YEARS AGO

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 23, the 236th day of 2016. There are 130 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1305: Scottish rebel leader Sir William Wallace is executed by the English for treason.

1775: Britain’s King George III proclaims the American colonies to be in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.”

1858: “Ten Nights in a Bar-room,” a play by Timothy Shay Arthur about the perils of alcohol, opens in New York.

1914: Japan declares war against Germany in World War I.

1926: Legendary silent film star Rudolph Valentino dies in New York at age 31.

1960: Broadway librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, 65, dies in Doylestown, Pa.

1989: In a case that inflames racial tensions in New York, Yusuf Hawkins, a 16-year-old black teen, is shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by a group of white youths in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.

2011: A pair of judges in New York ends a sensational sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, setting him free after prosecutors questioned the credibility of the hotel housekeeper who’d accused the French diplomat.

2015: Ohio State becomes the first unanimous preseason No. 1 in The Associated Press college football poll.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Poland Village Council declines to put a 0.5-percent income-tax issue on the November ballot, setting the stage for employee layoffs before the end of the year.

Youngstown city officials meet with the Interracial Clergy Dialogue Group to discuss creation of a community relations board to investigate claims of police misconduct. There is a consensus that such a board is a good idea, but no agreement on who would appoint members.

The Ohio Ethics Commission says four of Lordstown Village’s six councilmen are employed by General Motors and would be in violation of ethics rules if they voted on a proposed $3.1 million tax abatement for GM.

1976: After a two-month, 2,000-mile canoe journey from Youngstown to New Orleans, six Youngstown State University students return to a cheering crowd of 100 family and friends. Crew members were Jeff Brown, Chris Stark, Mark McCaughey, Jon Steen, Don Brett and Dan Schultz, all of Poland.

David Platt of Virginia, formerly of Salem, is killed by a hit-skip driver while trying to warn other motorists of a nine-car accident on the foggy Ohio Turnpike. The accident injured 13 people and tied up traffic for miles.

Sue Mulholland, a Cardinal Mooney High School cheerleader, wins the grand national trophy in the talent competition at the U.S. Cheerleading Association national finals at Lansing, Mich.

1966: The 166th anniversary of the birth of William Holmes McGuffey, famous author of the readers bearing his name, will be marked by the dedication of a historical marker at the site of his boyhood home in Coitsville.

A three-alarm, $650,000 fire destroys Imperial Wholesalers Inc. on Indianola Avenue.

Boardman registers a record $7.3 million in building permits for the month, largely due to a $6 million permit for a shopping mall at 7401 Market St. filed by William Cafaro & Associates.

1941: Cool weather closes Youngstown city pools, but a cherry tree in Joseph Stephany’s backyard on Price Road is blossoming.

Walter Robinson Jr. of Indianola Road, a student at Geneva College, leaves for Chicago to enter Great Lakes Naval Training School.

Livingston’s August fur sale features a Paradise Fox 36-inch-length coat for $149. A sable blend muskrat full-length coat is priced at $199.