Local history

50 years ago: 1974

Local institutions like Valley View Home, Blair County Prison, Blair Detention Home and Meals-on-Wheels reported that they had only about one week’s worth of food on hand due to the trucker’s strike. Reports of shootings and even bombings were reported in certain areas of the state.

25 years ago: 1999

Altoona and Bon Secours hospitals in Altoona, and many other hospitals in central Pennsylvania, found out that Highmark Health Insurance was behind a mysterious health care survey about the hospitals that they didn’t know about.

10 years ago: 2014

Local businessman Brinton “Rob” Simington purchased the former Beasley Auto Motor Manufacturing building on Pleasant Valley Boulevard from a group called 210 Plank Road Associates and planned to invest as much as $1.5 million to convert it to Simington Plaza III for small businesses to locate there.

— Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 6, the 37th day of 2024. There are 329 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history:

On Feb. 6, 1952, Britain’s King George VI, 56, died at Sandringham House in Norfolk, England; he was succeeded as monarch by his 25-year-old elder daughter, who became Queen Elizabeth II.

On this date:

— In 1778, during the American Revolutionary War, the United States won official recognition and military support from France with the signing of a Treaty of Alliance in Paris.

— In 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

— In 1815, the state of New Jersey issued the first American railroad charter to John Stevens, who proposed a rail link between Trenton and New Brunswick. (The line, however, was never built.)

— In 1862, during the Civil War, Fort Henry in Tennessee fell to Union forces.

— In 1899, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain was ratified by the U.S. Senate.

— In 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, was born in Tampico, Illinois.

— In 1922, Cardinal Archille Ratti was elected pope; he took the name Pius XI.

— In 1933, the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the so-called “lame duck” amendment, was proclaimed in effect by Secretary of State Henry Stimson.

— In 2013, toy maker Hasbro Inc. announced that Monopoly fans had voted online to add a cat token to the board game, replacing the iron.

— The Associated Press