Years Ago

August 2, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 2, the 214th day of 2011. There are 151 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1921: A jury in Chicago acquits several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the notorious “Black Sox” scandal.

1923: The 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, dies in San Francisco; Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes president.

1934: German President Paul von Hindenburg dies, paving the way for Adolf Hitler’s complete takeover.

1943: During World War II, Navy boat PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sinks after being rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri off the Solomon Islands.

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: A coal conveyor belt that spans Ashtabula Harbor is being rehabilitated and enclosed so that coal does not fall into the harbor.

Youngstown Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro names Republican Atty. Edward C. Czopur, a longtime watchdog of city government, to the Youngstown Civil Service Commission.

1971: A car bomb gravely injures Blair Ricketts, 32, of Youngstown, an employee at Buck Green’s Evansville Tavern of Route 46 south of Niles, after Blair started his car.

Frank Leseganich, director of District 26 of the United Steel Workers, says union president I.W. Abel performed a miracle in reaching a strike-avoiding agreement with basic steel companies in the 24-hour extension workers gave their negotiators.

1961: Mayor Frank Franko disputes a report that a group of Youngstown police officers instituted a gambling pool over who would next be the target of mobsters and that he was among those named.

Ernest LaSalle, 59, a former member of the Prohibition-era Detroit Purple Gang, is picked up for questioning by Cleveland police in the mob deaths of Vince DeNiro and Mike Farah. LaSalle, who gave police a New York address, once lived in Warren and is an associate of Cleveland mob boss James Licavoli.

Chester A. Amedia is named executive director of the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority during a meeting of the board at the Hotel Pick Ohio.

1936: Two long-time records are set in the Youngstown district in July with the sale of 972 new automobiles during the month and Ohio Edison Co.’s sale of 55 million kilowatt hours of electricity.

L.H. Copeland of Millport, weather observer, reports temperatures topped 90 degrees on 12 days in July. A drought was broken July 21 with a torrential downpour.

Mahoning County Auditor John J. Arnold says he will follow a new law that requires him to publish the names of delinquent taxpayers, even though he “doesn’t think its such a swell idea.”