YEARS AGO

July 17, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Sunday, July 17, the 199th day of 2016. There are 167 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1918: Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks.

1936: The Spanish Civil War begins as right-wing army generals launches a coup attempt against the Second Spanish Republic.

1944: During World War II, 320 men, two-thirds of them African-Americans, are killed when a pair of ammunition ships explodes at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California.

1945: Following Nazi Germany’s surrender, President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill begin meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II.

1955: Disneyland opens in Anaheim, Calif.

1962: The United States conducts its last atmospheric nuclear test to date, detonating a 20- kiloton device, codenamed Little Feller I, at the Nevada Test Site.

1975: An Apollo spaceship docks with a Soyuz spacecraft in the first superpower link-up of its kind.

1981: One hundred fourteen people are killed when a pair of suspended walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapses during a tea dance.

1996: TWA Flight 800, a Europe-bound Boeing 747, explodes and crashes off Long Island, New York, shortly after departing John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people on board.

2001: Katharine Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co., dies three days after suffering a head injury in Sun Valley, Idaho; she was 84.

2014: All 298 passengers and crew aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are killed when the Boeing 777 is shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine.

Mystery writer Mickey Spillane dies in Murrells Inlet, S.C., at age 88.

2015:: More than 1,000 people attend an interfaith service in Chattanooga, Tenn., to mourn four Marines who had been shot to death at a reserve facility by a Kuwaiti-born gunman.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: The Royal Oaks, a landmark tavern and restaurant on Youngstown’s East Side, is closing its doors after 60 years of business. Bobby DeMain, who operated the tavern at 924 Oak St. since his parents retired six years earlier, said a steady lunch crowd wasn’t enough to make the business profitable as dinner business slipped.

Anthony Debevc, president of Chalet Debonne in Madison, Ohio, chooses the Mahoning Valley to launch a $65,000 marketing campaign to convince people that Ohio wines are equal or superior to California vintages.

Youngstown Mayor Patrick Ungaro says area landlords are attempting to use political influence to scuttle the construction of a state office building downtown.

1976: The Trumbull County grand jury indicts Ralph Gaudio, 53, and Dale Sweetapple, a bartender at Cherry’s Top of the Mall restaurant, on murder charges in the 1974 gangland slaying of Phillip “Fleegle” Mainer.

The Paris Boys Choir of France will present a concert at the First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown. Church members will host the 25 boys during their visit.

An emergency medical unit is formed within the Niles Police Department, a first for the city. Members of the unit are Sgt. William Catlin and Patrolmen Richard Mahan, Charles Wilson and Michael Wilson. All have been certified as emergency medical technicians.

1966: Carl Heckert, superintendent of secondary mills at the U.S. Steel McDonald Works, is named division superintendent of bar mills at U.S. Steel’s Lorain Works.

The Ohio State Youth Choir, 20 members strong, holds a concert in Columbus prior to leaving on its second annual European tour. Members include Arlene Pacek of Youngstown.

More than 450 Ohio beauticians register for the statewide convention to be held at Hotel Ohio. Eleanor Butler is president of the Youngstown chapter.

1941: Youngstown Mayor William Spagnola asks Charles Sawyer, Democratic national committeeman, to intercede with President Roosevelt over the slashing of WPA jobs Many who are being cut won’t be able to find new work, mainly because of age, Spagnola says.

A survey of traffic conditions along the Youngs-town and Suburban railway right-of-way to determine which, if any, of eight closed street crossings can be reopened will be taken by the city and railroad.

Honus Wagner and Wilbur Cooper, former stars of the Pittsburgh Pirates, will tutor young players at the Atlantic Baseball School at Youngstown’s Shady Run Field.