picture theater to be constructed at the Southern Park Mall by the Edward J. DeBartolo Co. has been leased to Youngstown Enterprises Co., which operates eight theaters in the area.

Trustees of the Reuben McMillan Free Library Association approve a $1.2 million operating budget for 1969. William Spencer is re-elected president.

Cash, records and bank books belonging to the East Side Civic Association are taken from the home of Ray Little in Liberty Township. The burglars also took a rifle, typewriter and appliances.

1944: Training of 82 U.S. Army flying instructors at Youngstown Municipal Airport is halted by the Civil Aeronautics Administration’s war training service. The announcement idles 35 staff from Wolverine Aviation and Youngstown College and grounds a fleet of 14 airplanes.

Frank McDonald, 26, of Riblet Road, Wickliffe, a steelworker, is burned to death when he was trapped in his flaming one-story home after rescuing his wife and two small children from the fire.

Because her son, Staff Sgt. Robert Crawford, 19, is a prisoner in a German camp, Mrs. Sadie Crawford of Youngstown receives his Air Medal and Oak Leaf Cluster.