YEARS AGO FOR MARCH 16

Today is Saturday, March 16, the 75th day of 2019. There are 290 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1521: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew reach the Philippines, where Magellan is killed during a battle with natives the following month.

1802: President Thomas Jefferson signs a measure authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

1926: Rocket science pioneer Robert H. Goddard successfully tests the first liquid-fueled rocket at his Aunt Effie’s farm in Auburn, Mass.

1945: During World War II, American forces declare they have secured Iwo Jima, although pockets of Japanese resistance remained.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson sends Congress the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as part of his War on Poverty.

1968: The My Lai massacre takes place during the Vietnam War as U.S. Army soldiers hunting for Viet Cong fighters and sympathizers kill unarmed villagers in two hamlets; estimates of the death toll vary from 347 to 504.

1985: Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, is abducted in Beirut; he was released in December 1991.

1994: Figure skater Tonya Harding pleads guilty in Portland, Ore., to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for covering up an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan, avoiding jail but drawing a $100,000 fine.

2018: Singer Aretha Franklin cancels two upcoming concerts, saying a doctor had told her to stay off the road and rest completely for at least two months. (Franklin died five months later from pancreatic cancer.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: A largely hostile crowd of about 275 Liberty Township residents attend a hearing at the township administration building to voice their opposition to the proposed annexation of 57 acres off Dennick Road to the city of Youngstown.

The Auto Mori Grotto “Circus with a Purpose” opens its 30th year at the Struthers Field House.

Edward W. and Alice Powers will be honored posthumously for their efforts to establish the former Warner Theater as the permanent home of the Youngstown Symphony.

1979: John P. Gillespie, 76, retired dean of men at Youngstown State University and a man whose infectious good will and humor earned him the title of “The Biggest Little Man at Youngstown College,” dies in St. Petersburg, Fla.

State Sen. Harry Meshel, D-Youngstown, joins a delegation of local officials at the White House for a soft-sell pitch on President Carter’s new hospital cost-control legislation.

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and its agents are enjoined by Mahoning Common Pleas Judge Forrest Cavalier from using The Vindicator’s orange delivery tubes for distribution of Klan literature.

1969: There is a good chance Congress will authorize one of two alternate Grand River Reservoir plans and appropriate money for engineering and design. Either plan would cost about $300 million.

Hartford Township Fire Chief Russell Settles credits Roland Hall Jr., 16, with leading his six younger brothers and sisters to safety from a fire that destroyed the family’s two-story home on Route 7 south of Hartford.

More than 100 fifth- through eighth-graders participate in a science fair at St. John School in Campbell. First-place winners are Martha Sarosy, John Straka, John Tesner, Karen Kolmacic, Mark Kolmacic, Denise Jakabowski and Russell Novak.

1944: The Tod Holding Co. is organized with authority to issue 250 shares of no par stock with plans to develop commercial property in Youngstown and throughout Ohio.

Joseph Dunninger, world-known mentalist who will appear at Stambaugh Auditorium under the auspices of the Junior League, has had to have his phone disconnected as hundreds of people call him asking, “What’s my name?”