Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, June 18, the 169th day of 2014. There are 196 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1812: The War of 1812 begins as the United States Congress approves, and President James Madison signs, a declaration of war against Britain.

1815: Napoleon Bona-parte meets his Waterloo as British and Prussian troops defeat the French in Belgium.

1873: Suffragist Susan B. Anthony is found guilty by a judge in Canandaigua, N.Y., of breaking the law by casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election. (The judge fined Anthony $100, but she never paid the penalty.)

1908: William Howard Taft is nominated for president by the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

1912: The Republican National Convention, which would nominate President William Howard Taft for another term of office, opens in Chicago.

1940: During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill urges his countrymen to conduct themselves in a manner that would prompt future generations to say, “This was their finest hour.”

1953: A U.S. Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II crashes near Tokyo, killing all 129 people on board.

Egypt’s 148-year-old Muhammad Ali Dynasty ends with the overthrow of the monarchy and the proclamation of a republic.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson and Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda speak to each other by telephone as they inaugurate the first trans-Pacific cable completed by AT&T between Japan and Hawaii, and linked to existing cables between Hawaii and California. (Due to the time difference, it was already June 19 in Tokyo.)

1972: One hundred eighteen people are killed in the crash of a Brussels-bound British European Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident 1C shortly after takeoff from London Heathrow Airport.

1979: President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev sign the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna.

1983: Astronaut Sally K. Ride, 32, becomes America’s first woman in space as she and four colleagues blast off aboard the space shuttle Challenger on a six-day mission.

1984: Alan Berg, a Denver radio talk show host, is shot to death outside his home. (Two white supremacists are later convicted of civil rights violations in the slaying.)

2004: An al-Qaida cell in Saudi Arabia beheads American engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr., 49, posting grisly photographs of his severed head; hours later, Saudi security forces track down and kill the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping and murder

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Jack Kemp, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment, says during a visit to Youngstown that the administration of George Bush will have an “exciting” alternative to Jimmy Carter’s Urban Development Action Grant program that funneled money to regions like the Mahoning Valley. He rejected the suggestion of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis that the Mahoning Valley be targeted for funding, saying, “George Bush won.”

Hotel managers and tourism bureau chiefs say the Youngstown- Warren area can make a big push for convention business if they target smaller groups, such as recent meetings of the Ohio Art Teachers Association and the national Willys antique car club.

Atty. Frank Petruzzi files the first 30 warrants in what is expected to be 200 cases charging Mahoning County residents with defrauding the Department of Health and Human Services of $1 million in welfare fraud.

1974: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission votes 5-0 to delay a nationwide ban on the sale of fireworks, responding to objections by Chinese and U.S. fireworks firms, who said they faced the loss of $50 million in inventory.

Erla Jane Mansell, 41, and her son, David, 15, of New Wilmington, Pa., are killed in a two-car collision near Oxford, England, where the family was vacationing. Her husband, Dr. John Mansell, and two other sons and a daughter were also in the car.

Warren City Council approves an agreement with the Packard Electric Division of General Motors Corp., allowing the company to dump industrial waste water from its North River Road plant into the city’s sewage treatment system.

1964: Ohio Gov. James A. Rhodes declares that all Ohio “owes a debt of gratitude” to Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. for its vote of confidence in building a $5 million research center in Boardman.

The Youngstown Water Department will add 24 summer employees, who will be paid the laborers’ wage of $1.98 per hour, to repair and paint fire hydrants in the city. Water Commissioner William Repasky says fire underwriters suggested the work was needed.

An ordinance requiring adjacent subdivisions to apply for annexation to Youngstown when requesting the use of city public utilities is adopted by City Council.

1939: Mahoning County’s voter registration drops by 11,153, about 15 percent, as the names of those who have not voted in two consecutive general elections are dropped.

Congressman Michael J. Kirwan pleads for more WPA spending, saying cutbacks in 1938 were responsible for the recession and undid the economic progress that had been made in restoring business between 1929 and 1937.

Mayor Lionel Evans proposes a 1940 general fund budget of almost $1.7 million, about $115,000 more than 1939.