Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Aug. 11, the 224th day of 2012. There are 142 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

3114 B.C.: The current cycle of the Mayan “Long Count” calendar begins. (By some estimates, the cycle will end, and a new one will begin, on Dec. 21 of this year.)

1860: The nation’s first successful silver mill begins operation near Virginia City, Nev.

1909: The steamship SS Arapahoe becomes the first ship in North America to issue an S.O.S. distress signal, off North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras.

1934: The first federal prisoners arrive at Alcatraz Island (a former military prison) in San Francisco Bay.

1942: During World War II, Pierre Laval, prime minister of Vichy France, publicly declares that “the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war.”

1952: Hussein bin Talal is proclaimed King of Jordan, beginning a reign lasting nearly 47 years.

1954: A formal peace takes hold in Indochina, ending more than seven years of fighting between the French and Communist Viet Minh.

1962: Andrian Nikolayev becomes the Soviet Union’s third cosmonaut to fly in space as he is launched on a 94-hour flight.

1965: Rioting and looting that claim 34 lives break out in the predominantly black Watts section of Los Angeles.

1984: During a voice test for a paid political radio address, President Ronald Reagan jokes that he had “signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

1992: The Mall of America opens in Bloomington, Minn.

1997: President Bill Clinton makes the first use of the historic line-item veto, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills. (However, the U.S. Supreme Court later strikes down the veto as unconstitutional.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Bill Dailey, 32-year-old basketball coach at Youngstown State University, dies of a heart attack while vacationing in Toronto, Canada. He had been undergoing treatment for cancer, but was preparing to begin his first season as head coach.

I.W. Abel, who labored in the brickyard seven days a week for 16 cents an hour but rose to become president of the United Steelworkers of America, dies in Malvern, Ohio, a day before his 79th birthday.

1972: The number of welfare cases in Mahoning County drops to 9,348 (19,937 people) in July, the first time the rolls have dropped in 1972.

An explosion of undetermined origin heavily damages the soon-to-be-open Bandolaro Club at 968 Midlothian Boulevard.

1962: Two young brothers are killed and two other children of Mr. and Mrs. William E. Kalbfell of East Line Road, Salem, are injured by a car as they walked home after a day of play. Dead are David Kalbfell, 11, and Frank, 5.

William E. Mackin, 41-year-old Struthers High mathematics teacher, is appointed high school principal by Superintendent Andrew S. Klinko.

1937: Dr. F.S. Coombs is in Youngstown to visit his parents before beginning a fellowship in medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he has been doing research while completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Mayor John J. Borak of Campbell defeats former Mayor Joseph S. Julius for the Democratic nomination by 37 votes in the city’s primary; Julius wants a recount.

John Borgawardt, 23, confesses to the shotgun slaying of his ex-mother-in-law, Mrs. William Cranston, at her farm home near Westville in Columbiana County.

T. Lamar Jackson, president of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce, says a tri-county committee is being organized to raise funds for the district airport at Vienna.