Years Ago

Today is Thursday, August 21, the 233th day of 2014. There are 132 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1614: Transylvanian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, believed complicit in the killings of dozens, possibly hundreds, of young women and girls, is found dead at age 54 nearly four years after being sealed off in her castle chambers.

1831: Nat Turner leads a violent slave rebellion in Virginia resulting in the deaths of at least 55 white people. (He was later executed.)

1858: The first of seven debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas takes place.

1911: Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” is stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. (The painting was recovered two years later in Italy.)

1940: Exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky dies in a Mexican hospital from wounds inflicted by an assassin the day before.

1959: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order making Hawaii the 50th state.

1963: Martial law is declared in South Vietnam as police and army troops begin a violent crackdown on Buddhist anti-government protesters.

1972: The Republican National Convention opens in Miami Beach.

1983: Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., ending a self-imposed exile in the United States, is shot dead moments after stepping off a plane at Manila International Airport.

1984: Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro appears before reporters in Queens, N.Y., to field questions about her family’s finances.

1991: The hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapses in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.

2004: The International Gymnastics Federation rules that South Korean Yang Tae-young had been unfairly docked a tenth of a point in the all-around gymnastics final at the Athens Olympics, costing him the gold medal that ended up going to Paul Hamm of the United States; however, the ruling did not change the final result in which Yang received the bronze.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Youngstown area financial institutions report no problems with security as first-time home buyers line up early for a chance at mortgages with interest rates below 8 percent.

Owners of Baird Bros. Sawmill Co. near Canfield are putting the finishing touches on an expansion that they say will vault the company far beyond where it was when a fire wiped out much of its inventory in 1988.

Donald G. Seimmer, a Warren native, is promoted to the rank of Captain in the Ohio Highway Patrol and will be in command of procurement and facility management at the Columbus headquarters.

1974: Youngstown City Council appropriates $530,000 toward repairs to the Lake Milton dam in response to a demand by the state that the dam be repaired or breached.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Elwyn Jenkins refuses a motion from a group of parents that the Youngstown City School District be enjoined from carrying out a voluntary student transfer program aimed at desegregating city schools.

A cigarette butt is believed to be the cause of an early morning fire that caused $15,000 damage to the Club 21 at 2121 South Ave.

1964: George Pipoly, 83, retired president and chairman of Boardman Supply Co., dies in South Side Hospital after a three-year illness.

More than 3,000 copies of The Vindicator are sold on the second day of a strike by members of the Newspaper Guild. Police keep order at the front door to allow customers safe passage through a picket line.

Charles B. Cushwa Jr., president and chairman of Commercial Shearing & Stamping Co., scores a hole in one on the No. 15, 195-yard hole at Youngstown Country Club. He was playing with an old friend, J. Arthur Haley, director of public relations at the University of Notre Dame.

1939: Sam Ottieri, proprietor of La Scala tavern on Hubbard-Youngstown Road, is being held by the Trumbull County sheriff for questioning the shooting death of George Riesemen, 50, a Hubbard farmer, and wounding of James Swartz, 35, of Hubbard during a brawl at the bar.

Joe Rittenhouse wins the men’s singles championship at the annual Sebring tennis tournament, defeating Billy Miller, and Jean Applegate claims the women’s title over Violet Ward.

Frank Mariner Sr., 78, a retired Youngstown contractor, is found dead in the bottom of an elevator shaft at the new St. Elizabeth Hospital. It’s theorized that he mistakenly opened an access door at the bottom of the elevator shaft and was struck by a descending elevator.