YEARS AGO FOR JUNE 19

Today is Tuesday, June 19, the 170th day of 2018. There are 195 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1775: George Washington is commissioned by the Continental Congress as commander in chief of the Continental Army.

1964: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved by the U.S. Senate, 73-27, after surviving a lengthy filibuster.

1986: University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, the first draft pick of the Boston Celtics, suffers a fatal cocaine-induced seizure.

2008:Democrat Barack Obama announces he will bypass public financing for the presidential election.

2017: Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American college student from Ohio is released by North Korea in a coma after more than a year in captivity, dies in a Cincinnati hospital.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: General Motors will shift production of the 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunbird models from a plant in Arizpe, Mexico, to a plant in Lansing, Mich. Those same models will continue to be produced at GM’s Lords-town plant.

The Rev. Lionel V. Walker pleads guilty to arson in the burning down of the parsonage at Third Christian Church in Warren where he had been the pastor. He was sentenced to prison for five to 25 years.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Harold N. Campbell, a native of East Liverpool, agrees to retire early and accept a letter of reprimand rather than face court martial for disparaging the president by referring to President Bill Clinton as a “pot-smoking,” “draft-dodging,” “womanizing,” “gay-loving” commander-in-chief during an awards ceremony in the Netherlands.

1978: A bolt of lightning brings tragedy to a Father’s Day picnic in Leetonia when it struck and killed two 30-year-old men who were preparing dinner for their families at the Leetonia Sportsman’s Club. Dead are Gary F. Indermill and William R. Hall, both of Somer Street.

A mother of eight children, Judith Bell, 42, of Parkwood Avenue, Youngstown, is in serious condition in South Side Hospital with a gunshot wound of the head suffered when she went to investigate a noise at the back door of her home.

Mahoning County Sheriff Michael Yarosh takes delivery of five new Ford cruisers. Traffic division deputies, working on their own time, installed the light bars on the roof, the screen between the front and rear seats, the radio equipment and applied the door decals to save taxpayers money.

1968: The Standard Oil Co. of Ohio increases retail gasoline prices one cent per gallon at company-operated stations and 0.8 of a cent at dealer stations. Current price is 34.9 cents per gallon.

Joseph Mousie, 11/2 year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. John Mousie is fatally injured by a Borden Co. milk truck that was making a delivery at the rear of the boy’s Mahoning Avenue home, which is next to the Ice House Inn parking lot.

A “runaway” car with a 2-year-old driver drifted down an embankment into crowded Homestead Playground scattering some 100 children before it stopped against a sandbox. No injuries, only scared children, are reported – including the driver, John Garchar Jr.

1943: Youngstown faces a critical meat shortage as three of the city’s eight wholesale meat-supply houses anticipate closing, and others are gloomy over prospects for continuing operations under existing prices, which force them to sell meat at a loss.

G.C. Brainard, president of General Fireproofing Co., is named Mahoning County chairman of the Northeastern Ohio Committee for Economic Development.