YEARS AGO FOR AUGUST 2

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 2, the 214th day of 2017. There are 151 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: Members of the Second Continental Congress begin attaching their signatures to the Declaration of Independence.

1876: Frontiersman “Wild Bill” Hickok is shot and killed while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, by Jack McCall, who was later hanged.

1892: Movie producer Jack L. Warner is born in London, Ontario, Canada.

1923: The 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, dies in San Francisco; Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes president.

1939: Albert Einstein signs a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

1943: During World War II, U.S. Navy boat PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sinks after being rammed in the middle of the night by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri off the Solomon Islands. Two crew members were killed.

1974: Former White House counsel John W. Dean III is sentenced to one to four years in prison for obstruction of justice in the Watergate cover-up. (Dean ended up serving four months.)

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. (The Iraqis were later driven out in Operation Desert Storm.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: The fate of the World Basketball League, founded by Michael Monus in 1987 was sealed this summer when Jacksonville, Erie and Dayton suspended play, and Monus was ousted from Phar-Mor, which had sponsored the Youngstown team.

Mahoning County Prosecutor James Philomena says Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Charges Bannon circumvented state law in ordering the early release of a 38-year-old Youngstown man who served 15 months after being convicted of sexually abusing his adopted daughter when she was between 8 and 15 years old.

The seventh annual Greater Youngstown Italian Fest will open in the front portion of Boardman Township Park after moving from downtown Youngstown.

1977: Bruce Zoldan, who is heading Youngstown area efforts to provide flood aid for Johnstown, Pa., residents, said a second caravan of relief items is being organized.

The Youngstown Diocese Catholic Charities fundraising drive reaches $523,000, exceeding its goal by $15,000.

Warren Schools Superintendent Abe L. Hammons presents the board with a two-year plan for voluntary desegregation of city schools.

1967: “The racial crisis currently sweeping our major cities is basically a job crisis,” Herbert Hill, national labor secretary of the NAACP, tells the Youngstown chapter of the Negro American Labor Council in Union Baptist Church.

Fifty people, including members and their families, attend the Youngstown Power Squadron’s annual two-day cruise and rendezvous at the Cedar Point marina on Lake Erie.

A record-setting crowd of 1,000 attend the Tri-County 4-Wheeler Club’s annual Jeep Rodeo at Lisbon.

1942: Early reports indicate that the 300 Youngstown independent grocers and meat dealers will surpass their quota of $30,000 in war bonds and stamps.

Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York City and former head of the Office of Civilian Defense, endorses construction of a Lake Erie-Ohio River canal.

Mrs. Esther Bailey of Kensington Avenue, oldest resident of Youngstown, and believed to be among the oldest people in the state and nation, will be 105 Aug. 15.