YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, June 30, the 181st day of 2015. There are 184 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1859: French acrobat Charles Blondin walks back and forth on a tightrope above the gorge of Niagara Falls as thousands of spectators watch.

1908: The Tunguska Event takes place in Russia as an asteroid explodes above Siberia, leaving 800 square miles of scorched or blown-down trees.

1933: The Screen Actors Guild is established.

1934: Adolf Hitler launches his “blood purge” of political and military rivals in Germany.

1958: The U.S. Senate passes the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20.

1963: Pope Paul VI is crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.

1972: For the first time, a leap-second is added to Coordinated Universal Time to account for the slowing rotation of the Earth.

2014: A sharply divided Supreme Court rules that some companies with religious objections can avoid the contraceptives requirement in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the first time the high court declared that businesses can hold religious views under federal law.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Ohio Attorney General Anthony Celebrezze announces that a group of companies and individuals has agreed to pay $34 million toward the cleanup of Summit National Dump in Deerfield.

The Rev. Phillip J. Sinner, 89, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Girard for 44 years, marks the 65th anniversary of his ordination at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Home in Niles.

Atty. Mark A. Huberman is elected president of the Ohev Tzedek Shaarei Torah Congregation in Boardman.

1975: An estimated 50,000 people watch the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds perform during an open house at the Youngstown Air Reserve Base.

Youngstown is installing 34 no-turn-on-red signs at various intersections in preparation for the first day of a new state law that will allow right turns with caution and after stopping at a red light.

U.S. Coast Guard Commander James Fournier, 43, of Poland, takes command of the USCGC “Burton Island” during ceremonies in the ship’s home port of Long Beach, Calif.

1965: A new four-story, $5 million engineering building for Youngstown University will be built on Lincoln Avenue between Bryson and Elm Streets.

Responding to a request from the Mayor’s Human Relations Committee, the Youngstown Hospital Association will no longer list race, religion or national origin of patients on admitting forms. The policy is expected to make it more difficult for clergy making rounds at the hospitals.

The Rev. Howard Westin, pastor of the Messiah Lutheran Church, Newton Falls, is appointed assistant to the vice president and treasurer of Wittenberg College, Springfield.

1940: Judge D. Garr of Youngstown retires after 55 years in the freight department of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Three Youngstown men, two of them former WPA workers, are making a success of running their own stone quarry at the end of North Center Street. They are Anthony DiNardo, Ben Morucci and Edward Cudicio.

Playing at the air-conditioned Warner, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in “New Moon.”