YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, July 26, the 207th day of 2013. There are 158 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1775: Benjamin Franklin becomes America’s first postmaster-general.

1908: Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte orders creation of a force of special agents that is a forerunner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1912: The Edison Studios production “What Happened to Mary,” one of the first, if not very first, movie serials, is released with Mary Fuller in the title role.

1947: President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act, establishing the National Military Establishment, which later was renamed the Department of Defense.

1952: King Farouk I of Egypt abdicates in the wake of a coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser.

1953: Fidel Castro begins his revolt against Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba.

1956: The Italian liner Andrea Doria sinks off New England, some 11 hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm; at least 51 people die.

1971: Apollo 15 is launched from Cape Kennedy on America’s fourth manned mission to the moon.

1986: Kidnappers in Lebanon release the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American hostage held for nearly 19 months.

1990: President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency reverses its position, and is backing the Mahoning County Health Department’s attempts to limit the waste being dumped at the Browning-Ferris Industries landfill in Poland.

In exchange for an apology, charges are dropped against a Champion basketball player accused of punching Liberty’s head basketball coach, Robert Patton, during a brawl at a basketball game in February.

1973: The price of wholesale milk in the Youngstown district will increase 52 cents per hundred pounds, which will amount to a jump of more than a penny a quart.

Ray Sovik, the Youngs-town native who captained the Ohio State golf team for two seasons, has won $14,000 on the four Seasons Tour as he tries to break into the PGA tour.

The Campbell Board of Education rejects an impasse panel’s recommendation that six teachers be rehired and that the starting salary for teachers be increased from $6,500 to $6,700 a year.

1963: Seventeen Youngs-town and Struthers boys are arrested before they could stage a “rumble” in Struthers and are lectured in juvenile court before being released to their parents. Boys with long hair are told by one court officer to “get a haircut or start wearing a dress.”

Ohio Gov. James A. Rhodes convinces the nation’s governors attending their convention in Miami, to meet in 1964 in Cleveland.

1938: Mrs. Robert A. Taft, daughter-in-law of Chief Justice and Former President William Howard Taft, visits Youngstown, speaking to Republican women at the YMCA and the Mahoning Country Club.

Youngstown district steel operations advance to between 37 and 38 percent of capacity, with 37 of 83 open hearths and three Bessemers making steel.

A vigorous city-wide campaign is in full swing to sell at least 2,500 season tickets at $4.40 each to finance the first season of football at Youngstown College.