Today is Friday, Aug. 27, the 240th day of 2004. There are 126 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Friday, Aug. 27, the 240th day of 2004. There are 126 days left in the year. On this date in 1883, the island volcano Krakatoa blows up; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia's Sunda Strait claim some 36,000 lives in Java and Sumatra.
In 1892, fire seriously damages New York's original Metropolitan Opera House. In 1894, Congress passes the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, which contains a provision for a graduated income tax that is later struck down by the Supreme Court. In 1908, Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, is born near Stonewall, Texas. In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed in Paris, outlawing war and providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes. In 1945, American troops begin landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government in World War II. In 1962, the United States launches the Mariner II space probe, which flies past Venus the following December. In 1967, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, is found dead in his London flat from an overdose of sleeping pills.
August 27, 1979: The 7th District Court of Appeals upholds the city of Youngstown's action to compel council President Michael J. McCullion to sign the ordinance passed by city council clearing the way for construction of a 16-story high-rise for the elderly on the site of the old Tod Hotel.
Youngstown Steel Door Co., loaded with orders for railroad car sides, sets up a temporary quality control shop in the former Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co.'s hot strip mill building in Campbell.
Earl Mountbatten, uncle of Britain's Prince Philip and a top British military commander in World War II, is killed in an explosion on his boat at his summer residence in Ireland.
August 27, 1964: Hurricane Cleo, a small but vicious killer, slams into the rich and thickly populated southeast coast of Florida, hitting land at Miami and heading toward Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach with winds of 120 mph.
The team of Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas and Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota are greeted at the Democratic convention in Atlanta with thundering applause.
August 27, 1954: Ohio's 100th state fair opens with Youth Day. Gov. Frank J. Lausche turns the first spadeful of soil for the new million-dollar youth center.
More than 5,000 people brave threatening rain to watch the annual "Playground Circus" at Shady Run Field, as 300 children from 29 Youngstown playgrounds put on a show.
Mr. and Mrs. David R. Stump of Bristolville become the parents of a 14 pound 61/2 ounce boy, the heaviest baby to be born at St. Joseph Hospital in Warren.
August 27, 1929: Idora Park cancels plans for a midnight display of fireworks marking the close of the 37th Division Day at the park. The mayor's office was deluged with complaints from neighbors about the late hour of the planned pyrotechnics.
The first successful operation of an airmail pickup device installed at Lansdowne Field is made when a Fairchild mail plane from the Cleveland-Youngstown-Pittsburgh line takes aboard an outbound bag of mail. Dr. Lytle S. Adams, inventor of the device, was aboard the plane to witness the experiment.
Warren Packard, 35, heir to the Packard motor millions, is killed in an airplane crash near Gross Ile, Mich. His body will be brought to Warren, to the home of his mother, Mrs. W.D. Packard on N. Mahoning Avenue.