YEARS AGO FOR JULY 18

Today is Thursday, July 18, the 199th day of 2019. There are 166 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

A.D. 64: The Great Fire of Rome begins, consuming most of the city for about a week.

1863: During the Civil War, Union troops spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, made up of black soldiers, charged Confederate-held Fort Wagner, S.C. The Confederates repel the Northerners, who suffered heavy losses.

1918: South African anti-apartheid leader and president Nelson Mandela is born.

1940: The Democratic National Convention at Chicago Stadium nominates President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term in office.

1969: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., leaves a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne, 28; some time later, Kennedy’s car goes off a bridge into the water. Kennedy is able to escape, but Kopechne drowns.

1984: Gunman James Huberty opens fire at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people before being shot dead by police.

2013: Once the very symbol of American industrial might, Detroit becomes the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, its finances ravaged and its neighborhoods hollowed out by a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: Bishop Donald W. Trautman of the Erie, Pa., Catholic Diocese says any employees or volunteers who will be working with children in diocesan programs, including priests and deacons, will be subject to state police background checks.

U.S. Rep. James A Traficant Jr., D-17th, says Warren can be a prime contender for a new federal Job Corps training center that would mean about 200 jobs.

Former President George Bush and his wife Barbara attend a $125-a-plate breakfast in suburban Akron for Ohio Gov. George Voinovich’s re-election fund.

1979: Robert L. Smith, 38, of Warren is killed when his experimental aircraft, in which he was doing stunts, crashed at the Warren Airport in Southington.

Elizabeth Parks, wife of accused murderer Robert Parks, says she went to the FBI with information about the murders of Patricia DiBlasio and Mary Muffley outside a Girard doctor’s office after she overheard her husband talking about killing her.

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Charter 1956, are ordered by Mahoning Common Pleas Judge Charles J. Bannon to inform all its members and distributors that its Klan newspaper is not to be placed in Vindicator delivery boxes under any circumstance.

1969: A North Side boy and a Mansfield businessman are killed when struck by lightning near the seventh tee of Squaw Creek Country Club. They are Lee Malowitz, 15, a caddy, and Jerome Rosenberg, 59. Three prominent Youngstown men were in the foursome: Dr. Samuel Zlotnick, Frederick Rose and Jerome Lieblich.

Some 150 National Guardsmen help restore order to Youngstown’s South Side. About 30 people were arrested for curfew violations.

The Hillman Street home of Francis McGovern is the target of three Molotov cocktails but all are extinguished before serious damage is done. The family has a record of popularity and congeniality among neighbors.

1944: Edward L. Duecaster, 31, a Pennsylvania Railroad brakeman is killed when struck by a switching engine near the Division Street Bridge.

William Burke, 31, becomes Youngstown’s 19th traffic victim of 1944 when he dies of a fractured skull in the hospital 75 minutes after he lost control of his motorcycle and skidded 100 feet.

Emily Senders, West Rayen Avenue, is held for the grand jury on a charge of first-degree murder in the shooting of James Fields, 50. Bond is set at $5,000.