Years Ago

Today is Monday, June 23, the 174th day of 2014. There are 191 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1757: Forces of the East India Company led by Robert Clive win the Battle of Plassey, which effectively marks the beginning of British colonial rule in India.

1812: Britain, unaware that America has declared war against it five days earlier, rescinds its policy on neutral shipping, a major issue of contention between the two countries.

1904: President Theodore Roosevelt is nominated for a second term of office at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

1931: Aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from New York on a round-the-world flight that lasts eight days and 15 hours.

1938: The Civil Aeronautics Authority is established.

1947: The Senate joins the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.

1956: Gamal Abdel Nasser is elected president of Egypt.

1967: President Lyndon B. Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin hold the first of two meetings at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.

1969: Warren E. Burger is sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.

1972: President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discuss a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon’s resignation.)

President Nixon signs Title IX, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex for “any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

1989: The Supreme Court refuses to shut down the “dial-a-porn” industry, ruling Congress had gone too far in passing a law banning all sexually oriented phone-message services.

1994: The movie “Forrest Gump,” starring Tom Hanks as a simple yet kindhearted soul and his serendipitous brushes with greatness, is released by Paramount Pictures.

2004: In a major retreat, the United States abandons an attempt to win a new exemption for American troops from international prosecution for war crimes — an effort that had faced strong opposition because of the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Austintown police officers are spending extra time on the firing range, acquainting themselves with the 9-mm semiautomatic pistols that are replacing 38-caliber revolvers as the department’s duty weapon.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Peter Economus, saying he did not entirely agree with the jury’s verdicts in a triple murder case, sentences John B. Williams III to 8 to 25 years for manslaughter in the death of his stepmother. Jurors say they believed Williams, 18, killed his father in self-defense and killed his 5-year-old half-sister accidentally.

Gerald and Jerry Zuppo of Girard, the father and son accused in the disappearance of a North Side teenager in 1988, are found guilty of kidnapping and are sentenced to five to 25 years in prison.

1974: Ann Isroff, the second woman to serve on the board of trustees of Youngstown State University, is elected chairman of the board, succeeding Atty. John M. Newman.

Dr. Taylor Alderman, chairman of the Youngstown State University English Department, is appointed to the new position of vice president for academic affairs.

Hundreds of Youngstown residents visit the 910th Tactical Fighter Group’s open house at the Youngstown Municipal Airport.

1964: Mahoning County Welfare Director I.L. Feuer reports that general relief has fallen from a caseload of 947 to 535 between March and June, with payments dropping from $65,000 a month to $36,000.

Ronald Jackson, 26, found innocent of a church bingo robbery a week earlier, is sentenced to life imprisonment by a jury that deliberated for an hour and 10 minutes before convicting him of being a habitual criminal based on his having been found guilty of four felonies in the past.

Dr. John J. Graneto is installed as president and king lion of the Youngstown Lion’s Club at the 44th annual installation party at the Mahoning Country Club.

1939: Youngstown is mopping up after a severe electrical and rainstorm that lashed the district with almost hurricane fury. Utility men say it may be the most destructive storm in city history.

First Assistant Law Director William E. Lewis is elected president of the Mahoning County Bar Association at the annual dinner in the Mahoning Country Club.

About 150 men are being recalled by the William B. Pollock Co., which obtained the contract to rebuild Republic Steel Corp.’s big blast furnace at Warren.