YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 19, the 231st day of 2015. There are 134 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

A.D. 14: Caesar Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, dies at age 76 after a reign lasting four decades; he is succeeded by his stepson Tiberius.

1812: The USS Constitution defeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere off Nova Scotia during the War of 1812, earning the nickname “Old Ironsides.”

1814: During the War of 1812, British forces land at Benedict, Md., with the objective of capturing Washington, D.C.

1918: “Yip! Yip! Yaphank,” a musical revue by Irving Berlin featuring Army recruits from Camp Upton in Yaphank, N.Y., opens on Broadway.

1934: A plebiscite in Germany approves the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler.

1936: The first of a series of show trials orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin begins in Moscow as 16 defendants face charges of conspiring against the government (all were convicted and executed).

1964: The Beatles open their first full-fledged U.S. tour as they perform at San Francisco’s Cow Palace.

1976: President Gerald R. Ford wins the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Kansas City.

2014: A video released by Islamic State militants purport to show the beheading of American journalist James Foley as retribution for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Carmelo Foti of Youngstown is presented the Ernest Teodosio Award, given annually by the Order of Sons of Italy in America to recognize outstanding achievements and contributions to SOI.

The First Church of God at 426 W. Broad St., Newton Falls, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Ohio Secretary of State Sherrod Brown is investigating a National Republican Senatorial Campaign fundraising mailing received by some Ohio voters that he says improperly implies that a $9 fee must be paid to vote or register to vote.

1975: Public officials from Mahoning and Trumbull counties meet with representatives of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and try to impress upon them the need for aid in paying for needed industrial and municipal waste-treatment facilities in the Youngstown-Warren area.

Salem Schools Superintendent Robert Pond told the Board of Education that it may have to reconvert heating for the high school to fuel oil because of looming cutbacks in natural-gas availability.

A rare coin collection valued at $50,000 is taken in a burglary at the Glenwood Avenue office of Dr. Alexander Calder.

1965: A youngster who threw a wire over a fence and into an Ohio Edison Co. substation at Clifton Drive and Southern Boulevard causes an outage that affects a large portion of Boardman and the South Side. Police said traffic lights on Market Street were knocked out, causing traffic jams.

Herman G. Spahr, a law-enforcement specialist for the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce, pleads innocent to a homicide charge filed in the death of Theodore Robinson, 34, who was beating a woman on Federal Street when Spahr stopped his car and shot Robinson.

Coming to the Idora Park Ballroom: Stan Kenton and his orchestra. Concert from 10 to 11, dancing till 1 a.m. Admission $2.50.

1940: Speaking during Polish Day at Idora Park, Martin Davey, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, says every minority group should be recognized in state government and he wants “to re-establish liberal government in Ohio.”

The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Joseph P. Hurley, an assistant pastor at St. Columba Church in Youngstown, is appointed by Pope Pius XII to succeed the late Bishop Patrick Barry as Bishop of St. Augustine, Fla.

Five thousand members of the Jednota, First Catholic Slovak Union of America, attend the golden jubilee at the Holy Trinity Church grounds in Struthers.