Looking backward

10 years ago

Feb. 7, 2013: Mayor Jeffrey E. Graham was not too pleased when he heard about a blog that appeared over the weekend in a national firefighting publication regarding the Watertown City Council’s decision to no longer allow firefighters to inspect commercial buildings for fire hazards.

25 years ago

Feb. 7, 1998: Gouverneur: The village Board of Trustees authorized a $500,000 revenue anticipation note at a special meeting Friday to enable it to pay ice storm related expenses until it can be reimbursed by federal and state emergency aid.

50 years ago

Feb. 7, 1973: Many property owners in the village of West Carthage are apparently not satisfied with explanations of why their town taxes rose and the town taxes dropped outside the village.

75 years ago

Feb. 7, 1948: Over one-third of the rural taxpayers of the town of Malone, representing the owners of property with an assessed valuation of over $400,000 have signed a petition for the organization of a town fire district.

100 years ago

Feb. 7, 1923: Inventor of the Coty paper bag machine once made by the Massey Machine company here, will shortly form a concern to be known as the Coty Machine company, which will sell paper bag machines of new design. The machines will be made at the West Main Street plant of the Watertown Engine & Machine company.

125 years ago

Feb. 7, 1898: Several of the towns in Jefferson County have purchases stone crushers during the past few years and other towns are considering doing so. The towns which have used stone crushers are generally well satisfied with the investment made and their roads are showing plainly the wisdom of such action. In the town of Hounsfield a stone crusher is kept busy during the greater part of the summer season, a traction engine owned by the town furnishing motive power and conveying the crusher from district to district.

150 years ago

Feb. 7, 1873: The Chaumont Literary Society intends to give a public entertainment soon, of a musical and dramatic character, which will be well worthy of patronage.

The world

1904 – A fire begins in Baltimore, Maryland that destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.

1940 – The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, “Pinocchio,” premieres.

1979 – Pluto moves inside Neptune’s orbit for the first time since either was discovered.

1984 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).

1986 – Twenty-eight years of one-family rule end in Haiti, when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation.

1990 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power.

1991 – The Troubles: The Provisional IRA launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street in London, the headquarters of the British government.

1992 – The Maastricht Treaty is signed, leading to the creation of the European Union.

1995 – Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.

2013 – The U.S. state of Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified by Mississippi in 1995.

2014 – Scientists announce that the Happisburgh footprints in Norfolk, England, date back to more than 800,000 years ago, making them the oldest known hominid footprints outside Africa.