YEARS AGO FOR JULY 20

Today is Friday, July 20, the 201st day of 2018. There are 164 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1861: The Congress of the Confederate States convenes in Richmond, Va.

1923: Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa is assassinated by gunmen in Parral.

1942: The first detachment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps – later known as WACs – begins basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.

1944: An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb fails as the explosion only wounds the Nazi leader.

1954: The Geneva Accords divide Vietnam into northern and southern entities.

1969: Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin become the first men to walk on the moon after reaching the surface in their Apollo 11 lunar module.

1976: America’s Viking 1 robot spacecraft makes a successful first landing on Mars.

1977: A flash flood hits Johnstown, Pa., killing more than 80 people and causing $350 million worth of damage.

1990: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, one of the court’s most liberal voices, announces he is stepping down.

2012: Gunman James Holmes opens fire inside a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colo., during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 people and wounding 70 others. (Holmes was later convicted of murder and attempted murder, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: The former head of the House Post Office implicates several congressmen, including former western Pennsylvania congressman Joseph Kolter, in the post office scandal. Robert Rota says he conspired with members of Congress to provide them with thousands of dollars in cash for expense vouchers and stamps purchased with taxpayer money.

Boardman homeowners who are upset over a natural-gas well near their homes are supporting a legislative effort to give populous townships such as Boardman more governing power under a home-rule statute.

Actor Leslie Nielsen, most recently known for playing a dimwitted detective in “Naked Gun,” appears at Warren G. Harding High School and leads children in a mathematics game as part of the national Make Learning Fun program.

1978: Youngstown Mayor J. Phillip Richley says that effective immediately, Police Chief Stanley Peterson is to pay officers and patrolmen in order to keep the police department fully operative.

The 22nd Annual Warren Police Circus comes to Mollenkopf Stadium. The Wallenda Circus features two grandchildren of famed tightrope walker Karl Wallenda and two other performers trained by Wallenda.

1968: William Shranko, chairman of the Mahoning County Wallace for President committee, says many signatures were obtained at the Mahoning County Courthouse to put the Alabama governor on the Ohio presidential ballot, but efforts were curtailed at shopping plazas because of threats against petition circulators.

Richard Fittante, New Waterford, is appointed a midshipman at the Merchant Marine academy in Kings Point, N.Y., by U.S. Rep. Wayne Hayes.

1943: The mystery of the “Hubbard hermit” is cleared up after a reunion between the 29-year-old man living in a crude shack in the woods and his father, James Kingsley of Cleveland. The father took his son home to Cleveland.

Youngstown City Council enacts an ordinance aimed at price violators and black-market operations. Violators face maximum fines of $500 and jail sentences of six months and the possibility of having their license revoked.