Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, July 17, the 199th day of 2012. There are 167 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1812: British forces capture Fort Michilimackinac on Mackinac Island during the War of 1812.

1821: Spain cedes Florida to the United States.

1918: Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks.

1944: During World War II, 320 men, two-thirds of them African-Americans, are killed when a pair of ammunition ships exploded at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California.

1955: Disneyland opens in Anaheim, Calif.

1962: The United States conducts its last atmospheric nuclear test to date, detonating a 20-kiloton device, codenamed Little Feller I, at the Nevada Test Site.

1975: An Apollo spaceship docks with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit in the first superpower link-up of its kind.

1981: 114 people are killed when a pair of suspended walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse.

Vindicator files

1987: Over strenuous objections by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., a U.S. bankruptcy judge approves a contract between LTV Steel Corp. and the United Steelworkers Union.

Public officials suggest that a proposal to establish and fund a 911 emergency phone system in Mahoning County be put on the ballot.

1972: James R. Green, 42, manager of Hills Department Store at Lincoln Knolls, dies of injuries suffered when he lost control of his car on old Route 422 east of New Bedford, Pa.

Three Ohio Air National Guardsmen escape injury when their helicopter strikes a 12,000 volt primary power line and crashes into Berln Reservoir near Deerfield. The pilot was Capt. Vincent P. Osekoski of Poland.

1962: Fifteen people are injured, none seriously, when a rack of fireworks is accidentally ignited, causing a stampede at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel festival on Summit Avenue.

A 26-year-old Ford Avenue man is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon for throwing a firecracker on the porch of a neighbor, Gladys Durkin, 38, who lost an eye to the explosion.

1937: Mahoning County deputies stage a raid at the Rendezvous Villa on Route 18, seizing three slot machines and arresting the proprietor, Paul Alvinio, 33.

Frank Kahn, 56-year-old Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. worker, is struck and killed by a streetcar at Mahoning Avenue and Edwards Street, becoming Youngstown’s 32 traffic fatality of the year.