Today is Wednesday, Aug. 4, the 217th day of 2004. There are 149 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 4, the 217th day of 2004. There are 149 days left in the year. On this date in 1944, Nazi police raid the secret annex of a building in Amsterdam and arrest eight people -- including 15-year-old Anne Frank, whose diary became a famous account of the Holocaust. (Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.)
In 1735, a jury acquits John Peter Zenger of the New York Weekly Journal of seditious libel. In 1790, the Coast Guard has its beginnings as the Revenue Cutter Service. In 1792, English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley is born in Field Place, England. In 1830, plans for the city of Chicago are laid out. In 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden are axed to death in their home in Fall River, Mass. Lizzie Borden, Andrew Borden's daughter from a previous marriage, is accused of the killings but is acquitted at trial. In 1914, Britain declares war on Germany while the United States proclaims its neutrality.
In 1916, the United States purchases the Danish Virgin Islands for $25 million. In 1964, the bodies of missing civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney are found buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi. In 1977, President Carter signs a measure establishing the Department of Energy. In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission votes to rescind the Fairness Doctrine, which required radio and television stations to present balanced coverage of controversial issues. In 1994, Serb-dominated Yugoslavia withdraws its support for Bosnian Serbs, sealing the 300-mile border between Yugoslavia and Serb-held Bosnia.
August 4, 1979: Salem Mayor Frank Dauria exercises his first veto, rejecting legislation that would recognize the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees as bargaining agent for the city's water, sewer and service workers.
The Rev. Lonnie A. Simon, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, is named district coordinator for the eastern region of Partners in Ecumenism, a Cleveland-based program funded by the National Council of Churches of Christ.
Chrysler Corp. asks its blue-collar workers to accept a two-year wage freeze, an action that a UAW official interprets as the company's withdrawal from the automotive Big Three.
August 4, 1964: Eight ore cars of an Erie Lackawanna Railroad train pile up in Mosquito Creek gorge near downtown Niles and 11 other cars lay smashed on the tracks. Inspectors believe a hot journal box dropped off one car, causing the derailment.
A 74-year-old Youngstown physician is arrested by members of the Youngstown police intelligence and security squad on a warrant signed by a Cleveland woman charging him with performing an abortion. The woman said she had the abortion July 22 at the doctor's Youngstown office. Cleveland police became involved after she sought treatment at a Cleveland hospital for an infection.
Two Youngstown area people receive Ford Foundation Fellowships for their development and training as symphony managers. Miss Suzanne K. Zoss of Liberty and Kenneth R. Meine, formerly of Youngstown and now of New Castle, receive the fellowships, which carry stipends of $5,000 each.
August 4, 1954: Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge John W. Ford, sitting by assignment in Ashtabula, rules that trustees of the George J. Record estate are free to use the Conneaut industrialist's million-dollar fund to establish a sectarian industrial school or to distribute the money among qualified schools. Record's will called for the school or schools to be "Protestant in ethics and teaching, but otherwise undenominational."
The Farrell Serbian Club will host the National Serbian Golf tournament at the Tam-O-Shanter golf course.
Some 100 residents of Aurora village pledge $5,000 to fight establishment of a proposed Air Force Reserve jet plane base in Portage County.
August 4, 1929: The historic Fordyce building in West Federal Street, Youngstown's first building and said to be the oldest brick structure in the Western Reserve, is razed. The three-story building, constructed in about 1850 on a timber superstructure with the bricks held together by lime mortar, had deteriorated into a dangerous state.
Youngstown school officials and the city fire department say they will cooperate with the state fire marshal in his campaign to inspect all schools before they are opened in the fall.