Years Ago

Today is Thursday, June 2, the 153rd day of 2011. There are 212 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1851: Maine becomes the first state to enact a total ban on the manufacture and sale of liquor.

1886: President Grover Cleveland, 49, marries Frances Folsom, who at 21 becomes America’s youngest first lady, in the Blue Room of the White House.

1941: Baseball’s “Iron Horse,” Lou Gehrig, dies in New York of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; he was 37.

1979: Pope John Paul II arrives in his native Poland on the first visit by a pope to a Communist country.

1981: The Japanese video arcade game “Donkey Kong” makes its U.S. debut.

1986: For the first time, the public can watch the proceedings of the U.S. Senate on television as a six-week experiment of televised sessions begins.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Resumption of contract talks between Youngstown and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 28 get off to a shaky start when Law Director Edwin Romero questions whether the FOP or the Youngstown Police Labor Council has the authority to negotiate.

Dennis J. Kucinich, an independent candidate for governor, blasts the Ohio EPA for not releasing the components of a toxic substance spilled in Poland Township more than two years ago.

1971: A 38-year-old Farrell man is being held on a general charge of murder after the shooting deaths of Minnie Crosby, 37, and Winters Gunther 60, at Fruit Avenue and Federal Street.

The Rt. Rev Feodor Kovalchuk, pastor of Nativity of Christ Eastern Orthodox Church, is in Russia as a delegate to the first synod of the church in 26 years.

1961: The Youngstown district is mopping up extensive damage from a spectacular thunder and windstorm that toppled the screen at the Howland Drive-In Theater on Rt. 422 and knocked down wires, darkening wide areas.

1936: Clarence W. Specht, Struthers High School mathematics teacher for six years, is not rehired by the board of education. George Repasky, brother-in-law of board president John Hawkins, is hired to replace Specht. Specht was one of five teachers the board tried to fire in 1935, sparking a teacher strike.