This day in history

Today is Tuesday, July 7, the 188th day of 2009. There are 177 days left in the year. On this date in 1865, four people are hanged in Washington, D.C., for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

In 1898, the United States annexes Hawaii. In 1908, the Democratic national convention, which nominated William Jennings Bryan for president, opens in Denver. In 1919, the first Transcontinental Motor Convoy, in which a U.S. Army convoy of motorized vehicles crossed the United States, departs Washington, D.C. (The trip ends in San Francisco on Sept. 6, 1919.) In 1930, construction begins on Boulder Dam (later Hoover Dam). In 1948, six female reservists become the first women to be sworn into the regular U.S. Navy. In 1969, Canada’s House of Commons gives final approval to the Official Languages Act, making French equal to English throughout the national government.

July 7, 1984: Mark A. Hanni, son of Atty. Don L. Hanni Jr., chairman of the Mahoning County Board of Elections and the county Democratic Party, is named deputy director of the elections board. Dr. William Binning, chairman of the county Republican Party, joins in the unanimous vote, but criticizes the hiring as “blatant nepotism.”

Michael Jackson and his brothers open their “Victory Tour” in St. Louis, Mo., with a concert accented by lights, smoke and fireworks, but some in the audience were disappointed with the length. “People came from all over the world just to see them perform for an hour. It’s not worth $30,” says Rodney Cole, 23.

Tangela Trico, a pilot for American Airlines for eight years, is the first woman pilot to be certified by the FAA to fly the Boeing 747.

July 7, 1969: Ohio Edison and city crews are still working to clean up from a Fourth of July storm and restore power to thousands of homes.

Bargain days at Idora Park, all 32 fantastic rides, including the Whacky Shak, Sky Diver, Hooterville Highway, Wildcat and Jungle Ride, just 10 cents or 15 cents.

July 7, 1959: Private duty registered nurses will raise their scale from $16 to $18 for an eight-hour tour of duty, says Theresa S. Melillo, president of District 3, Ohio State Nurses Association.

The Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office is scrambling to find old records that explain why Robert Coulton was sentenced to life in prison for a 1928 burglary of an inhabited dwelling in the night season. Even Assistant Prosecutor Loren E. Van Brocklin can’t understand why Coulton is still in jail.

John Schuller Jr., principal of Austiintown Fitch High School, has been named superintendent of the Austintown Local School District.

July 7, 1934: Andrew Hody, sentenced by Judge David G. Jenkins to five to 30 years in the penitentiary for breaking and entering an inhabited dwelling in the night, is released by Gov. George White on a plea for clemency by United Hungarian churches and societies of Youngstown. As a condition of release, Hody was placed on a ship bound for Hungary. Although he had lived in the United States for 27 years, he had never become a citizen.

In a vote conducted by the Literary Digest, Youngstowners give President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal an affirmative vote, 1,552 to 606.

William H. Felger, 46, who taught hundreds of Youngstowners to play the piano, was an instructor at Youngstown College and director of the Epworth choir, dies in an automobile crash on Canfield-Boardman Road, a mile west of the Boardman traffic light.