Today in history

Today is Friday, June 12, the 163rd day of 2009. There are 202 days left in the year. On this date in 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers, 37, is fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Miss. (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 1909, New York’s Queensboro Bridge is formally dedicated, more than two months after it had opened to the public. In 1929, Holocaust diarist Anne Frank is born in Frankfurt. In 1939, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is dedicated in Cooperstown, N.Y. In 1967, the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, strikes down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages. In 1979, 26-year-old cyclist Bryan Allen flies the manpowered Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan, during a visit to a divided Berlin, publicly challenges Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

June 12, 1984: The basic steel industry’s largest merger, LTV Corp.’s $770 million friendly takeover of Republic Corp., faces one more court test.

Divers are searching for the body of one of two young boys who apparently drowned while swimming in the Mahoning River under the Market Street Bridge. The body of Ervin Harden, 12, is found; the search continues for Antomario McKinney, 10.

Youngstown detectives are searching for a 20- year-old man suspected of throwing a fire bomb that sparked a fire that killed a 53-year-old Ayers Street woman.

June 12, 1969: A graduation prank apparently gets out of hand for three youths when a number other youths take over the party and paint and litter Chaney High School will junk items. Three students say they started out to run a few tires up the flag pole but others painted the windows and scrawled “for sale” on a brick wall.

A plan to merge all United Methodist conferences in Northeast Ohio is approved by delegates to the United Methodist Ohio East Annual Conference.

The body of a third Newton Falls fisherman who drowned in Camel Lake in Ontario, Canada, is recovered after a week-long search. Dead are Jack Harvey, 42; Clyde Kovacs, 31, and Steve Tachovaka, 44.

June 12, 1959: Judge Florence E. Allen, 75, of Cleveland, who was named by President Franklin Roosevelt to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1934, announces that she will retire from the bench.

Showers and thunderstorms bring the Youngstown district its first rain in 11 days with more than an inch of rainfall recorded.

Downtown Youngstown property owners organize a new committee to promote immediate physical improvements in the central business district, stimulate use of downtown facilities and assist in the preparation of a master development plan.

June 12, 1934: Youngstown steel mills have their largest payroll in four years during May, paying $4 million to 34,232 men.

Edward Beshara grabs his blind son, Phillip, 7, from the path of a runaway car in front of their home at 785 Shehy St. Both suffer minor injuries as the car brushes them before hitting a utility pole 50 feet away.

A convention of state fire chiefs opens in Youngstown with a fish fry at the Eagles Temple hosted by Youngstown Fire Chief Harry Callan.