years ago

May 31, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

years ago

Today is Tuesday, May 31, the 152nd day of 2016. There are 214 days left in the year.

associated press

On this date:

1790: President George Washington signs into law the first U.S. copyright act.

1889: Some 2,200 people in Johnstown, Pa., perish when the South Fork Dam collapses, sending 20 million tons of water rushing through the town.

1910: The Union of South Africa is founded.

1935: Movie studio 20th Century Fox is created through a merger of the Fox Film Corp. and Twentieth Century Pictures.

1961: South Africa becomes an independent republic as it withdraws from the British Commonwealth.

1977: The trans-Alaska oil pipeline, three years in the making, is completed.

1985: Eighty-eight people are killed, more than 1,000 injured, when 41 tornadoes sweep through parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Ontario, Canada, during an 8-hour period.

1994: The United States announces it is no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.

2005: Breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt steps forward as “Deep Throat,” the secret Washington Post source during the Watergate scandal.

2015: The U.S. Senate has an extraordinary Sunday session during which it fails to produce an 11th-hour deal to extend the National Security Agency’s authority to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk.

vindicator files

1991: Toys “R” Us is proceeding with plans to build a $29 million warehouse on Salt Springs Road in Youngstown, despite the company’s run-ins with unions and a state ruling that prevailing wages must be paid during construction.

Ed Myers, an 11-year-old Tod Woods Middle School student from Girard and The Vindicator’s spelling bee champion, falls in the second round of the national bee on the word “tmesis.”

Residents of the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority’s Michael J. Kirwan Homes in Campbell say people who don’t live there are coming at night to sell drugs and harass residents. They’re asking for more police before the problem becomes worse.

1976: Bishop James W. Malone joins parishioners of St. Lucy Parish and the pastor, the Rev. Joseph Palermo, to dedicate the Campbell church’s new $400,000 parish center.

Youngstown Patrolman Dana Childers, 33, is treated at St. Elizabeth Hospital after inhaling formaldehyde fumes while investigating vandalism of a biology lab at North High School.

Ashtabula County Sheriff Ray Fasula says a force of 40 deputies armed with tear gas headed off a riot by 2,000 to 3,000 people at Pymatuning State Park who became unruly.

1966: Fire destroys the residence of Atty. Eugene R. Smith on South Range Road, just east of North Lima.

A Youngstown girl, Jeannette Loreen Lehman, places third in the Miss Majorette competition in Columbus with 67 of a possible 87 points.

1941: Former Congressman John McSweeney of Wooster will be the principal speaker at the “I Am an American” rally in The Rayen School auditorium. The Junior Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring the event.

The dedication of Lowellville’s new flag pole follows a parade through the village led by Lester DeFord, commander of the American Legion Post, and the Our Lady of Mount Carmel band. The pole, a gift of Sharon Steel Corp., is 65 feet tall.

The Scholl-Choffin Co. of Youngstown receives a contract to install heating and ventilation equipment in the new naval ordnance plant in Louisville, Ky.