YEARS AGO FOR MARCH 10

Today is Sunday, March 10, the 69th day of 2019. There are 296 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1496: Christopher Columbus concludes his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he leaves Hispaniola for Spain.

1848: The U.S. Senate ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ends the Mexican-American War.

1864: President Abraham Lincoln assigns Ulysses S. Grant, who had just received his commission as lieutenant-general, to the command of the Armies of the United States.

1876: Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant, Thomas Watson, hears Bell say over his experimental telephone: “Mr. Watson – come here – I want to see you” from the next room of Bell’s Boston laboratory.

1913: Former slave, abolitionist and Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman dies in Auburn, N.Y.; she was in her 90s.

1933: A magnitude-6.4 earthquake centered off Long Beach, Calif., results in 120 deaths.

1969: James Earl Ray pleads guilty in Memphis, Tenn. (on his 41st birthday) to assassinating civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Ray later repudiated that plea, maintaining his innocence until his death.)

1980: “Scarsdale Diet” author Dr. Herman Tarnower is shot to death at his home in Purchase, N.Y. (Tarnower’s former lover, Jean Harris, is convicted of his murder; she served nearly 12 years in prison before being released in January 1993.)

1985: Konstantin U. Chernenko, who was the Soviet Union’s leader for 13 months, dies at age 73; he is succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown announces a policy on child abuse that will require every religious worker, lay employee or volunteer in the diocese to sign an affidavit that they have never been accused of child abuse and have no police record.

Despite objections from Councilmen Daniel Polivka and Ray Bagaglia, Warren City Council approves pay increases of 4, 5 and 6 percent over three years for 35 city administrators. The package will cost $486,000.

The Youngstown school district asks the parents of 194 seniors who have not passed proficiency tests that are required for graduation to attend conferences, but only 23 show up.

1979: CETA, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act program that was designed to create employment, will begin phasing out 1,400 jobs in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties later this year.

Eleven students will perform in the Monday Musical Juniors’ annual piano recital in Bliss Hall at Youngstown State University: Becky Harris, Carol Ann Hudak, Mary Ann Hudak, Sarah Kish, Laurie Port, Barb Sandora, Bea Jaye Whittaker, Cindy Williams, Holly Williams, Elizabeth Wymer and Jill VanZandt.

The Warren Western Reserve boys’ basketball team routs Boardman, 75-55, to win the Class AAA District tournament at the Struthers Fieldhouse.

1969: City detectives are trying to determine if the same gunmen are responsible for the fatal shooting of Helen Pedro of Hubbard Township and the wounding of taxicab driver Frank Lentz.

Andrew Buletko, 39, of Austintown, a brakeman for the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, is killed when freight cars derail near the furnaces of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. Campbell Works.

Hills Department Store grand opening sale has ladies handbags for $1.76; full-size chenille bedspreads, $1.94; General Electric steam and dry iron, $7.22, and men’s nylon jackets, $1.97.

1944: Reporting widespread dealings in counterfeit gasoline ration coupons, the Cleveland Office of Price Administration announces that 41 Youngstown district service stations face suspension of business for the duration of the war.

Pfc. Peter Mignella, 23, of Struthers is reported missing in action in Italy. His father, Mike, is notified in Struthers by the War Department; his mother, Columba, lives in Boiano, Italy.

Finishing operations in some Youngstown district steel plants are curtailed as a result of a War Production Board order requiring East Ohio Gas Co. to furnish 25 million feet of natural gas to alleviate shortages due to cold weather.