Today is Tuesday, April 1, the 92nd day of 2008. There are 274 days left in the year. This is April

Today is Tuesday, April 1, the 92nd day of 2008. There are 274 days left in the year. This is April Fool’s Day. On this date in 1945, American forces launch the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II.

In 1853, Cincinnati establishes a fire department of paid city employees. In 1933, Nazi Germany begins persecuting Jews with a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. In 1946, tidal waves strike the Hawaiian islands, resulting in more than 170 deaths. In 1958, President Eisenhower signs a $1.85 billion emergency housing measure. In 1960, the first weather satellite, TIROS-1, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. In 1970, President Nixon signs a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to take effect after Jan. 1, 1971. In 1987, in his first major speech on the AIDS epidemic, President Reagan tells doctors in Philadelphia, “We’ve declared AIDS public health enemy No. 1.”

April 1, 1983: Two boys, Joseph Clinkscale, 2, and Donovan Grant, 1, die in a fire in the bedroom of their East Side Home. Their mother, Rosalie Grant, tells firefighters she tried desperately to put out the fire herself before calling for help.

Trumbull County commissioners approve a new contract with the Trumbull County Convention and Visitors Bureau allocating $150,000 raised by the local motel tax for bureau operations.

April 1, 1968: Four Youngstown men, three of them ex-cons with long records, are arrested by Pittsburgh FBI agents while loading $32,000 worth of stolen television sets from a stolen truck into another truck in Sharpsburg. Pa. The truck and TVs had been stolen from a truck stop in Darlington, Pa.

Reacting to an announcement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that he will not seek re-election, U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown says, “I don’t know how he took it so long.” A day after Johnson made his announcement, the Defense Department announced that 60,000 reserve troops will be called to active duty, and Marine Capt. Charles S. Robb, the president’s son in law, leaves for a 13-month tour of duty in Vietnam.

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April 1, 1958: The House of representatives approves a final version of a bill authorizing $1.5 billion worth of water conservation projects, including $12.5 million for a dam and reservoir on the Mahoning River’s West Branch.

Precipitation in March totaled 1.34 inches, more than 2 inches below normal, the lowest since record keeping began in 1943 at the U.S. Weather Bureau at Youngstown Municipal Airport.

April 1, 1933: State Sen. George H. Roberts returns to his Almyra Avenue home in Youngstown still nursing a case of the influenza. He denies reports in Columbus that he lost $420 while at a beer joint in Columbus in the company of a woman and hints that he was framed by anti-prohibitionists.

The U.S. Public Health Service announces that at least one type of cancer is caused by infection with some sort of germ or microorganism, upsetting existing theories about the disease.

H.R. Weller, superintendent of the State-City Employment Bureau urges Youngstown residents to give people work doing housecleaning or repairs if they can afford it.