YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, July 24, the 206th day of 2016. There are 160 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1783: Latin American revolutionary Simon Bolivar is born in Caracas, Venezuela.

1847: Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrive in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.

1866: Tennessee becomes the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.

1862: Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States, and the first to have been born a U.S. citizen, dies at age 79 in Kinderhook, N.Y., the town where he was born in 1782.

1915: The SS Eastland, a passenger ship carrying more than 2,500 people, rolls onto its side while docked at the Clark Street Bridge on the Chicago River; an estimated 844 people die in the disaster.

1937: The state of Alabama drops charges against four of the nine young black men accused of raping two white women in the “Scottsboro Case.”

1959: During a visit to Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon engages in his famous “Kitchen Debate” with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

1969: The Apollo 11 astronauts – two of whom had been the first men to set foot on the moon – splash down safely in the Pacific.

1974: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that President Richard Nixon has to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1980: Comedian-actor Peter Sellers dies in London at 54.

1991: Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer dies in Miami at age 87.

1998: A gunman bursts into the U.S. Capitol, killing two police officers before being shot and captured. (The shooter, Russell Eugene Weston Jr., is being held in a federal mental facility.)

2002: Nine coal miners become trapped in a flooded tunnel of the Quecreek Mine in western Pennsylvania; the story ends happily 77 hours later with the rescue of all nine.

2006: The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants resumes in Baghdad without the former Iraqi leader, who remains hospitalized after going on a hunger strike.

Rescuers from the U.S. Coast Guard and Alaska Air National Guard save 23 crew members from a cargo ship taking on water south of the Aleutian Islands.

2011: Thousands of protesters angry about Spain’s brutal economic woes once again fill Madrid’s downtown Sol square after many had spent weeks marching hundreds of miles from far-flung cities across the country.

Cadel Evans wins the Tour de France, becoming the first Australian champion in bicycling’s greatest race.

2014: Air Algerie Flight 5017, an MD-83 carrying 116 people, crashes in northern Mali, killing all on board; it was the third major international aviation disaster in a week.

2015: Fulfilling the hopes of millions of Kenyans, Barack Obama returns to his father’s homeland for the first time as U.S. president, a visit long sought by a country that considered him a local son.

In a stunning, public attack on his own party leader, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz accuses Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying, saying he is no better than his Democratic predecessor, Harry Reid, and couldn’t be trusted.

Two teenage fishermen, Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, go missing off Florida’s Atlantic coast; their capsized boat was found two days later.

AT&T becomes the country’s biggest traditional TV provider with its $48.5 billion purchase of DirecTV.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: During a visit to the Mahoning Valley, Gov. George Voinovich announces that a $400,000 Turnpike interchange will be built on Bailey Road to provide quick access for the Lordstown General Motors plant.

Voinovich drives a new Pontiac Sunbird convertible during a visit to the plant.

Rainwater leaks into the attic of the Mahoning County Courthouse dampening record books stored there and seeping down onto paintings in the Rotunda.

1976: School officials of the Youngstown Diocese are expecting that up to $7 million in state aid may become available to benefit the 25,000 parochial school students in the six-county diocese as a result of the federal court ruling on parochiaid.

Youngstown police interrupt a clandestine gathering in the basement of the Laborers International union hall on West Rayen Avenue and arrest 13 men hunched over a craps table.

Royal Crown Cola is buying controlling interest in Arby’s Inc., the Youngstown-based fast food chain that has more than 500 franchises specializing in roast beef sandwiches.

1966: Attendance at Youngstown city swimming pools during the first four weeks of the season totals 15,000.

Youngstown’s “Project Second Chance” is receiving national recognition. Films taken by WFMJ-TV of the federal program of adult basic education sponsored by Youngstown public schools will be distributed nationally by Follett Publishing Co.

Eagle Scout awards will be presented to five members of Troop 92 of St. John Baptist (Slovak) Church. Receiving the awards are Scouts Donald Mitulinsky, Jerry Keshock, Joseph Wielbruda and Dennis and Albert Dulovich.

1941: Many Ohio colleges plan increases in fees for the 1941-42 school year, ranging from $5 at Findlay College to $100 at Western Reserve Medical College.

The annual reunion of former students and teachers at Boardman High School who attended when W.B. Randolph was principal, will be held at Stitt Pavilion in Mill Creek Park. Marshall Simon is president of the group.

Hartzell’s annual suit sale begins with year-round and tropical weight fabrics for $15.95 to $39.95. Men’s sport shoes range in price from $4.45 to $6.45.