Today is Monday, Aug. 21, the 233rd day of 2006. There are 132 days left in the year....
Monday, August 21, 2006 Today is Monday, Aug. 21, the 233rd day of 2006. There are 132 days left in the year. On this date in 1945, President Truman ends the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America's allies during World War II. In 1831, former slave Nat Turner leads a violent insurrection in Virginia. (He is later executed.) In 1858, the famous debates between senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas begin. In 1878, the American Bar Association is founded in Saratoga, N.Y. In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is stolen from the Louvre Museum. (The painting turns up two years later, in Italy.) In 1940, exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky dies in Mexico City from wounds inflicted by an assassin. In 1944, the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China open talks at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington that help pave the way for establishment of the United Nations. In 1959, President Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union, five months after he'd signed the Hawaiian statehood bill. In 1983, Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., ending a self-imposed exile in the United States, is shot dead moments after stepping off a plane at Manila International Airport. In 1986, more than 1,700 people die when toxic gas erupts from a volcanic lake in the West African nation of Cameroon. In 1991, the hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapses in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin. August 21, 1981: David B. Williams is indicted by the Mahoning County grand jury on eight counts of forgery and one of theft arising from his operation of the parking concession at Youngstown Municipal Airport. Copperweld Steel Co. is planning another multi-million dollar spending program at its Warren Works to shore up its No. 1 position in the select high-priced segment of the steel market. Television stations in Springfield, Mass., and Hartford, Conn., refuse to air a paid commercial produced by the National Conservative Political Action Committee in an effort to unseat U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy. The ad features an actor resembling Kennedy advocating "more government spending, more bureaucracy and more taxes." The stations say viewers could be misled into believing the actor is the senator. August 21, 1966: Some 8,000 hourly workers at General Motors Fisher Body and Chevrolet plants at Lordstown and workers at the Packard Electric plants in Warren are getting $1.8 million in raises, ranging from nine cents to 16 cents an hour under existing labor agreements. The Mahoning County Welfare Department opens its new $450,000 work experience and training program an experimental project to train 300 local welfare clients for work and break the cycle of poverty. The soaring cost of borrowing money is putting the brakes on the Youngstown district's multi-million dollar industrial expansion, as well as a damper on the blossoming real estate markets. August 21, 1956 Youngstown city engineer James C. Ryan warns that the city must have expressways to speed present traffic and prepare for twice as many cars in 25 years. The New York Central Railroad's passenger depot at Wilson and Himrod avenues is for sale, one of more than 400 terminals being sold by the company. Jack Thompson Jr. of Youngstown wins his second Youngstown Open championship in three years, besting a field of 112 golfers with a score of 142. August 21, 1931: Requests for padlock orders against six alleged liquor places in Campbell are filed in federal court in Cleveland. They are among 40 such orders for sites in Northeast Ohio. Stambaugh Auditorium is transformed into Youngstown's most gorgeous flower garden with more than 10.000 vari-colored gladiolas and thousands of other mid summer flowers at the Mahoning Gladiolus Society's fifth annual show and the Mahoning Garden Club's junior flower show. The United States Army Band, "Pershing's Own," is coming to Youngstown Sept. 2 and will present a free concert for school children in the afternoon at Rayen Stadium. Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.