Years Ago

July 17, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Sunday, July 17, the 198th day of 2011. There are 167 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1821: Spain cedes Florida to the United States.

1918: Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks.

1936: The Spanish Civil War begins as right-wing army generals launch a coup attempt against the Second Spanish Republic.

1944: During World War II, 320 men, two-thirds of them African-Americans, are killed when a pair of ammunition ships explode at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California.

1955: Disneyland has its opening day in Anaheim, Calif.

1961: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Ty Cobb dies in Atlanta at age 74.

1981: One hundred and fourteen people are killed when a pair of suspended walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapses during a tea dance.

1996: TWA Flight 800, a Europe-bound Boeing 747, explodes and crashes off Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people aboard.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Citing debts totaling $1.6 billion, LTV Corp. files for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy law.

May Department Stores $2.5 billion buyout offer of Associated Dry Goods Corp. sends ripples through Wall Street. Locally, May operates the Kaufmann’s stores and Associated operates the Joseph Horne Co. stores.

1971: Liberty Township’s newly appointed trustees who took office by virtue of an appeals court decision say the now-deposed elected trustees have two days to turn over books and records to the newly created township or face contempt of court charges.

Parents of 36,000 children enrolled in Youngstown Catholic Diocese Schools will pay $3.6 million, or an average of $100 per pupil more, in tuition during the 1971-72 school year.

Eighty-nine employees of United Telephone Co., many of them in Warren, are among 500 employees reported discharged by the company, which has been hit by a wildcat strike.

1961: Joseph W. Young of New York is engaged as resident director for the Youngstown Playhouse 1961-62 season.

Some 800 disgruntled employees who struck Johnson Bronze Co. in New Castle return to work under an order from local and international officers of the United Auto Workers.

Sister M. Baptista, administrator of St. Elizabeth Hospital, announces the appointment of Dr. Donald R. Sickler, a retired U.S. Army colonel, as director of medical education at the hospital.

1936: Youngstown district steel mills are operating at 80 percent with 66 of 83 open hearths operating.

Robert Burke, recently refused readmission to Columbia University for his union activities, returns to Youngstown and is working to organize steelworkers. His father, G.E. Burke, complains that his son is being followed constantly, presumably by company agents.