YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, May 15, the 136th day of 2016. There are 230 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1718: James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world’s first machine gun.

1776: Virginia authorizes its delegation to the Continental Congress to support independence from Britain.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs an act establishing the Department of Agriculture.

1869: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.

1896: Poet Emily Dickinson dies in Amherst, Mass., at age 55.

1911: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Standard Oil Co. is a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders its breakup.

1930: Registered nurse Ellen Church, the first airline stewardess, goes on duty aboard an Oakland-to-Chicago flight operated by Boeing Air Transport (a forerunner of United Airlines).

1940: DuPont begins selling its nylon stockings nationally.

The original McDonald’s restaurant opens in San Bernardino, Calif., by Richard and Maurice McDonald.

1955: The United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France sign the Austrian State Treaty, which re-establishes Austria’s independence.

1963: Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper blasts off aboard Faith 7 on the final mission of the Project Mercury space program.

1970: Just after midnight, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State College in Mississippi, are killed as police open fire during student protests.

1972: Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace is shot and left paralyzed by Arthur H. Bremer while campaigning for president in Laurel, Md. (Bremer served 35 years for attempted murder.)

1975: U.S. forces invade the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and capture the American merchant ship Mayaguez, which has been seized by the Khmer Rouge. (All 39 crew members had already been released safely by Cambodia; some 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in connection with the operation.)

1988: The Soviet Union begins the process of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, more than eight years after Soviet forces entered the country.

2006: In an Oval Office address, President George W. Bush says he will order as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, and urges Congress to give millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally a chance at citizenship.

A defiant Saddam Hussein refuses a plea at his trial, insisting he is still Iraq’s president as a judge formally charges him with crimes against humanity.

The Pentagon discloses the names of everyone detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison since its opening four years earlier.

The U.S. removes Libya from its list of terrorist states and says it will restore normal diplomatic relations.

2011: Mobilized by calls on Facebook, thousands of Arab protesters march on Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza in an unprecedented wave of demonstrations, sparking clashes that leave at least 15 dead.

2015: A jury sentences Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and left more than 250 wounded.

Elisabeth Bing, the Lamaze International co-founder who popularized what was known as natural childbirth and helped change how women and doctors approach the delivery room, dies in New York at age 100.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: The Ladies Professional Golf Association clears the way for Squaw Creek Country Club in Vienna Township to continue hosting the Phar-Mor LPGA tournament.

State Rep. Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown, D-53rd, who has led the effort for a universal health-care bill in the Ohio General Assembly, says that President Bush’s initiative to limit medical malpractice awards is like spitting in the ocean.

The Trumbull County prosecutor’s office files suit seeking to force Churchill Development Corp., owners of the Ramada Inn on Belmont Avenue, to pay $35,379 in delinquent property taxes amassed over five years.

1976: Wilford Gatewood, 56, of Albert Street, Youngstown is fatally wounded when a gun discharges during an argument and struggle with a woman in his home. The woman, 57, is held on an open charge.

Sister M. Consolata, H.M., is honored by 200 hospital employees at a banquet for her “years of dedication and devoted service” as executive director of St. Elizabeth Hospital.

Five men from the Simon Road Church of God in Boardman are leaving to help rebuild homes in earthquake-ravaged Guatemala. They are the Rev. Ken Harmon and his son, Don Harmon, Marion Livengood and his son, Ken Livengood, and Walt Natyshak.

1966: Members of the Conneaut Chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society are spearheading a drive for a Conneaut Historical Railroad Museum.

Roger D. Harned, a sophomore at Lakeview High School in Cortland, is chosen to participate in the annual European concert of the American Youth Choir and Chorus.

Construction will begin in July of the new sanctuary, social hall and rectory for Resurrection Romanian Greek Orthodox Church in Howland.

1941: Scores of eastern Ohio industrialists pour into Youngstown for a “defense clinic” at the Youngstown Country Club.

After nearly five weeks of bickering, Youngstown’s Board of Control awards contracts for steel piping for the water department. The contract will be shared by Ohio State Supply Co. and Snyder-Bentley Co.