Years Ago

July 2, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Friday, July 2, the 183rd day of 2010. There are 182 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1776: The Continental Congress passes a resolution saying that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

1881: President James A. Garfield is shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield dies the following September. (Guiteau was hanged in June 1882.)

1890: President Benjamin Harrison signs into law the Sherman Antitrust Act.

1917: Rioting erupts in East St. Louis, Ill. as white mobs attacked black residents; nearly 50 people, most of them black, are believed to have died in the violence.

1937: Aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.

1961: Author Ernest Hemingway shoots himself to death at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law a sweeping civil rights bill passed by Congress.

1990: More than 1,400 Muslim pilgrims are killed in a stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel in Saudi Arabia.

2005: Egypt’s top envoy to post-Saddam Hussein Iraq (Ihab al-Sherif) is kidnapped in Baghdad (al-Qaida later announced it had killed him).

Vindicator files

1985:Mahoning County Prosecutor Gary Van Brocklin vows to shut down B.J. Alan Co. if he finds evidence that the company is making sales to retail customers. Ohio law allows sales to out-of-state buyers and wholesalers only.

The Trumbull County Fair opens at the Bazetta Township fairgrounds. The $4 admission fee covers parking, rides and grandstand shows.

Earl Schriver of Baden, Pa., one of only 3,000 licensed falconers in the nation, climbs a 60-foot tree in Boardman Park to band two Coopers hawk chicks in their nest.

1970: Atty. Richard P. McLaughlin is named by Mayor Jack C. Hunter to the Youngstown law department to serve as special counsel in the area of environmental and ecological controls at a salary of $10,700 annually.

A $116,000 deficit in Warren’s sanitation department budget will force cutbacks in the department which has 56 full-time employees.

1960: Because she is only 17, Poland’s Cathy Justice will not be able to claim the Miss Ohio title she won. Corrine Huff, 19, of Youngstown, the first alternate, will go to the Miss Universe competition in Miami.

Robert E. Dean of Youngstown and three passengers on his 24-foot boat are saved after their boat sinks in 30 feet of water in Lake Erie following a collision with another boar. The crew of the other boat is credited with the rescue.

1935: Mrs. Sabatino DeOreo, 65, is killed in a collision between the car in which she was riding and a truck while she was en route to St. Elizabeth Hospital to visit her ailing sister.

About 2,000 fisherman line the banks of lakes Newport, Glacier and Cohasset for the first day of fishing season in Mill Creek Park, but few report success beyond catching catfish and crappies.

Stunt driver Jimmy Gill’s car bursts into flames after overturning during the Hell Drivers’ show at the Canfield Fairgrounds, but Canfield firemen on the scene extinguish the fire and Gill escapes unharmed.

The death of Robert Clarke Beatty of 2402 Logan Ave. leaves the Youngstown area with an even dozen surviving Civil War veterans. He was 91.