Today is Tuesday, Nov. 9, the 314th day of 2004. There are 52 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 9, the 314th day of 2004. There are 52 days left in the year. On this date in 1989, communist East Germany throws open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West; joyous Germans dance atop the Berlin Wall.
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 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 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 1967, a Saturn 5 rocket carrying an unmanned Apollo spacecraft blasts off from Cape Kennedy on a successful test flight. 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 1994, a day after Republicans win majorities in both the House and Senate, President Clinton and the GOP pledge cooperation, even as they start forming battle lines over their irreconcilable differences.
November 9, 1979: Vandals set off a natural gas explosion at 1408 Wright Drive in the Kimmel Brook Homes. The explosion rips out a portion of the south wall of the building. Damage is estimated at $15,000.
Youngstown State University outlines its priorities for capital improvement projects before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, hoping to persuade lawmakers to appropriate as much of the proposed $20 million as possible.
General Motors Corp. confirms plans to drop the second shift at its Lordstown van plant after the line is shut down for Thanksgiving. The cut will leave about 8,550 employees at the Lordstown complex.
November 9, 1964: Physicians at the University of Minnesota hospitals transplant the liver of a 2-year-old girl into a 13-month old boy, only the seventh such operation ever done. None has survived more than three weeks.
Roger W. Tracy, who ran twice for the Ohio auditor's job once held by his father before winning on the third try, dies of a heart attack at the age of 61. The auditor was stricken while attending a banquet for state examiners at a Columbus hotel.
November 9, 1954: Mary Lou Haggerty, 15, who saved five younger brothers and sisters from a fire that destroyed their Youngstown home in March is honored by the Ohio State Safety Council.
Youngstown participates in "Operation Quick Kick," a mock air raid conducted in five states, including Ohio, that simulated the dropping of a bomb five times stronger than that dropped on Nagasaki. When the air raid siren sounded, people stayed in their house and those outside had to seek shelter. Police enforced compliance downtown.
A remorseful Oklahoma school superintendent, who was credited with heroism by his students, admits that it was he who struck a match while looking for a gas leak, sparking an explosion that injured him, a principal and 45 students. The school was destroyed.
November 9, 1929: The Central Bank Co. in S. Phelps Street, a state bank, is closed by the Ohio Banking Department, citing "frozen assets" as the reason.
Contracts involving the expenditure o $750,000 for the construction of a large storage reservoir for the Ohio Water Service Co. near Girard are let to the A. Guthrie Co. of Minneapolis, Minn.
Poppy Day, which was originated 10 years ago in Youngstown and is now observed in many other American cities just before to Armistice Day, is being held in the city with a goal of raising $3,000 from the sale of 25,000 poppies.