YEARS AGO

years ago

Today is Thursday, June 16, the 168th day of 2016. There are 198 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1858: Accepting the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate, Abraham Lincoln says the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

1903: Ford Motor Co. is incorporated.

1944: George Stinney, a 14-year-old black youth, becomes the youngest person to die in the electric chair as the state of South Carolina executes him for the murders of two white girls, Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 7.

1963: The world’s first female space traveler, Valentina Tereshkova, 26, is launched into orbit by the Soviet Union aboard Vostok 6; she spends 71 hours in flight, circling the Earth 48 times before returning safely.

1987: A jury in New York acquits Bernhard Goetz of attempted murder in the subway shooting of four youths he said were going to rob him; however, Goetz is convicted of illegal weapons possession.

2006: The House rejects a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, 256-153.

2011: U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., announces his resignation from Congress, bowing to the furor caused by his sexually charged online dalliances with a former porn actress and other women.

2015: Real-estate mogul Donald Trump launches his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: A public-private group is conducting a study on the feasibility of building a high-speed rail line between the new Pittsburgh International Airport and New Castle, Pa., and, eventually, Youngstown.

Real-estate agent Fred D’Amico says a contractor is negotiating to buy Idora Park from Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church with a view toward refurbishing the ballroom. City Councilman David Engler suggests that the baseball field could be returned to use by a minor-league team. (The deal never came to fruition, and a fire leveled the ballroom March 5, 2001.)

Ellie Nolan of North Jackson becomes the 37th woman in the United States to qualify as a “distinguished expert rifle shooter” during a regional championship match at Camp Perry, Ohio.

1976: An engineering study by Floyd G. Browne and Associates says a new sewer system is needed to serve 5,100 acres bounded by Mill Creek Park, DeCamp and New roads, state Route 46 and Four Mile Run Road. The EPA would cover 75 percent of the cost, with the city of Youngstown and Mahoning County paying the balance.

Speaking on “How to Be Happy Though Married,” Dr. Leighton Ford tells 3,700 people at the Youngstown Reachout crusade at the Canfield Fairgrounds that “God made our bodies, and God is just as interested in the sexual side of marriage as he is with the legal and personal sides.”

The Rev. Robert Taylor of Howland Community Church is elected president of the Eastern Ohio Lung Association during a meeting at the Ramada Inn in Liberty.

1966: Struthers City Council prepares a major campaign against air pollution.

Treasury agents from Youngstown raid a Thorn Street home and confiscate a 55-gallon still and other equipment used to make moonshine.

Kathleen N. Law of Warren graduates from the Temple University Hospital School of Nursing.

1941: Vincent Aderente, a mural painter who painted the Council Rock mural in the Mahoning County Courthouse and the Justice mural in the Mercer County Courthouse, dies at his Queens, N.Y., home.

Hubbard ends its USO drive after collecting $30 above the $250 goal.

The FBI, Mahoning County deputies, Youngstown police and private industry have combined forces over the past eight months to protect Milton Dam against possible sabotage aimed at American industry.