YEARS AGO FOR JULY 17

Today is Wednesday, July 17, the 198th day of 2019. There are 167 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1821: Spain cedes Florida to the United States.

1862: During the Civil War, Congress approves the Second Confiscation Act, which declares that all slaves taking refuge behind Union lines are to be set free.

1918: Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks.

1944: During World War II, 320 men, two-thirds of them African-Americans, are killed when a pair of ammunition ships explode at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California.

1955: Disneyland has its opening day in Anaheim, Calif.

1961: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Ty Cobb dies in Atlanta at age 74.

1981: One hundred fourteen people are killed when a pair of suspended walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapses during a tea dance.

1996: TWA Flight 800, a Europe-bound Boeing 747, explodes and crashes off Long Island, N.Y., shortly after departing John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people on board.

1997: Woolworth Corp. announces it is closing its 400 remaining five-and-dime stores in the U.S.

2009: Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite dies in New York at 92.

2014: Eric Garner, an unarmed black man accused of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes, dies shortly after being wrestled to the ground by New York City police officers.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: For the first time, people of Cornish descent are welcomed as participants at the Celtic Heritage Fair in downtown Warren.

Harry Meshel of Youngstown, chairman of the state Democratic Party, says Republican Gov. George Voinovich is improperly taking credit in advertisements for providing more services to senior citizens.

The singing group The Lettermen purchases the Columbia Theater in downtown Sharon for $10,000 and donate it to the nonprofit Columbia Theater Inc. Restoration work has begun on the 1,700-seat theater that was built in 1922 and damaged by fire in 1981.

1979: Youngstown Mayor J. Phillip Richley challenges an FAA report that found Beckett Aviation Corp. has become a “surrogate landlord” of Youngstown Municipal Airport, which amounts to a monopoly.

President Carter’s energy proposals draw a generally warm response from Ohio and Pennsylvania congressmen, but most want more details on cutting U.S. dependence of foreign oil.

Advertisement: Win a Piper Tomahawk airplane and flying lessons in the new sugar-free Fresca sweepstakes.

1969: Nine people are hurt and 28 arrested in racial unrest as gangs on the South Side firebomb homes and businesses and loot stores.

Clarkins Inc. of Akron discloses plans for a $2.3 million discount store in Austintown at state Route 46 and Interstate 80. The Mahoning County Planning Commission has recommended a zone change for the land.

Dale Rodgers, a June graduate of Hubbard High School, leaves for a year’s study in Belgium under the American Field Service program.

1944: With one man in the Girard jail and two stolen automobiles found, Youngstown and Trumbull County authorities are seeking three other bandits who held up the Mahoning Country Club. They escaped with $350 after firing shots at manager George Wellman.

Pvt. John M. Hale, 19, of Niles is reported killed in action in New Guinea.

Youngstown Alloys swamp the Chaney Barons, 27-1 in a Volney Rogers 15-year-old baseball game. Jim Fuscoe belted two homers and Ted Vestal pitched a five-hit game for the winners.