YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, July 30, the 211th day of 2011. There are 154 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1511: Painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, known for his biographies of Italian artists, is born in Arezzo, Tuscany.

1619: The first representative assembly in America convenes in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.

1918: Poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment, is killed during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. (Kilmer is best remembered for his poem “Trees.”)

1942: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill creating a women’s auxiliary agency in the Navy known as “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service” — WAVES for short.

1945: The USS Indianapolis is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during World War II; only 316 out of some 1,200 men survive.

1956: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a measure making “In God We Trust” the national motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” (“Out of many, one”).

1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the Medicare bill, which goes into effect the following year.

1975: Former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappears in suburban Detroit. He is presumed dead, but his remains have never been found.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: The Howland Board of Education creates a committee to consider whether tougher academic standards should be required for high school students before they participate in extracurricular activities, including athletics.

Some Youngstown area banks say they will not be cashing LTV Corp. pension checks because they are unsure if the accounts on which they are drawn have the required funds.

1971: About 1,300 United Telephone Co. workers in Ohio return to work, ending a two-week strike.

The Youngstown Board of Health issues 17 warrants for the arrest of Youngstown homeowners violating the city’s housing code and is preparing 65 additional warrants.

1961: Eight Youngstown policemen throw $5 each in a pool on who will be next to die in a gangland shooting or bombing. The candidates: Mayor Frank R. Franko, Vice Squad Chief George Millovich, Carmen or Joseph Tisone, Charlie Carabbia, Joseph Romano, Joe Alexander and Joe Beshara.

A Vindicator tour of the usual joints shows that the gambling business is flourishing, with even strangers able to place bets at some newsstands, variety stores and taverns.

Three Niles brothers, George G., John E. and Thomas J. Reiss, sons of Mr. and Mrs. George R. Reiss, are spending their summer in South America student tours, studying languages, economics, and history and doing sightseeing.

1936: Unemployment in Youngstown drops to its lowest point since 1929 with shortages developing in some classes of skilled labor, says H.R. Weller, superintendent of the Ohio State Employment Service.

Ohio Sen. Vic Donahey is recovering from sever burns suffered when a bolt of lightning strikes his launch during a fishing expedition at Solomons Island, Md.