Years ago

Today is Sunday, July 24, the 205th day of 2011. There are 160 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1847: Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrive in the Great Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah.

1866: Tennessee becomes the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.

1937: The state of Alabama drops charges against four of the nine young black men accused of raping two white women in the “Scottsboro Case.”

1959: During a visit to Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon engages in his famous “Kitchen Debate” with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

1974: The Supreme Court unanimously rules that President Richard Nixon has to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.

Vindicator files

1986: The Moving Wall, a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., arrives at the Ashtabula Campus of Kent State University.

Copperweld Steel Corp. say the firm “had no choice” but to lay off 86 hourly employees to cut labor costs.

Trumbull County commissioners fail to schedule public hearings on a proposed piggyback sales tax, meaning no such tax will appear on the November ballot.

1971: The Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C., rejects complaints of the Black Broadcasting Coalition and orders renewal of licenses of WKBN Broadcasting Corp. for its TV and FM operations.

State Sen. Oakley C. Collins, R-18, Ironton, denies that his coal company knowingly mined coal from a 32-acre section of Wayne National Forest. He said the mining was an accident and his company wants to restore the land.

The Mahoning Valley Regional Mass Transit Authority votes to discontinue service Aug. 1 to subdivisions that have not contributed to an operational subsidy. Communities being served include Youngstown, Warren, Canfield, Austintown, Boardman, Girard and Niles.

1961: “Youngstown Roulette” is the title of a Newsweek magazine story of Vince DeNiro’s gangland bombing death. Gambling in Youngstown is described as “not fancy, but a steady profitmaker.”

Niles Police Chief John Ross warns that after-hours swimmers who have been scaling the fence at Waddell Pool will be arrested and prosecuted.

A season’s high of 1,800 people take advantage of the swimming facilities at Cascade Park in New Castle on a Sunday when temperatures reached 94 degrees.

1936: Leslie Lawlor, salesman at L. Frank & Sons’ wholesale fruit, 257 Boardman St., reached to remove what he thought was an overripe banana from a stalk, only to find it was a 6-fooot python snake. The bananas had arrived from Honduras a few days earlier.

There is little sign of the usual mid-summer slump in the steel business, and Youngstown operations are expected to continue at 80 percent of capacity.

The Individual Truckers Association in Youngstown says it has been providing free transportation to take WPA workers to job sites since 1934, but believes it is time for them to be paid for their work.