Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Aug. 4, the 217th day of 2012. There are 149 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1735: A jury finds John Peter Zenger of the New York Weekly Journal not guilty of committing seditious libel against the colonial governor of New York, William Cosby.

1892: Andrew and Abby Borden are axed to death in their home in Fall River, Mass. Lizzie Borden, Andrew’s daughter from a previous marriage, is accused of the killings, but acquitted at trial.

1936: Jesse Owens of the U.S. wins the second of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics as he prevails in the long jump over German Luz Long, who is the first to congratulate him.

1944: Fifteen-year-old diarist Anne Frank is arrested with her sister, parents and four others by the Gestapo after hiding for two years inside a building in Amsterdam. (Anne dies the following year at Bergen-Belsen.)

1964: The bodies of missing civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi.

1972: Arthur Bremer is convicted and sentenced in Upper Marlboro, Md., to 63 years in prison for his attempt on the life of Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace (the sentence is later reduced to 53 years; Bremer was released from prison in 2007).

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Trumbull County Auditor Edward Bush announces that more than $5.7 million from the state Local Government Fund will be allocated to the county and its cities, villages and townships in 1988.

A Cincinnati-based railroad holding company will acquire the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad in a $75 million deal that will eliminate up to 400 P&LE jobs.

Mahoning County commissioners are interviewing seven candidates for the job of personnel officer, but the reaction of other elected officials is reflected by Treasurer Michael Pope who said, “nobody is going to tell me who to hire.”

1972: More than 80 Coitsville Township parents and children are told by Robert Pegues Jr., Youngstown’s new school superintendent, that their elementary building will not be closed in the immediate future.

Apprehensive Loblaw employees from Mahoning, Trumbull, Lawrence and Mercer counties, numbering about 350, attend a special meeting at Teamster Local 377’s hall to learn their status if Loblaw’s is sold.

Youngstown is averaging one robbery a day, fueled in part by the activities of a few active crews of bandits.

1962: An Ohio Highway Patrol corporal and his wife, former Mahoning County residents, and a son and daughter are found shot to death in their rural home near Columbus. Dead are Cpl. Ralph Lanker, 45, his wife, the former Virginia Westerman, 36, a daughter, Jean, 12, and son, Thomas, 9. Another son, Ray Lanker, 14, was found wounded near the home.

Drug inspectors contact five Youngstown doctors who had been given Thalidomide to prescribe to see if any had patients for whom side effects of the drug were a problem. The drug has been linked to birth defects when used by pregnant women.

1937: The Most Rev. Edward Mooney, a Youngstown native who has been installed as archbishop of Detroit, says during his first address in the city that “the growth of hate is the most alarming thing in the United States today.”

Four Youngstown women return from a 10-day cruise to picturesque ports of the West Indies: Ambretta Strouse of Hollywood Ave., Grace Beever of W. Rayen Ave., Alice Marsh of Hillman Street and Irene Wilson of Clearmount Drive.

A new company that will make auto mufflers in the Wickliffe industrial district will employ about 150 people initially. R. J. MacKenzie is president and general manager and K.B. MacDonald is secretary-treasurer.