Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 23, the 235th day of 2011. There are 130 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1305: Scottish rebel leader Sir William Wallace is executed by the English for treason.

1775: Britain’s King George III proclaims the American colonies to be in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.”

1914: Japan declares war against Germany in World War I.

1926: Silent film star Rudolph Valentino dies in New York at age 31.

1939: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree to a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in Moscow.

1944: Romanian Prime Minister Ion Antonescu is dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania to abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies.

1973: A bank robbery-turned-hostage-taking begins in Stockholm, Sweden; the four hostages end up empathizing with their captors, a psychological condition now referred to as “Stockholm Syndrome.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: A small army of state and county mental retardation officials inspects the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation-licensed group home at 1632 Fifth Ave. in Youngstown following allegations of deficient living conditions.

Maj. Gen. Donald R. Infante, a 1958 graduate of Youngstown University, tells the summer graduates of Youngstown State University that they should take their values “and apply them to your everyday life.”

The role of women in the Roman Catholic Church needs to be expanded, but not to the point of ordaining women into the priesthood, Bishop James W. Malone of the Youngstown Diocese and president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, says during an interview in Philadelphia.

1971: Atty. William J. Higgins, deputy city law director, is appointed law director by Mayor Jack C. Hunter to succeed Atty. Nicholas Manos, who has been nominated to a federal judgeship.

Two prisoners, one held on drug charges and the other on possession of stolen property charges, walk out of Youngstown City Jail after tripping the electronic lock on their cell door.

An estimated 6,000 attend “One Beautiful Picnic” held on a Milton Township farm with a minimum of trouble under the watchful eye of a large contingent of police.

1961: The owner of Alvan Motor Freight Co. of Kalamazoo, Mich., says that a letter sent to the company by Mahoning County Sheriff Ray T. Davis containing 10 tickets for a $2 sausage fry was “presumptuous and offensive” and struck him as a shakedown.

President John F. Kennedy signs the nomination of Judge Frank J. Battisti of Youngstown to be a federal district judge in Northern Ohio, U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown announces.

1936: Alf M. Landon launches his presidential campaign before a crowd of 50,000 on the Tam O’Shanter golf course a mile and a half from his birthplace at West Middlesex, Pa.,

Mildred Nix, 10, of Vaughn Avenue, is almost instantly killed when she falls from a moving truck near her home when the passenger side door unexpectedly opened.

An altar will be built on the stage of Stambaugh Auditorium for the first Eucharistic Congress of the diocese of Cleveland that will be held in Youngstown Sept. 23 and 24.