YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, July 4, the 185th day of 2015. There are 180 days left in the year. This is Independence Day.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: The Declaration of Independence is adopted by delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

1802: The United States Military Academy officially opens at West Point, N.Y.

1815: The cornerstone is laid for a monument in Baltimore honoring George Washington (the monument was completed in 1829).

1831: The fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, dies in New York City at age 73.

1845: Henry David Thoreau begins his two-year experiment in simpler living at Walden Pond, near Concord, Mass.

1872: The 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, is born in Plymouth, Vt.

1912: The 48-star American flag, recognizing New Mexico statehood, is adopted.

1939: Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees delivers his famous farewell speech in which he calls himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

1959: America’s 49-star flag, recognizing Alaskan statehood, is officially unfurled.

1960: America’s 50-star flag, recognizing Hawaiian statehood, is officially unfurled.

1976: Israeli commandos raided Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing almost all of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers.

1982: Heavy-metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne marries his manager, Sharon Arden, in Maui, Hawaii.

2010: President George W. Bush, during an Independence Day visit to Morgantown, W.Va., urges resolve in the war in Iraq and said that “the proper response is not retreat. It is courage.”

2010: Gen. David Petraeus formally assumes command of the 130,000-strong international force in Afghanistan, declaring “we are in this to win.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: A federal jury of eight men and four women finds Vincent E. Serman Jr. of North Lima guilty of operating an illegal wagering operation that was headquartered in a Campbell gambling den.

John Conkling, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, warns a “totally irrational campaign” by lobbyist who want to ban backyard fireworks has put this hallowed family tradition on America’s “list of endangered species.”

Geri Taczak, owner of controversial talk-radio station WOKG in Warren, who is being sued for libel and defamation by Trumbull County Probate Court Judge Thomas Swift and his wife, files a motion through her lawyer, Lawrence Cregan, seeking a competency hearing for the judge. Swift’s lawyer, Charles Richards, calls the motion “frivolous.”

1975: Metropolitan Savings & Loan co. plans to move its main office from 42 N. Phelps Street to the Central Tower on Federal Plaza.

Youngstown City Council adopts a 1976 budget of $39.5 million, which includes more than $3.5 million for bridge repairs and replacements.

Eleven members of Boy Scout Troop 56 in Youngstown take an 11-day, 185-mile bicycle trip through the historic Chesapeake and Ohio Canal area in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

1965: Daniel Reiter, former Austintown resident and a 1960 graduate of Ursuline and recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation scholarship to Notre Dame, enters the Peace Corps and will go to Tanzania, Africa.

The Sharon Shamrocks, a baton-twirling team for Youngstown’s West Side, takes first place in the National Baton Twirlers’ Association in the first of what is hoped to become an annual contest in Alliance.

Youngstown police armed with a search warrant confiscate 11 cartons of “poppers” and seven cartons of sparklers in a raid on the Baghdad Food Market at 1739 Wilson Avenue and charge the owner with illegal possession of fireworks.

1940: Youngstown’s fireworks casualties over the Fourth of July holiday total 40. Six children were injured by exploding firecrackers in Warren.

Youngstown district steel output is set to break all July records with operations reaching 84 percent. Not even in the banner year of 1929 did operations reach such levels in July.

City police raid a gambling den, the TGA Club at 564 Mahoning Ave., confiscating five bottles of liquor and a slot machine and arresting 60 people.