Years Ago

Today is Monday, Aug. 15, the 227th day of 2011. There are 138 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1057: Macbeth, King of Scots, is killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.

1914: The Panama Canal opens to traffic.

1935: Humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post are killed when their airplane crashes near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.

1947: India becomes independent after some 200 years of British rule.

1961: As workers begin constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leaps to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire in a scene captured in a famous photograph.

1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair opens in upstate New York.

1998: Twenty-nine people are killed by a car bomb that tears apart the center of Omagh, Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claims responsibility.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: The Senate Judiciary Committee votes 13-5 to approve William H. Rehnquist as the 16th chief justice and gives Antonin Scalia a unanimous vote to take Rehnquist’s seat as a Supreme Court associate justice.

Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Frank X. Kryzan, whose term expires in December 1987, tells Youngstown City Council that the court could operate effectively and efficiently without his seat being filled.

1971: Richard T. Rezek begins his new job as superintendent of the North Jackson School District.

David Kennedy, a junior at Austintown Fitch High School, leaves for a year as an exchange student in Sweden, sponsored by the Austintown Rotary Club.

1961: Dr. William H. Bunn, 71, of 410 Tod Lane, a founder of the Youngstown Area Heart Association and nationally known heart specialist, dies of abdominal cancer at his home.

Mahoning County Coroner David A. Belinky voices concern over motorists disregarding stop signs and calls for heavier sentences and possible legislation to change the misdemeanor violation to a felony.

1936: Union truck drivers in Youngstown are promoting a general shutdown of all deliveries in the city except milk.

A.W. Craver, Mahoning County Democratic chairman, who is supporting the proposal to operate dog races at the Canfield Fairgrounds declares that he has no financial interest in the races and wouldn’t know any of the races promoters if they walked into his office.