YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 5, the 217th day of 2015. There are 148 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1864: During the Civil War, Union Adm. David G. Farragut leads his fleet to victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay in Alabama.

1884: The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal is laid on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor.

1914: What’s believed to be the first electric traffic light system is installed in Cleveland, Ohio, at the intersection of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue.

1924: The comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” by Harold Gray makes its debut.

1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the National Labor Board, which was later replaced with the National Labor Relations Board.

1953: Operation Big Switch begins as remaining prisoners taken during the Korean War are exchanged at Panmunjom.

1957: The teen dance show “American Bandstand,” hosted by Dick Clark, makes its network debut on ABC-TV.

1962: Actress Marilyn Monroe, 36, is found dead in her Los Angeles home; her death is ruled a probable suicide from “acute barbiturate poisoning.”

South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela is arrested; it was the beginning of 27 years of imprisonment.

1965: During the Vietnam War, “The CBS Evening News” sparked controversy as it airs a report by correspondent Morley Safer showing a group of U.S. Marines torching huts in the village of Cam Ne, considered a Viet Cong stronghold, using flamethrowers and Zippo cigarette lighters.

1969: The U.S. space probe Mariner 7 flies by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data.

1974: The White House releases transcripts of subpoenaed tape recordings showing that President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, had discussed a plan in June 1972 to use the CIA to thwart the FBI’s Watergate investigation; revelation of the tape would later spark Nixon’s resignation.

1984: Actor Richard Burton died in Geneva, Switzerland, at age 58.

1994: A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington chooses Kenneth W. Starr to take over the Whitewater investigation from Robert Fiske.

2005: The NCAA announces it will shut American Indian nicknames and images out of postseason tournaments.

2010: The Senate confirms Elena Kagan, 63-37, as the Supreme Court’s 112th justice and the fourth woman in its history.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: The Professional Golf Association announces that it will no longer conduct tournaments at clubs with all-white memberships, which could be an issue for the recently successful Phar-Mor LPGA tourney. Of 10 private clubs in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys, only one, Fonderlac Country Club, acknowledges having a black member. Six said they have no black members, and three refused to respond.

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh announces that it will begin offering a music major in bagpiping.

Mike Ditka’s Chicago Bears beat Bud Carson’s Cleveland Browns 13-0 in the Pro Football Hall of Fame game in Canton. Among those inducted into the Hall of Fame were Pittsburgh Steelers Jack Lambert and Franco Harris.

1975: Alberta Ceryak, 64, of Youngstown is killed when an Erie Lackawanna freight train strikes the camper she was driving at Westlake’s Crossing. A tank car filled with alcohol bursts into flames, filling the area with explosive fumes.

Cecilia Bees, who is in charge of fiscal affairs at the Mahoning County Welfare Department, says some county residents who are eligible for food stamps are not receiving them while others who are not entitled to the aid are getting them.

Members of the Trumbull County Welfare Rights Organization picket the welfare offices on University NE in Warren protesting office policies regarding welfare disbursements and benefits.

1965: Record crowds turn out for the 120th Trumbull County Free Fair. Gary Zipay of Burghill gets a record $1,168 ($1.25 per pound) for his 4-H baby beef grand champion.

An Ohio Senate Committee recommends compulsory training for adults on public assistance as a way of cracking Ohio’s hard-core unemployment.

Charges are dismissed against a watermelon peddler accused of stabbing an East Side youngster after the boy and his companions admit that they lied about the encounter. The boy was injured when he fell after hitching a ride on the watermelon truck.

1940: Ingot production in the Youngstown district in July set a record high mark for any July in the history of steel makers in the area and retail sales reflect the steel boom. Car sales in July were 56 percent above those of a year earlier and home construction was the highest in two years.

Police are attempting to identify a young woman found wandering in State Route 18 between Lake Milton and Meander Reservoir who says the last thing she remembers is being given a ride by a man and woman who offered her a piece of chewing gum. She is about 20 years old.

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