YEARS AGO

years ago

Today is Wednesday, July 8, the 189th day of 2015. There are 176 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1663: King Charles II of England grants a Royal Charter to Rhode Island.

1776: Col. John Nixon gives the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.

1853: An expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Yedo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese.

1889: The Wall Street Journal is first published.

1950: President Harry S. Truman names Gen. Douglas MacArthur commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea. (Truman ended up sacking MacArthur for insubordination nine months later.)

1975: President Gerald R. Ford announces he would seek a second term of office.

1994: Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s communist leader since 1948, died at age 82.

2000: Venus Williams beat Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-6 (3) for her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first black female champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1957-58.

2005: The largest spy swap between the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War unfolds as 10 people accused of spying in suburban America plead guilty to conspiracy and were ordered deported to Russia in exchange for the release of four prisoners accused of spying for the West.

During an ESPN prime-time special, basketball free agent LeBron James announces he will leave the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. meets in Canada with Arthur Rudolph, a purported Nazi scientist who worked for NASA before being deported. Traficant wants Congress to call on the U.S. Justice Department to reopen Rudolph’s case, saying Rudolph has passed a lie-detector test in which he denied having worked slave laborers to death during World War II.

As Phar-Mor, the discount drugstore based in Youngstown, aims to have 240 stores nationwide by the end of the year, the workforce at Tamco’s Austintown warehouse has grown to 1,400.

Tiffany Shanks, a Poland Seminary High senior, leaves for Amsterdam and a month of traveling Europe, playing soccer on Team USA.

1975: A fire in the tire and foam storage building at the General Motors van plant at Lordstown idles 1,250 employees because of heavy smoke in the building.

A Mercer County, Pa., grand jury recommends indictment of five area PennDOT employees on criminal charges including bribery, extortion and conspiracy.

U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums of California will appear at the African Culture Weekend in Youngstown, which has a theme of “Unity for Black Survival.”

1965: Youngstown finance director Thomas J. Barrett, 54, is elected unanimously to succeed the late Thomas J. Carney as Mahoning County commissioner by the Mahoning Democratic Central and Executive Committee.

Jack S. Andrews, past president of the Salvation Army Advisory Board in Youngstown, receives one of the first Century Medallions to be issued in Ohio in recognition of his service. The Salvation Army is marking 100 years nationally, and 81 in Youngstown.

Tony Lawrence, former North High fullback now working for Aladdin Leather Co. in New York, who lost a close decision in the New York Daily News Golden Gloves Tournament, says he will fight again.

1940: Twenty-one Jehovah’s Witnesses are arrested in Struthers on charges of violating a city ordinance prohibiting ringing doorbells and distributing literature, and four are arrested in Cort-land, charged with disturbing the peace.

The North Side swimming pool on Belmont Avenue is closed temporarily after a fight between bathers and several members of the Future Outlook League, a Negro organization.

Nearly 100 jobless men enroll in electrical- and auto-repair classes at Rayen, Chaney and East high schools as part of the national-defense program approved by President Franklin Roosevelt.