YEARS AGO

Today is Thursday, July 2, the 183rd day of 2015. There are 182 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: The Continental Congress passes a resolution saying that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

1881: President James A. Garfield is shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield died the following September. (Guiteau was hanged in June 1882.)

1915: A time bomb planted in a reception room of the U.S. Senate explodes shortly before midnight, causing considerable damage but hurting no one.

1937: Aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law a sweeping civil-rights bill passed by Congress.

2010: Gen. David Petraeus arrives in Afghanistan to assume command of U.S. and NATO forces after his predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is fired for intemperate remarks he’d made about Obama administration figures in Rolling Stone magazine.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: A new Ohio Department of Human Services policy goes into effect prohibiting public adoption agencies from denying a child to a couple because of racial dissimilarity.

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee’s concern about the quality of automated weather stations could avert the closing of the National Weather Service office at Youngstown Municipal Airport.

John Jeffrey Limbian of Poland, a 1977 graduate of Chaney High School, receives his law degree from the Cleveland John Marshall College of Law and passes the Ohio bar examination.

1975: Youngstown area gas stations raise their prices by two or three cents, pushing the cost of premium to as high as 63 cents a gallon at local Amoco stations.

The goal for the Youngstown area United Appeal’s 1975 campaign is $2,025,000, an increase of 5 percent over the 1974 goal.

Joey Naples, Youngstown rackets kingpin who was scheduled to begin a 5-year prison term for parole violation, will be at his Carlotta Drive home for the Fourth of July after U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Lambros grants a stay of execution on a motion by Naples’ lawyer, Carmen Policy.

1965: A report based on a sampling of comments from 18,000 Ohioans that favors construction of a Lake Erie to Ohio River canal is presented by Frank Converse Sr., Ohio labor leader, to the Board of Army Engineers for Rivers and Harbors in Washington, D.C.

Liberty Plaza adds a new Hills Department Store, McSorley Restaurant and expanded parking to accommodate 3,000 cars.

Emil Toriello and his wife, Patricia, leave their Poland home for North Side Hospital’s maternity unit, but find they are too late and return to the house, where 6-pound, 13 ounce Victoria Ann is born.

1940: The Civil Aeronautics Authority denies Pennsylvania-Central Airlines permission to add the Youngstown Airport as a stop on its Pittsburgh-Buffalo run, but it allows a stop in Erie, Pa.

Common Pleas Judge David Jenkins rules that Youngstown’s marble board licensing ordinance is illegal because state gambling law takes precedence. The city has issued 575 licenses and collected about $13,000 in fees.

Mahoning County’s 14 townships outside of Youngstown showed a net gain of 7,742 people over 10 years, from 66,230 to 73,672, census officials say. Boardman jumped 44 percent, from 5,456 in 1930 to 7,875 in 1940.