Today is Monday, June 30, the 182nd day of 2008. There are 184 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Monday, June 30, the 182nd day of 2008. There are 184 days left in the year. On this date in 1908, the Tunguska Event takes place in Russia as an asteroid explodes above Siberia, leaving 800 square miles of scorched or blown-down trees.

In 1859, French acrobat Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet) walks a tightrope above the gorge of Niagara Falls as thousands of spectators watch. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signs the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1921, President Harding nominates former President Taft to be chief justice of the United States, to succeed the late Edward Douglass White. In 1934, Adolf Hitler carries out his “blood purge” of political and military rivals in Germany in what comes to be known as “The Night of the Long Knives.” In 1936, the novel “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell is published in New York. In 1958, the U.S. Senate passes the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20. In 1963, Pope Paul VI is crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1971, three Soviet cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 11 are found dead inside their spacecraft after it had returned to Earth. In 1986, the Supreme Court, in Bowers v. Hardwick, rules 5-4 that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. (However, the nation’s highest court effectively reverses this decision in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas).

June 30, 1983: Hubbard Mayor William S. Colletta vetoes legislation to separate the city from Hubbard Township.

Mahoning County Sheriff James A. Traficant Jr. files charges against 10 more FBI agents, alleging that they were in a position to prevent a robbery against a Brier Hill nurseryman who was nearly killed by three men who were under FBI surveillance.

June 30, 1968: Four men, three of them escaped convicts form Pennsylvania, come to Youngstown to buy guns. They are spotted by alert policemen and end up in custody after a shootout in Girard, where they forced their way into two private homes.

Edward J. Hulme, president of Servomation of Youngstown, Akron and Erie-Meadville, is elected president of the Youngstown Rotary Club.

June 30, 1958: Youngstown will receive a federal loan of $1.7 million and a grant of $1.5 million for slum clearance on W. Federal Street.

A Salem physician, Dr. Lowell King, 65, is killed and his 11 year old son is injured when their car is struck and pushed into the path of an on-coming car in state Route 534 near Berlin Station.

June 30, 1933: Youngstown Mayor Mark Moore says the appointment of Harry Brunner as administrator of federal works projects in Ohio is good news for Youngstown and increases the city’s chance for getting federal funds for city projects.

Lightning strikes 12 buildings and more than 60 electric lines during a fierce storm in Youngstown.