This day in history

Today is Monday, July 13, the 194th day of 2009. There are 171 days left in the year. On this date in 1793, French revolutionary writer Jean-Paul Marat is stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday, who is executed four days later.

In 1787, Congress enacts an ordinance governing the Northwest Territory. In 1863, deadly rioting against the Civil War military draft erupts in New York City. In 1886, Father Edward Joseph Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, is born in County Roscommon, Ireland. In 1960, John F. Kennedy wins the Democratic presidential nomination at his party’s convention in Los Angeles. In 1972, George McGovern claims the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Miami Beach, Fla. In 1978, Lee Iacocca is fired as president of Ford Motor Co. by chairman Henry Ford II. In 1979, four Palestinian guerrillas storm the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, killing two guards and taking 20 hostages. In 1985, “Live Aid,” an international rock concert in London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, raises money for Africa’s starving people.

July 13, 1984: Ground is broken at Youngstown State University for Meshel Hall, a $15 million high-technology center named after Ohio Senate President Harry Meshel of Youngstown.

About 120 local and state lawmakers sweep the Mahoning Valley armed with arrest warrants for more than 100 suspected drug pushers, many of them teenagers from middle class neighborhoods.

Three more downtown Warren buildings are sold to H. Alexander Pendleton’s Park South Corp. for renovation along with the former Strouss building.

July 13, 1969: Creation of a health education research foundation in Youngstown and development of Youngstown State University’s graduate school would strengthen Youngstown’s position as the site of a medical school, says a study commissioned by the Mahoning County Medical Society.

Darrell Fisher, 27, of Brookfield drowns in the Shenango River Reservoir while rescuing his daughter and a niece whose plastic boat capsized.

The Pennsylvania Department of Eduction finds several school districts have taken it on themselves to “reinstate” prayers and Bible readings as devotional classroom exercises, in open defiance of Supreme Court rulings.

July 13, 1959: Mahoning County taxpayers will be asked Nov. 3 to approve a bond issue for $1.5 million for a new county home.

The Wean Engineering Co. of Warren is given a $5 million contract to construct what is called the largest, fastest and widest continuous galvanizing sheet mill in the country at the Middletown plant of Armco Steel Corp.

July 13, 1934: The Rev. David Manley, 65, pastor of the Belmont Avenue M.E. Church and former missionary to India, dies in the North Side unit of the Youngstown Hospital after being struck by an infection characterized by boils and carbuncles.

Two people are killed and three wounded in a riot at the Cuyahoga County relief administration offices after someone in the crowd grabbed a riot gun from police who were sent to quell the disturbance.