Today is Monday, May 31, the 152nd day of 2004. There are 214 days left in the year. This is the Memorial Day observance. On this date in 1889, more than 2,000 people perish when a dam break sends

Today is Monday, May 31, the 152nd day of 2004. There are 214 days left in the year. This is the Memorial Day observance. On this date in 1889, more than 2,000 people perish when a dam break sends water rushing through Johnstown, Pa.
In 1819, poet Walt Whitman is born in West Hill, N.Y. In 1913, the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, is declared in effect. In 1962, World War II Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel for his role in the Nazi Holocaust. In 1970, tens of thousands of people die in an earthquake in Peru. In 1977, the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, three years in the making, is completed. In 1989, House Speaker Jim Wright, dogged by questions about his ethics, announces he will resign. (Thomas Foley later succeeds him.)
May 31, 1979: Dr. Ronald Overfield, superintendent of public schools in Perrysburg, outside Toledo, is appointed superintendent of Boardman Local Schools. His three-year contract calls for an annual salary of $35,600.
President Carter summons oil company executives to the White House amid new signs that gasoline will be even more scarce in June than it was in May.
May 31, 1964: An economy minded New Castle Area school board rejects pay raises at all levels in adopting its 1964-65 budget of $4.2 million. The superintendent, assistant superintendent and the high school principal had been slated to get raises of $1,000.
Texan A.J. Foyt Jr. wins his second 500-mile Memorial Day race at Indianapolis, driving a supposedly obsolete Offenhauser roadster. The race was marred by a spectacular, flaming crash between two of the new rear-engined, gasoline burning cars. Killed in that crash were veteran Eddie Sachs, 37, and rookie David MacDonald, 26.
Two miles of cast iron pipe arrive at West Middlesex, Pa., ready to be used on an extension of the water system by Shenango Valley Water Co. from the Bobby Corner area into the borough.
May 31, 1954: There can be no achievement without risks and adventure, the Rev. Dr. Eugene C. Beach, pastor of First Christian Church, tells 400 Youngstown College seniors at baccalaureate services.
During Memorial Day services at St. John's Episcopal Church, the Rev. John H. Burt, rector, says the highly unstable state of the world is enough to make one want to weep, as Jesus wept while foreseeing the destruction of Jerusalem.
May 31, 1929: Bill Spence, 24, of Los Angeles is killed when his car overturns at the Indianapolis auto race. The race, run before 160,000 spectators, is won by Ray Keech in 5 hours, 7 minutes.
William Bohlander of Grove City High School runs the 100 yard dash in 10 seconds flat, beating his own record by a tenth of a second and leading his team to victory at the Mercer County track meet. Bohlander actually ran 103 yards, having been penalized three yards for a false start.
Hundreds of people line Federal Street in downtown Youngstown as more than 1,000 veterans of the Civil War, Spanish American War and World War parade on Memorial Day.