Years Ago

August 3, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 3, the 215th day of 2010. There are 150 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1492: Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos, Spain, on a voyage that takes him to the present-day Americas.

1914: Germany declares war on France at the onset of World War I.

1923: Calvin Coolidge is sworn in as the 30th president of the United States following the death of Warren G. Harding.

1943: Gen. George S. Patton slaps a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice. (Patton is later ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to apologize for this and a second, similar episode.)

1958: The nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater.

1980: Closing ceremonies are held in Moscow for the Summer Olympic Games, which had been boycotted by dozens of countries, including the United States.

1981: U.S. air traffic controllers go on strike, despite a warning from President Ronald Reagan they would be fired, which they were.

Stephen G. Breyer is sworn in as a Supreme Court justice in a private ceremony at Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s Vermont summer home.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: A meeting of weather service leaders, area broadcasters, ham radio operators and Rep. James Traficant lead to the formation of a committee to devise ways of improving the area’s emergency warning system.

Playing at the Warren Star Theatre at the Packard Music Hall, the Connie Francis Show. Tickets, $12.50.

1970: A well is drilled near the Community Center pond in Newton Falls to maintain a fresh water supply and it has been stocked with 380 blue gills from Rudy Zakrajsek’s pond to provide a fishing hole for neighborhood children.

Nancy Clemente, 16, is chosen as the 1970-71 Rotary exchange student and is leaving for Australia.

The Youngstown Board of Education will continue efforts to obtain the former “Automatic” Sprinkler Corp. plant on Brittain Street for a vocation school, despite opposition by Mayor Jack Hunter.

1960: The Youngstown-Warren area is shifted from a C rating, (moderate labor surplus) to class E (substantial labor surplus) by the Labor Department because between 9 and 12 percent of the of the workforce is unemployed.

Youngstown City Council votes unanimously to place a $6.5 million urban renewal bond issue on the November ballot.

Convicted bank robber Glenn W. Dolvin files suit to recover $18,758 found in his possession when he was arrested in California. The money was turned over to the Mahoning National Bank’s bonding firm as part of the $30,880 Dolvin stole from the bank in 1957.

1935: A cloudburst sweeps through the Mahoning and Shenango valleys doing thousands of dollars in damage, forcing some families from their homes and paralyzing traffic.

“Elby,” the lost boy found on Simon Street in Youngstown, is identified as Clifford Gregory of Harrisville, Pa., who wondered away from his grandparents home on South Avenue. The boys’ mother thought he went on a day-long fishing trip with his father.