YEARS AGO FOR MARCH 22

Today is Friday, March 22, the 81st day of 2019. There are 284 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1765: The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act to raise money from the American colonies, which fiercely resist the tax. (The Stamp Act was repealed a year later.)

1882: President Chester Alan Arthur signs a bill outlawing polygamy.

1894: Hockey’s first Stanley Cup championship game is played; home team Montreal defeats Ottawa, 3-1.

1933: During Prohibition, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a measure to make wine and beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal.

1963: The Beatles’ debut album, “Please Please Me,” is released in the United Kingdom by Parlophone.

1968: The first Red Lobster restaurant opens in Lakeland, Fla.

1988: Both houses of Congress override President Ronald Reagan’s veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act.

2004: Terry Nichols goes on trial for his life in the Oklahoma City bombing. (Nichols, already serving a life sentence for his conviction on federal charges, was found guilty of 161 state murder charges, but was again spared the death penalty when the jury couldn’t agree on his sentence.)

2014: Pope Francis appoints the first members of a commission to advise him on sex-abuse policy.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: Maggi McGee, Mahoning County’s 911 coordinator, asks residents to be patient when the 911 system is activated at midnight, saying there could be glitches in the early days of service.

Ohio Edison Co. awards a three-year contract for tree trimming and removal to Asplundh Tree Expert Co. over Nelson Tree Service, which had the $3 million contract for years and employs 87 people.

Dr. Walter Williams, economics professor at George Mason University, tells a standing-room crowd of 700 at Grove City College that “do-gooders” who want the government to feed the poor or regulate the labor force are robbing Americans of money and freedom.

1979: Robert D. Parks, 34, of Youngstown remains in Trumbull County Jail on $600,000 bond after pleading innocent to two counts of murder in the deaths of Patricia DiBlasio and Mary Muffley outside the Girard offices of Dr. Leo DiBlasio.

State employment offices in Warren, Youngstown, Niles and Sharon, Pa., take applications from 2,500 people eager to work at the Packard Electric Division of General Motors Corp. The applicants are 15 times the 161 available jobs.

The Rev. Donald W. Walton, 53, of Liberty Township, superintendent of the Youngstown District of the United Methodist Church, dies in North Side Hospital.

1969: The Peoples Bank of Youngstown buys the site of the Palace Theater and Palace Hotel at Wick Avenue and Central Square for $400,000 and plans to erect a new multi-story office building.

A registered nurse, Linda Fry, thwarts a purse-snatcher in a ground-floor corridor of St. Elizabeth Hospital. Police arrest a suspect three hours later.

The historic Wick Hotel in Lisbon will be sold by Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Wilson to two couples, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Kusior and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Thomas.

1944: A 10-year-old boy who knocked down Mrs. Nancy Jenkins and stole her bus pass holder containing $47 is the latest strong-arm robbery involving juveniles, Youngstown police say.

Fire blamed on a cigarette dropped in the balcony of the Grand Theater results in $2,000 damage to the interior of the burlesque house. Quick arrival of firemen prevented flames from spreading to the nearby Edison Hotel.

Mahoning County commissioners appropriate $500 for the office of county engineer Samuel Gould Jr. to pay for surveying and other work in connection with giving homes on Routes 2 and 4 city-type addresses.