YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, June 8, the 159th day of 2015. There are 206 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

A.D. 632: The prophet Muhammad dies in Medina.

1845: Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the U.S., dies in Nashville, Tenn.

1915: U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over what he viewed as President Woodrow Wilson’s overly bellicose attitude toward Germany after the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

1948: The “Texaco Star Theater” debuts on NBC-TV with Milton Berle guest-hosting the first program. (Berle later was named the show’s permanent host.)

1953: The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve blacks.

Eight tornadoes strike Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, killing 126 people.

1967: Thirty-four U.S. servicemen are killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy intelligence-gathering ship in the Mediterranean. (Israel later said the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian vessel.)

1972: During the Vietnam War, an Associated Press photographer captures the image of 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc as she ran naked and severely burned from the scene of a South Vietnamese napalm attack.

1978: A jury in Clark County, Nev., rules the so-called “Mormon will,” purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, is a forgery.

1982: President Ronald Reagan becomes the first American chief executive to address a joint session of the British Parliament.

1995: U.S. Marines rescue Capt. Scott O’Grady, whose F-16C fighter jet had been shot down by Bosnian Serbs on June 2.

Mickey Mantle receives a liver transplant at a Dallas hospital; however, the baseball great died two months later.

2014: Gunmen storm an airport terminal in Karachi, Pakistan, in an attack that leaves at least 29 people dead, including the assailants (the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility).

Pope Francis welcomes the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican for a remarkable evening of peace prayers.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: A special prosecutor will be hired by the city of Youngstown to pursue investigations of suspected financial irregularities in the Police and Fire departments and the Municipal Court’s bailiff’s office.

General Motors signs a $1 billion deal with Volga Auto Works, the Soviet Union’s largest automaker, becoming the first U.S. car maker to do business with the U.S.S.R. since the 1930s. GM will provide up to 150,000 high-tech engine- and emissions-control systems a year.

The annual Small Ships Revue, which has attracted as many as 100 homemade watercraft and 20,000 people to downtown Sharon, Pa., in the past, has been canceled after a new sponsor was not found to replace the Old Express Ltd.

1975: Liberty Township police begin calling off sick with the 11 p.m. shift after police and firefighters vote to strike after a breakdown in negotiations with trustees Phil Bova, Phil Adler Jr. and Dan Casanta.

Despite rising gasoline prices, which may soon reach 70 cents a gallon, Youngstowners aren’t abandoning their cars for Western Reserve Transit Authority buses, says City Engineer Edmund J. Salata and Norman A. Armstrong Jr., president of the WRTA board of trustees.

Nine Diocese of Youngstown deacons are ordained to the priesthood by Bishop James W. Malone at St. Columba Cathedral: the Revs. Jon Andrecic, John Banks, Robert Burns, Thomas Crum, Terrence Hazel, James Johnston, James Lang, William Loveless and Charles Sarachman.

1965: Springfield Township trustees decide not to file charges against six Boardman boys who commandeered an unattended ambulance at the New Middletown Rescue Squad to take one of the boys to South Side Hospital for treatment of a cut ankle suffered while swimming at a lake on Springfield Road.

The Pennsylvania Legislature suspends for two years any “rain making by cloud seeding or other new-fangled weather control gimmicks.”

Mrs. Andrew Lindsay of Poland directs “Operation Head Start” for preschool children from July 6 through Aug. 7 to prepare them for regular school.

1940: The Mahoning Red Cross has reached more than $30,000 of its $80,000 goal for relief of war refugees in Europe, while area women are reporting to Red Cross headquarters in the Stambaugh Building to sew, knit and make surgical dressings.

Hillman and West elementary school buildings are abandoned and students are moved to the Grant School building for the rest of the school year.

Advertisements: The pure saltwater pool is open at Idora Park: adults, 25 cents; children, 15 cents. Tony’s Grill, 925 Albert St.: spaghetti with meatball, 35 cents; T-bone steak: 45 cents; Italian sausage: 10 cents.