Today in history

Today is Tuesday, July 14, the 195th day of 2009. There are 170 days left in the year. On this date in 1789, during the French Revolution, citizens of Paris storm the Bastille prison and release the seven prisoners inside.

In 1798, Congress passes the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the U.S. government. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry relays to Japanese officials a letter from President Millard Fillmore, requesting trade relations. (Fillmore’s term of office had already expired by the time the letter was delivered.) In 1881, outlaw William H. Bonney Jr., alias “Billy the Kid,” is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, N.M. In 1908, the short film “The Adventures of Dollie,” the first movie directed by D.W. Griffith, opens in New York. In 1913, Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., the 38th president of the United States, is born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in Omaha, Neb. In 1921, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are convicted in Dedham, Mass., of murdering a shoe company paymaster and his guard. (Sacco and Vanzetti were executed six years later.) In 1933, all German political parties, except the Nazi Party, are outlawed. In 1958, the army of Iraq overthrows the monarchy. In 1966, eight student nurses are murdered by Richard Speck in a Chicago dormitory. In 1978, Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky is convicted of treasonous espionage and anti-Soviet agitation, and sentenced to 13 years at hard labor. (Sharansky was released in 1986.) In 1999, Iranian hard-liners answer a week of pro-democracy rallies with one of their own, sending 100,000 people into the streets of Tehran.

July 14, 1984: The largest drug bust in several years nets Youngstown and Austintown police “tens of thousands of dollars” worth of LSD, cocaine, marijuana and tranquilizers.

Youngstown Finance Director Dominic Conti says the city has insufficient funds to pay five firefighters that Mayor Patrick Ungaro says the city will hire.

The Rev. O. French Ball Jr. Is named associate minister of Canfield United Methodist Church by Bishop James S. Thomas, bishop of the East Ohio area of the denomination.

July 14, 1969: Two separate blasts within a 21-hour period cause $3,000 in damage to the North Side home of a Republic Rubber employee and the Market Street headquarters of a juke box company.

One of four juveniles is captured following a high speed chase with police recovering loot taken in a burglary of the Record Rendezvous, 109 W. Federal Street. A witness gave police a description of the car seen at the burglary and police on patrol spotted the car on the North Side and gave chase, stopping it on Spring Street.

Children from 20 city playgrounds will take part in the annual North Side Show, sponsored by the Youngstown Park and Recreation Commission. About 400 youths are expected to participate.

July 14, 1959: Population of Mahoning and Trumbull counties continued to surge during 1958, a report released by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Mahoning County’s population is 293,500, with 242,700 in urban communities; Trumbull County is 196,800, with 120,400 in urban communities.

The Austintown Board of Education appoints Stewart G. Wagner principal of Austintown Fitch High School.

Mahoning and Trumbull county commissioners are considering resolutions to place bond issues on the ballot to finance the $2.6 million local share of the cost of building the West Branch reservoir.

July 14, 1934: With the Ohio Works of Carnegie Steel Co. scheduled to resume partial operations, steel output will rise to about 30 percent of capacity.

Police Chief Leroy Goodwin says the Waldorf Inn, a liquor place at Oak Hill and Falls Avenue, is causing problems for the neighborhood and should be forced to close before midnight.

Plans are being made for the official dedication of the $3 million Pymatuning Dam water control project for the Shenango and Beaver valleys.