Today in history

Today is Friday, June 26, the 177th day of 2009. There are 188 days left in the year. On this date in 1963, President John F. Kennedy visits West Berlin, where he expresses solidarity with the city’s residents by declaring: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner).

In 1919, the New York Daily News is first published. In 1945, the charter of the United Nations is signed by 50 countries in San Francisco. In 1948, the Berlin Airlift begins in earnest after the Soviet Union cuts off land and water routes to the isolated western sector of Berlin. In 1950, President Harry S. Truman authorizes the Air Force and Navy to enter the Korean conflict. In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower joins Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in ceremonies officially opening the St. Lawrence Seaway. Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson knocks out Floyd Patterson in the third round of their match at New York’s Yankee Stadium to win the heavyweight title.

June 26, 1984: More than 100 members of Teamsters Local 33 representing employees in the Mahoning County engineer’s office go on strike, protesting what they call an insufficient wage offer.

A citizens panel that includes six former civil rights commissioners accuses the Reagan administration’s Justice Department of “a concerted attack” on affirmative action programs that promote minority hiring.

U.S. tennis star John McEnroe is told by Wimbleton officials that he must change his blue shorts to white ones before the start of his match against Paul McNamee of Australia. Wimbleton rules prohibit wearing tennis outfits that are not white.

June 26, 1969: Clarence J. Strouss is elected chairman of the Youngstown State University Board of Trustees and Dr. B.B. Burrows is elected vice chairman.

Youngstown’s city income tax of 1.5 percent produced $7.2 million in 1968, which was more than 65 percent of the city’s general fund, says Finance Director Thomas Lavern.

Trumbull County commissioners levy a half-percent sales tax under the permissive taxing authorization granted by the Ohio General Assembly in 1968.

June 26, 1959: Mayor Frank X. Kryzan lays off “for economic reasons,” Mrs. Ann L. Olsavsky, a secretary in the building inspection department. She is the mother-in-law of Atty. Avetis Darvanan, manager of Frank R. Franko’s successful campaign for the Democratic mayoral nomination.

A thief who knocked down G.M. Zagoris, owner of the Boston Grill, on Federal Street and took $500, is captured after a six-block chase by a Youngstown traffic cop and two street department workers.

The job of shutting down the Youngstown district’s steel mills for a July 1 strike is underway on a limited scale. Tentatively scheduled for operation the week leading into the threatened strike are one Bessemer plant, 63 open hearths and 15 blast furnaces.

June 26, 1934: While charges of operating a gambling establishment are still pending in Municipal Court against E.H. Dupuy, a Vindicator reporter finds that the second floor establishment at 34 N. Chestnut St. continues to prosper and business is apparently getting better. The gambling den is reported to attract many prominent businessmen.

Judge H.P. Beckenbach imposes a six-month jail sentence on the first of five men charged with relief “chiseling.”

Property owner Thomas Antonelli files a suit questioning the constitutionality of a city ordinance that allows the city building inspector to inspect, condemn and tear down a building as part of the city’s slum-clearance drive.