Today is Sunday, Aug. 27, the 239th day of 2006. There are 126 days left in the year....

Sunday, August 27, 2006 Today is Sunday, Aug. 27, the 239th day of 2006. There are 126 days left in the year. On this date in 1859, Col. Edwin L. Drake drills the first successful oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pa. 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 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 1975, Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia's 3,000-old monarchy, dies in Addis Ababa at age 83 almost a year after being overthrown. In 1979, British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten is killed off the coast of Ireland in a boat explosion claimed by the Irish Republican Army. August 27, 1981: Youngstown Area United Way and United Way of Trumbull County are asked to take the lead in forming a two-county coalition of human-service agencies to lobby more effectively in Columbus for the area's share of federal block grants. Seven Youngstown men are arrested after they went on a spree stealing the bells from Taco Bell restaurants. They got three, but were caught trying to take the fourth from a restaurant on U.S. Rt. 422 in Niles. August 27, 1966: Air pollution is contributing to 5,000 Ohio deaths a year and the threat of polluted ground water also looms large, a state legislative committee is told. Cameron Marcy, a 21-year-old Geneva, Ohio, college student, flying with his 13-year-old sister as a passenger, calmly belly-lands his disabled plane on the foam-coated runway at Youngstown Municipal Airport. Assistant City Prosecutor Edward Snobnosky says he will confer with the Mahoning County prosecutor's office to determine whether Municipal Court Judge John J. Leskovyansky had the authority to reduce a felony charge of possessing abortion tools against Mario Guerrieri to a misdemeanor. Guerrieri was fined $350 on the charge. August 27, 1956: The name of Shady Run Park is officially changed to Pemberton Park as a tribute to Tom Pemberton, who was instrumental in establishing the National Amateur Baseball Federation Tournament in Youngstown. Four bandits with their faces covered by nylon stockings slug the door man with a pistol and shoot one patron in the leg during a robbery at the Amerital Club in Girard. The robbers took an estimated $7,000 from 25 players at a dice table. Mary Alice Woods, 80, of 735 Court St., New Castle, is killed after being run over by her own car, which she stopped in an alley behind Court Street to talk to a neighbor. August 27, 1931: The U.S.S. Akron, the navy's new $2.5 million dirigible, largest airship in the world, makes its first appearance outside its dock in Akron for a test of its motors. Thirteen of 15 members of a special grand jury that indicted Mahoning Prosecutor Ray Thomas sign a petition demanding that the three judges who acquitted Thomas not be reassigned to hear cases in Mahoning County. Oak Park, Ill., leads the nation in the death rate from appendicitis, with 59 deaths per 100,000. Lowest in the nation is Fresno, Calif., with 1.9 per 100,000. The nation has 18,000 to 20,000 deaths per year from appendicitis. Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.