Years Ago

Today is Saturday, July 14, the 196th day of 2012. There are 170 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1853: Commodore Matthew Perry relays to Japanese officials a letter from President Millard Fillmore requesting trade relations. (Fillmore’s term of office had already expired by the time the letter was delivered.)

1881: Outlaw William H. Bonney Jr., alias “Billy the Kid,” is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, N.M.

1902: The original, centuries-old Campanile di San Marco in Venice, Italy, collapses. (The bell tower is rebuilt within a decade.)

1911: Harry N. Atwood is the first pilot to land an airplane (a Wright biplane) on the grounds of the White House after flying in from Boston; he is greeted by President William Howard Taft.

1912: American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie (“This Land Is Your Land”) is born in Okemah, Okla.

1921: Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are convicted in Dedham, Mass., of murdering a shoe company paymaster and his guard. (Sacco and Vanzetti were executed six years later.)

1933: All German political parties, except the Nazi Party, are outlawed.

1960: British researcher Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in the Tanganyika Territory (in present-day Tanzania) to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild.

1966: Eight student nurses are murdered by Richard Speck in a Chicago dormitory.

1972: The State Department calls actress Jane Fonda’s antiwar radio broadcasts in Hanoi “distressing.”

Jean Westwood is appointed the first female chair of the Democratic National Committee.

1976: Jimmy Carter wins the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in New York.

2002: A gunman tries but fails to assassinate French President Jacques Chirac during a Bastille Day parade.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Speed limit signs on Interstate 76 west of the Ohio Turnpike are being increased from 55 mph to 65 mph.

A new office for AAA-Ohio Motorists Association will be build on Rt. 422 in Niles and AAA offices in Warren and Girard will be closed.

1972: The disciplining of a worker in the body shop of the van-truck plant at Lordstown over the use of a cooling fan sparks a wildcat strike by 1,000 workers, shutting down the truck line for five hours.

West Federal Street from Phelps to Central Square is closed to pedestrians and vehicles until a Pittsburgh firm can inspect and remove deteriorating cornice atop the Wick Building.

Quarterback Joe Sanford of the Youngstown Hardhats is leading the Midwest Football League in passing after the Hardhats defeat Detroit, 32-0.

The Youngstown Area United Appeal sets a goal of $1.8 million for the 1972-73 campaign that will open in the fall.

1962: The solution to downtown Youngstown’s parking shortage is the construction of one, two or three open parking garages, says George Devling of National Garages Inc.

President John F. Kennedy makes a surprise announcement from Hyannis Port, Mass., that Anthony J. Celebrezze, mayor of Cleveland, will be the new secretary of health, education and welfare.

Hundreds are on hand for the first day of a two-day all-pony show at the Canfield fairgrounds.

The Ohio Supreme Court issues two rulings that could save Youngstown area residents millions of dollars in natural gas, electric and telephone bills; one requiring utilities to pass along savings on federal taxes and one reducing the property values on which utilities base their rates.

1937: Harold Lininger, 79, of 16 Benita Avenue is the victim of a hit-run driver while crossing Logan Road near New York Avenue, becoming Youngstown’s 31st traffic victim of the year.

Members of Youngstown’s Co. H of the 14th Infantry, Ohio National Guard, are on their way home from summer training at Camp Perry on Lake Erie.