Today is Sunday, Nov. 9, the 313th day of 2003. There are 52 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Sunday, Nov. 9, the 313th day of 2003. There are 52 days left in the year. On this date in 1965, the great northeast blackout occurs as several states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of power failures lasting up to 131/2 hours.
In 1872, fire destroys nearly a thousand buildings in Boston. In 1918, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II announces he would abdicate. He then flees to the Netherlands. In 1935, United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis and other labor leaders form the Committee for Industrial Organization. In 1938, Nazis loot and burn synagogues as well as Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in what becomes known as "Kristallnacht." In 1953, author-poet Dylan Thomas dies in New York at age 39. In 1953, the Supreme Court upholds a 1922 ruling that Major League Baseball does not come within the scope of federal antitrust laws. (President Clinton signs a bill overturning the labor relations aspect of the antitrust exemption.) In 1963, twin disasters strike Japan as some 450 miners are killed in a coal-dust explosion, and 160 people die in a train crash. In 1970, former French President Charles De Gaulle dies at age 79. In 1988, former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, a major figure in the Watergate scandal, dies in Washington at age 75. In 1989, communist East Germany throws open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West; joyous Germans dance atop the Berlin Wall.
November 9, 1978: Youngstown Mayor J. Phillip Richley and long-distance runner Ted Corbitt accept a peace torch from U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young at the United Nations Plaza in New York. Corbitt carries the torch in the firs leg of a 460-mile "relay for international brotherhood" to Youngstown.
Artist Norman Rockwell, whose freckled-faced boys, pigtailed girls, kindly doctors and small-town scenes mirrored America on Saturday Evening Post covers, dies at 84 in Stockbridge, Mass.
George Matkovich Jr., 34, of Hubbard, wins a $165,000 jury verdict for the loss of his left arm in a railroad grade crossing accident in Brookfield Township in 1974.
November 9, 1963: A 16-year-old boy is permanently committed to the Division of Juvenile Research for entering the home of a 68-year-old woman and punching her in the stomach. Juvenile Court Judge Harold S. Rickert says the boy's being drunk is no excuse.
An unmasked gunman enters Jake's Place in Girard and escapes with $4,700 that the bar had on hand to cash checks of workers in nearby plants.
A frenzied mob of 500 harness race bettors angered over a six-horse accident that wiped away their twin double wagers, riot for more than an hour at the Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury, N.Y., causing $100,000 in damage.
November 9, 1953: Samuel H. Miller, 61, owner of the Central Tower in Youngstown and two Mercer, Pa., utilities, dies of an apparent heart attack on a train en route home from the Cleveland Browns-Pittsburgh Steelers football game at Cleveland.
Youngstown saved money in 1952 and spent $849,441 less than it received, one of only three large Ohio cities to do say, State Auditor James A. Rhodes announces.
New York Song Writer Francis Stanton visits his father in Youngstown, William Stanton, a salesman at Strouss-Hirshberg. Francis presents his father with a copy of the latest recording of his work, Jo Stanton's rendition of "Invisible Hands."
November 9, 1928: James Kennedy, a member of the Mahoning County Bar for 49 years and a former congressman from the old 18th District, dies of infirmities at his Madison Avenue home. He was intimately acquainted with Taft, Schwab, Cannon, Roosevelt and others.
A 12 percent to 14 percent reduction in automobile liability insurance rates for Youngstown motorists is announced by the State Automobile Mutual Association. Manager Fred J. Kapp attributes the decrease to the successful campaign to end ambulance chasing in the city.
Lillian Ramsey, 18, of Struthers, a freshman at Oberlin College, is injured when she is struck by a train during a dare entered into with a young man as to who would sit longest on the rails as a train approached. The young man jumped out of the way, but as Lillian attempted to get up, she stumbled and was hit. She suffered a broken collar- bone, several fractured ribs and painful bruises.