Local history

50 years ago: 1975

Rae, Hayes, Large & Suckling architects of Altoona were honored by the Didacta International exposition for designs of the Altoona Area High School annex and Washington-Jefferson Elementary School.

35 years ago: 1990

The Value City Store chain of Ohio owned by Schottenstein Stores Corp., Thomas Ketteler vice-president, was to take over 35 Gee Bee and Dollar Stores, one of which was in Altoona and one of which was in Tyrone.

10 years ago: 2015

The Altoona Water Authority contracted with a meteorological consultant named Applied Water Associates to analyze the Bellwood Reservoir, watershed and dam, as well as the Mill Run Reservoir, watershed and dam.

— Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is Monday, March 24, the 83rd day of 2025. There are 282 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history:

On March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.

On this date:

— In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.

— In 1921, the Women’s Olympiad, the first international women’s sporting event, began in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

— In 1980, Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador was shot to death by a sniper as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.

— In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it attacked a sovereign country.

— In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board; investigators said the jetliner was deliberately downed by the 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz.

— In 2016, a U.N. war crimes court convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide and nine other charges for orchestrating a campaign of terror that left 100,000 people dead during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia; Karadzic received a sentence of 40 years in prison, later increased to life.

— The Associated Press