Today is Thursday, June 12, the 164th day of 2008. There are 202 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Thursday, June 12, the 164th day of 2008. There are 202 days left in the year. On this date in 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers is fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Miss.; he was 37. (In 1994, Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of murdering Evers and sentenced to life in prison; he dies in 2001.)

In 1665, England installs a municipal government in New York, formerly the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. In 1776, Virginia’s colonial legislature becomes the first to adopt a Bill of Rights.In 1898, Philippine nationalists declare independence from Spain. In 1939, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is dedicated in Cooperstown, N.Y. In 1963, one of Hollywood’s most notoriously expensive productions, “Cleopatra,” starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison, opens in New York. In 1967, the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, strikes down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.

June 12, 1983: Pamela Rigas of Canfield is crowned Miss Ohio during the state pageant in Mansfield and will represent the state in the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City.

Clingan Jackson, Vindicator politics editor who covered politics local and national from President Herbert Hoover to Ronald Reagan, retires, ending a career that spanned 54 years.

June 12, 1968: A lawsuit is being pursued by about 100 residents of Liberty Township, challenging the awarding of contracts for a $36,000 addition to town hall. The suit claims voter approval is needed for any project over $10,000.

Carol Colella of East Palestine will compete in the national safe driving competition in Ann Arbor, Mich., after winning the Ohio contest in Columbus.

June 12, 1958: Darlene Den-meade, 13, an eighth grade student at St. Joseph School, falls in the seventh round of the national spelling bee in Washington, D.C, when she puts an i instead of an a in pedagogy.

U.S. Steel Corp. takes the wraps off its new iron ore sintering plant at the Ohio Works, one of the largest recent expansions in the Youngstown area.

June 12, 1933: The First Christian Church is considering buying the old Jonathan Warner property at Wick Avenue and Spring Street as the site for a new church. The price for the parcel is reported at $35,000.

Atty. David E. Jones is elected president of the Mahoning County Bar Association.

Judges Frank L. Baldwin and W.N. Carter cut the rate the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District charges Youngstown for water from $45 per million gallons to $43.50. Youngstown Water Commissioner Dan Parish had sought a rate of $36.