Vindicator file photo / July 26, 1982 | Youngstown’s Ray Boom Boom Mancini successfully defended his World Boxing Association Lightweight Championship 40 years ago against Venezuelan Ernesto Espana before 15,000 fans at Mollenkopf Stadium in Warren. The fight was stopped in the waning seconds of the sixth round. Here the fighters trade punches in the fifth round.

July 26

1997: For the first time since 1994, the top prize in the Giant Eagle LPGA Classic as Tammie Green of Somerset, Ohio, wins the tournament. 

The Royal Oaks Tavern, an East Side landmark since the 1930s before closing in 1991, has enjoyed success since its reopening, says owner George Skrbina.

Thousands attend the eighth annual Packard Car Show and Swap Meet at Courthouse Square in Warren.  

1982: Robbers kill two Mahoning Valley men: Douglas Skica, 28, who was shot by robbers who invaded his parents’ Boardman home, and Peter Jackson, 58, owner of the Block Inn on Lorain Ave. in Girard.  

Tony Butala of The Letterman is the Festmeister of the Bavarian Fun Fest, which is expected to attract 75,000 to Sharon, Pa. 

Hoover Universal Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., is buying American Welding and Manufacturing Co. of Warren for $70 million. 

1972: Robert D. Gustafson Jr. is named director of the Boardman Youth Center Inc., housed in the home of the late L.A. Beeghly on Market Street and leased to the organization by the Youngstown Hospital Association. 

Mahoning County's Data Processing Center signs a $217,500 contract with Logics Corp. of Cleveland to process all real estate taxes. 

The Mahoning County Planning Commission gives its unanimous support to the construction of a proposed stub canal. 

1947: Two Warren youths, Lawrence T. Rogers Jr., 18, and Andrew J. Scopacasa, 17, are electrocuted when they jumped into Lake Erie at Geneva-on-the-Lake. A power line on a nearby steel pier had shorted, charging the water. 

A spectacular three-alarm fire burns the Salvation Army service center and warehouse, a two-story brick building at 214-216 W. Boardman Street.

Three men are killed and three injured when a car operated by one of the victims fled from police over East Side Road to the Oak Street Bridge, where it collided with another car. The dead are Vellor Raglin, 30;  David Burgess, 51,  and Dan Thomas, 22.