Years Ago

Today is Saturday, July 2, the 183rd day of 2011. There are 182 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1566: French astrologer, physician and professed prophesier Nostradamus dies in Salon.

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 is hanged in June 1882.)

1926: The United States Army Air Corps is created.

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.

1980: President Jimmy Carter signs a proclamation reviving draft registration.

1991: Actress Lee Remick dies in Los Angeles at age 55.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: The National Weather Service at Youngstown Municipal Airport reports a deluge of 2.7 inches of rain during a nine-hour period. There are reports of streams flooding in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys.

President Ronald Reagan responds to a letter from Frances A. Johnson of Boardman reminding him of a visit he made 30 years earlier to the General Electric Trumbull Lamp Plant in Warren, when he was host of GE Theater. Her letter noted that the plant has provided bulbs that will light the Statue of Liberty when President Reagan flips the switch for the centennial celebration lighting ceremony on the Fourth of July.

Elizabeth Ryan Johnquest is named program director of the Youngstown YWCA, succeeding Carmel Roques.

1971: The Federal Trade Commission gives cigarette manufacturers three months to agree to warning labels that will be included in cigarette advertising.

Catherine M. Harkness of Youngstown is named acting librarian of the new Warren Public Library.

J. Phillip Richley, director of the Ohio Highway Department, begins cancelling $61 million in highway projects across the state, including three small jobs in Youngstown, because of inadequate funds.

Airport Manager Fred DeLuca cuts a cake to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the dedication of the Youngstown Municipal Airport.

1961: James R. Hoffa, president of the largest union in the United States, the Teamsters, seeks to raise his salary from $50,000 to $75,000, which would make him the highest paid union leader in the land. Meanwhile, a check of the books of Teamsters Local 377 in Youngstown show local leaders were paid $87,521 in the past year, about 25 percent of the local’s income, with another $99,931 spent on office expenses.

Russell S. Baugher, 69-year-old owner of the Southington Dairy Farm and a father of 15, and a 23-year-old helper, Donald R. Johnson, are electrocuted when the well-drilling rig they were operating came in contacted with an Ohio Edison high tension line.

Erie County, Pa., Sheriff John Coates destroys 400 pairs of loaded dice confiscated in 1960 from two Youngstown gamblers, Nello Ronci and Joseph Margiotta, and Arthur Horn of Ellsworth and Robert McLaughlin of Lisbon.

1936: The Vindicator Printing Co. acquires the Youngstown Telegram and will merge it into the Vindicator. The last edition of the Telegram will be published today.

The Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey Circus arrives in four long trains with 1,600 people and animals and begins erecting the Big Top on the new circus grounds at Belmont Avenue and Gypsy Lane.

Mahoning County, which contains 4.09 percent of the children under 16 years of age in Ohio, will receive $49,173 to aid dependent children during the last six months of 1936.

Mrs. Gerrit Labotz, better known as Lulene A. Pillsbury, general secretary of the YWCA in Youngstown, announces she is closing her desk at the Y to pursue the life of “being a preacher’s wife.”