Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Aug. 18, the 231st day of 2012. There are 135 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1587: Virginia Dare becomes the first child of English parents to be born on American soil, on what is now Roanoke Island in North Carolina. (However, the Roanoke colony ends up mysteriously disappearing.)

1838: The first marine expedition sponsored by the U.S. government sets sail from Hampton Roads, Va.; the crews travel the southern Pacific Ocean, gathering scientific information.

1862: Dakota Indians begin an uprising in Minnesota (the revolt is crushed by U.S. forces some six weeks later).

1920: The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right of all American women to vote, is ratified as Tennessee becomes the 36th state to approve it.

1938: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King dedicate the Thousand Islands Bridge connecting the United States and Canada.

1958: The novel “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov is first published in New York by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, almost three years after it was originally published in Paris.

1961: Federal appeals court Judge Learned Hand, 89, dies in New York.

1963: James Meredith becomes the first black student to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, N.Y., winds to a close after three nights with a mid-morning set by Jimi Hendrix.

1976: Two U.S. Army officers are killed in Korea’s demilitarized zone as a group of North Korean soldiers wielding axes and metal pikes attacks U.S. and South Korean soldiers.

1983: Hurricane Alicia slams into the Texas coast, leaving 21 dead and causing more than a billion dollars’ worth of damage.

1987: American journalist Charles Glass escapes his kidnappers in Beirut after 62 days in captivity. (Glass had been abducted June 17 with two Lebanese who were released after a week.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. makes it official: he has established an exploratory committee for a run for president, a race that he acknowledges would be a long shot.

About 200 area residents complain to state consumer officials about overcharging and poor service by Eastern Natural Gas during a hearing at the Brookfield Administration Building arranged by state Rep. June Lucas.

1972: Youngstown police raid a teenage marijuana party at a hangout on Myrtle Avenue, arresting 10 men and six teenage girls.

Dennis C. Finneran is named news editor of the Catholic Exponent, replacing Robert Simanski.

Dr. Walter Greissinger, Youngstown deputy health commissioner, and head of the city health department, fails to pass the state medical examination that would have qualified him for a license to practice medicine in Ohio.

1962: Youngstown area residents awake to temperatures as low as 35 degrees, only a degree higher than the record low for Aug. 18 set in 1953.

The Cleveland Ordnance Tank Plant is in production for the first time since 1959, producing the T114 reconnaissance vehicle for the Cadillac Division of General Motors Corp., which has a contract for 1,215 vehicles.

Two state gambling charges are filed against police character Anthony Gianfrencesco, 39, who is arrested in his car at the Atlantic Mills Store on Belmont Avenue with 63 bug slips in his possession.

1937: Youngstown Police Chief Carl Olson orders citizens to remove all weeds over four inches in height from their property or face fines of 100.

Auditions for the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra are being held for any musician from the Youngstown vicinity. Albert Kindler, president of the Youngstown Symphony Society, says the orchestra is being expanded to 65 members as part of a plan that adds one new member each year.

Fred Bees, 64 of Sharpsville dies of heat exhaustion on the hottest day of the summer while riding a Farrell-Sharon Street car from his work at the Carnegie-Illinois Steel mill on a day that temperatures reached 97 degrees.