YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 11, the 223rd day of 2015. There are 142 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1786: Capt. Francis Light arrives in Penang to claim the Malaysian island for Britain.

1860: The nation’s first successful silver mill begins operation near Virginia City, Nev.

1909: The steamship SS Arapahoe becomes the first ship in North America to issue an S.O.S. distress signal, off North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras.

1934: The first federal prisoners arrive at Alcatraz Island (a former military prison) in San Francisco Bay.

1942:During World War II, Pierre Laval, prime minister of Vichy France, publicly declares that “the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war.”

1954: A formal peace takes hold in Indochina, ending more than seven years of fighting between the French and Communist Viet Minh.

1956: Abstract painter Jackson Pollock, 44, dies in an automobile accident on Long Island, N.Y.

1964: The Beatles movie “A Hard Day’s Night” has its U.S. premiere in New York.

1965: Rioting and looting break out in the predominantly black Watts section of Los Angeles. The disturbance ends with 34 dead.

1975: The United States vetoes the proposed admission of North and South Vietnam to the United Nations, following the Security Council’s refusal to consider South Korea’s application.

1984: During a voice test for a paid political radio address, President Ronald Reagan jokes that he has “signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

1993: President Bill Clinton appoints Army Gen. John Shalikashvili to be the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, succeeding the retiring Gen. Colin Powell.

1997: President Bill Clinton makes the first use of the historic line-item veto, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills. (However, the U.S. Supreme Court later struck down the veto as unconstitutional.)

2005: President George W. Bush expresses sympathy for war protesters such as Cindy Sheehan, the mother camped outside his Texas ranch demanding more answers for her soldier-son Casey’s death in Iraq, but said he believes it would be a mistake to bring U.S. troops home immediately.

2010: In Baton Rouge, La., police and FBI agents capture Michael Francis Mara, suspected of being the so-called “Granddad Bandit” who’d held up two dozen banks in 13 states for about two years.

2014: Robin Williams, 63, a brilliant shape-shifter who could channel his frenetic energy into delightful comic characters such as “Mrs. Doubtfire” or harness it into richly nuanced work such as his Oscar-winning turn in “Good Will Hunting,” dies in Tiburon, Calif., a suicide.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: The nation’s armed forces are well prepared if fighting breaks out in the Middle East desert, says U.S. Brig. Gen. James R. Joy, who was in Youngstown for the 11th annual Marine Reunion at the Italian-American War Veterans Center on South Meridian Road.

At 90, Monsignor Joseph Krispinsky is Youngstown’s oldest clergyman, and he still helps with Masses and confessions at Sacred Heart of Mary Church and is a Knights of Columbus chaplain. He is not a proponent of the trend toward altar girls in Catholic churches.

An explosion and fire destroy a building at 1615 Niles Road SE in Warren that housed Divine Cleaning Service, LaKeeya’s Boutique and Philly’s Hot Dog restaurant.

1975: Trumbull County deputies arrest two 14-year-olds in connection with a house burglary in Mecca in which two rifles, two shotguns and two pistols were taken.

Dr. Timothy B. Moritz, director of the Ohio Mental Health and Mental Retardation Department, says “chronic neglect” by the Ohio General Assembly has forced the Gallipolis Institute for the Mentally Retarded to function at an alarmingly understaffed level.

The 910 th Tactical Fighter Group at the Youngstown Municipal Airport opens a 15-day training exercise for some 600 of its members.

1965: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. buys a 96-acre site on U.S. Route 224 between Struthers-New Middletown and Clingan roads for $32,000 at a sheriff’s sale. The company says the land is adjacent to Sheet & Tube property, and there are no immediate plans for its use.

The families of Wyne Weingart of Canfield Township and Wade Wehr of Beaver Township will be honored at the Canfield Fair as Mahoning County’s outstanding rural families of the year.

William J. Lyons of Youngstown, a partner in James & Weaver Co., dies in North Side Hospital after a short illness and a month after his son, Lt. Thomas Lyons, was killed in a plane crash in Tripoli, Africa.

1940: Fear of military conscription causes a rush on the marriage- license bureau in Cleveland with 282 couples applying, toppling a record of 180 set a week earlier.

Harry Zink of Steubenville, The Vindicator singles tennis champion, wins the singles crown at the Chautauqua Invitational Tournament, defeating Bob Braithwait of Erie, Pa., 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 and 7-5.

The Youngstown Public Library’s busy Central Square Branch will institute check-out by microfilm, which will allow borrowers to record their transaction with the push of a button and be on their way.