YEARS AGO FOR JUNE 17

Today is Sunday, June 17, the 168th day of 2018. There are 197 days left in the year. This is Father’s Day.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1775: The Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill results in a costly victory for the British, who suffer heavy losses.

1397: Treaty of Kalmar creates a union between the kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

1579: Sir Francis Drake arrives in present-day northern California, naming it New Albion and claiming English sovereignty.

1928: Amelia Earhart embarks on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales with pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon, becoming the first woman to make the trip as a passenger.

1930: President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which boosts U.S. tariffs to historically high levels, prompting foreign retaliation.

1948: A United Air Lines DC-6 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pa., killing all 43 people on board.

1972: President Richard Nixon’s eventual downfall begins with the arrest of five burglars inside Democratic national headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate complex.

1994: After leading police on a slow-speed chase on Southern California freeways, O.J. Simpson is arrested and charged with murder in the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

2008: Hundreds of same-sex couples get married across California on the first full day that gay marriage became legal by order of the state’s highest court.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: The Ohio Supreme Court upholds the death sentence for Charles Lorraine of Warren in the brutal stabbing deaths of Raymond and Doris Montgomery, but one justice, Craig Wright, faulted Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins for using inflammatory language during the trial. Watkins responded that his prosecutors are vigorous advocates, not milquetoasts.

Ohio General Assembly passes a bill that would allow prisoners sentenced to death in the state to choose the electric chair or lethal injection.

Girard’s homecoming parade, with the city’s state championship basketball team serving as grand marshals, draws a crowd along State Street.

1978: Ohio Treasurer Gertrude Donahey tells Youngstown State University graduates at Beeghly Center that they should consider careers in government and public service. There were 965 men and women in the 56th annual spring commencement.

William K. “Bill” Crooks, 74, one of the first television newscasters in Youngstown who covered every major news story in Youngstown for a generation, first at WFMJ radio and then WFMJ-TV, dies of a heart attack.

Robert P. Milich, administrator with the Youngstown Board of Health, receives his juris doctorate from the University of Akron School of Law and intends to practice in Youngstown.

1968: Armed bandits strike five times in the Youngstown area, robbing a Western Union Co. employee, an East Side car dealer, two motorists and a Boardman filling station operator.

The annual session for homemakers will be June 30-July 3 at Camp Whitewood, Ashtabula County. The camp fee is $14 for meals and lodging. Beulah Converse of Canfield is taking reservations.

1943: Five of the men indicted by a special grand jury on gambling charges appear in court, but 10 others are believed to have left Mahoning County.

Robert Godfrey, 10-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Karl Godfrey of Craig Beach village, drowns in Lake Milton while swimming near the Craig Beach Hotel with two younger brothers and two companions.

Andrew Vidumansky of Struthers, Cpl. Tech. Thomas Lanan of East Liverpool and Pvt. Nick Marzano of Hillsville are reported wounded in action in North Africa.