Local history

50 years ago: 1975

The Altoona Area Chamber of Commerce opened its annual Blair County Home Show at the Jaffa Mosque with a “board sawing” replacing the traditional ribbon cutting. The show was to feature a Miss Future Homemaker Contest open to girls in grades 10 through 12.

35 years ago: 1990

The state passed new regulations for service station underground gasoline tanks and Thomas Martin of Martin Oil Co. said it could cost as much as $60,000 to replace a tank and Joe Sheetz of Sheetz Inc. said it could cost as much as $70,000 or $150,000 if the ground was contaminated, which could drive smaller stations out of business.

10 years ago: 2015

The Center for Independent Living on Logan Boulevard,

Brandee Riggleman administrative assistant, was hosting support groups once a month to assist those who had suffered brain injuries, offering services like job placement assistance.

— Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is the 77th day of 2025. There are 288 days left in the year.

On this date:

— In 1925, nearly 700 people died when the Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana; it remains the deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.

— In 1937, in America’s worst school disaster, nearly 300 people — most of them children — were killed in a natural gas explosion at the New London Consolidated School in Rusk County, Texas.

— In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether.

— The Associated Press