Years Ago

Today is Saturday, July 28, the 210th day of 2012. There are 156 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1540: King Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, is executed, the same day Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.

1609: The English ship Sea Venture, commanded by Adm. Sir George Somers, runs ashore on Bermuda, where the passengers and crew found a colony.

1794: Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, is sent to the guillotine.

1914: World War I begins as Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.

1928: The Summer Olympic games open in Amsterdam.

1932: Federal troops acting at the order of President Herbert Hoover forcibly disperse the so-called “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans who had gathered by the thousands in Washington to demand payments they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.

1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the end of coffee rationing, which had limited people to one pound of coffee every five weeks since it began in November 1942.

1945: A U.S. Army bomber crashes into the 79th floor of New York’s Empire State Building, killing 14 people.

1959: In preparation for statehood, Hawaiians vote to send the first Chinese-American, Republican Hiram L. Fong, to the U.S. Senate and the first Japanese-American, Democrat Daniel K. Inouye, to the U.S. House of Representatives.

1962: Nineteen passengers are killed when a Pennsylvania Railroad Co. train enroute from Harrisburg to Philadelphia derails in Steelton.

1976: An earthquake devastates northern China, killing at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Atty. E. Winther McCroom accuses Youngstown schools Superintendent Emanuel N. Catsoules with “administrative blackmail” in transferring Lock Beachum to Princeton Junior High and asks the board to reappoint Beachum principal of East High School.

Clarence Brown, a former congressman from Ohio, is named acting secretary of commerce following the death of Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, who died after falling from his horse.

Lowellville Village Council defies the EPA, saying it will not commission design work on a $2 million secondary water treatment plant until the federal government provides the funding.

1972: The Mahoning–Trumbull Council of Governments adds its voice to those backing construction of a stub canal linking the Mahoning and Beaver rivers to the Ohio River.

Valley Consolidated Industries of Niles wins a multimillion-dollar contract to fabricate and erect steel for a new 68-inch hot strip steel mill for the Ford Motor Co. at Dearborn, Mich.

Richard Guzman, 29, the son-in-law of tightwire walker Carl Wallenda, is killed in a 50 foot fall while climbing a lighting pole to take a balancing pole to Wallenda at a circus performance in Wheeling, W. Va.

1962: Earl Raymond Dressel, 26, is killed instantly when a 600 pound tree limb struck him while he was removing a tree from in front of 2514 Elm St. for the Suburban Tree Service of Hubbard.

Hubertus Prieur, a Youngstown engineer with Mannesmann-Meer, his wife and 15-month-old son, all of Northgate Drive, Poland, were among 88 passengers of a Pan-American jetliner that nearly collided with a Dutch Air Force plane over Amsterdam. Mrs. Prieur is in an Amsterdam hospital with shoulder injuries.

A research program delving into the remaining secrets of blast furnace technology is being carried on by 22 major iron and steel producing companies, including five from the Youngstown area.

1937: Slot machines, dice games and bookies are reported flourishing in Youngstown as racket operations hit what observers say is a new high.

While waiting to testify in a Cleveland courtroom on an injunction being sought against the CIO, R.J. Wyser, Republic Steel Corp. president, tells Vindicator Reporter Ernest Nemenyi that the outlook for steel operations during the remainder of the year is good.