YEARS AGO FOR JULY 26

Today is Friday, July 26, the 207th day of 2019. There are 158 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1775: The Continental Congress establishes a Post Office and appoints Benjamin Franklin its postmaster-general.

1953: Fidel Castro begins his revolt against Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba. (Castro ousted Batista in 1959.)

1990: President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act.

2002: The Republican-led House votes, 295-132, to create an enormous Homeland Security Department in the biggest government reorganization in decades.

2013: Ariel Castro, the man who’d imprisoned three women in his Cleveland home, subjecting them to a decade of rapes and beatings, pleads guilty to 937 counts in a deal to avoid the death penalty. (Castro later committed suicide in prison.)

2016: Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

2017: President Donald Trump announces on Twitter he will not “accept or allow” transgender people to serve in the U.S. military.

VINDICATOR FILES

1994: A stone memorial to John Hirschbeck, an 8-year-old student who died of a rare central nervous system disorder, will remain at the base of a tree planted by the boy’s classmates at Dobbins Elementary School in Poland. Superintendent Robert Zorn had said the monument violated school board policy, but a compromise was reached after public reaction.

Girard City Council approves a $25,000 payment to the Ohio Water Service Co. for an option on the purchase of Girard and Liberty lakes and 650 surrounding acres. The city has six months to finalize a deal or it will forfeit the $25,000.

Cleveland Indians manager Mike Hargrove is given a two-year extension to his contract. His present $250,000 salary is expected to increase by $100,000.

1979: A Youngstown group places a coffin containing a mannequin dressed as Uncle Sam outside the White House as part of a continuing protest of Congress’ failure to enact a law permitting voluntary prayer in public schools.

John Tucker, chief engineer for the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, calls the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in to investigate an oil driller’s dumping of waste in a ravine off Route 46 that could eventually contaminate Meander Reservoir.

Police say Jack Tobin, 39-year-old gambler, fired two shots from his pistol before his assailant killed him with a shotgun blast outside his Austintown apartment.

1969: Mahoning County Auditor Stephen R. Olenick, a former state senator, calls on former Astronaut John Glenn to seek the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Farrell, Pa., is free of racial violence for the first time in a week and an agreement on several issues is reached between minority activists and the city.

Hailstones bigger than golf balls flood North Side streets, especially Gypsy Lane. The Kirk Road pumping station is damaged by a lightning strike.

1944: The year’s first case of infantile paralysis in Youngstown and an additional case in the county bring the number of cases to four. Stricken with light cases are Hayden Fox, 11, and Gary Brotherton, 21/2 .

Major Roscoe D. Roy, former Youngstown real- estate man and an officer in an airborne glider division, is reported killed in action June 14 in France. Other local men killed in action are Pfc. Frank R. Markasky and Pfc. Alfred Petrollini.

Ground will be broken for St. Elizabeth Hospital’s nurses’ dormitory and school, which will cost $250,000. The Federal Works Agency, which has allowed a $169,648 grant for the project, awards the job to Davis-Smith Co. of Pittsburgh.