Today is Tuesday, July 8, the 190th day of 2008. There are 176 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Tuesday, July 8, the 190th day of 2008. There are 176 days left in the year. On this date in 1908, businessman and philanthropist Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, a liberal Republican who served as governor of New York and then as vice president of the United States, is born in Bar Harbor, Maine.

In 1663, King Charles II of England grants a Royal Charter to Rhode Island. In 1776, Col. John Nixon gives the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, in Philadelphia. In 1853, an expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Yedo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese. In 1889, The Wall Street Journal is first published. In 1907, Florenz Ziegfeld stages his first “Follies,” on the roof of the New York Theater. In 1919, President Wilson receives a tumultuous welcome in New York City after his return from the Versailles Peace Conference in France. In 1947, demolition work begins in New York City to make way for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations. In 1950, President Truman names Gen. Douglas MacArthur commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea. In 1958, President Eisenhower begins a visit to Canada, where he confers with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and addresses the Canadian Parliament. In 1994, Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s communist leader since 1948, dies at age 82.

July 8, 1983: Hunt Steel Co. begins limited operations at its new seamless pipe mill with a labor force of 170 at the former Brier Hill Works..

The Packard Electric Division of General Motors is recalling 133 employees on indefinite layoff back to work.

Robert Spencer, loser in the June 7 Democratic primary for Youngstown mayor, alleges that a number of absentee ballots cast in the election are not valid because they were cast by people who were not qualified voters.

July 8, 1968: Donald Cessna, a 12-year-old student at Boardman Junior High, wins the Youngstown Soap Box Derby and will represent the area in national competition in Akron.

William F. Harden Jr., manager of General Motor’s Corp.’s Lordstown Chevrolet Plant is going to England as an executive of Vauxhall Motors, a GM subsidiary. Harden is a formal naval aviator who flew fighter planes from the USS Saratoga during World War II and is a 20-year veteran with GM.

At least 42 people died on Ohio highways during the long July 4 holiday weekend. Across the nation there were at least 601 traffic deaths.

July 8, 1958: St. Rocco’s Episcopal Church breaks ground for a new $100,000 building on a five-acre site in Liberty Township.

Trustee Harvey Brandmiller says Austintown Township has been cheated out of hundreds of thousands in building permit fees through years of undervaluation of property by the zoning inspector.

Torrential rainfall totaling almost 21‚Ñ2 inches deluges the Youngstown area, flooding streets and cellars, especially in Boardman.

July 8, 1933:With demand for steel unabated, Youngstown district steel mills pass the 65 percent in operations with 57 of 83 open hearths fired, the highest level in three years.

Adolph Heller, 50, president of Heller-Murray Co., which constructed many of the larger industrial buildings in Youngstown, dies suddenly at his home of a stroke.

The Ninth Division of the American Legion, which covers northeastern Ohio, opens its annual convention in Youngstown, hosted by Youngstown Post 15 and Road of Remembrance Post 472.