This day in history: Minors in custody in connection with Safeway bomb threat over $5,000

From 1975: Two juveniles were detained on suspicion of extortion after they allegedly called in a bomb threat to the Safeway store on North Monroe Street.

The store received seven calls in three hours in which the callers told the store owners to produce $5,000 in cash or they would “blow up the store.”

Police cleared the store of customers at one point in the afternoon.

Later that day, police were able to trace the calls to a Spokane house. Police monitored both the house and the phone lines, and when the two young male suspects made another call, police moved in and arrested them.

From 1925: Antonio Scarpelli, a Spokane “pioneer macaroni manufacturer,” died earlier in the month and left his widow a $75,000 estate, a small fortune in that era.

“The estate consists of a 140-acre farm in Spokane County, the Inland Hotel, an interest in the Scarpelli Macaroni Company, and promissory notes valued at $20,000,” the Chronicle wrote.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1868: The U.S. House of Representatives votes 126 to 47 to impeach Democratic President Andrew Johnson, who ascended to presidency after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination a few years prior. Johnson opposed the 14th Amendment, which granted enslaved people the right to American citizenship. With tension growing among the branches of government, Congress passed laws that restricted Johnson’s ability to fire cabinet members. His impeachment came after he tried dismissing the secretary of war.