Today is Wednesday, April 2, the 93rd day of 2008. There are 273 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Wednesday, April 2, the 93rd day of 2008. There are 273 days left in the year. On this date in 1968, the influential science-fiction film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, has its world premiere in Washington.

In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., because of advancing Union forces. In 1908, actor-dancer Buddy Ebsen is born in Belleville, Ill. In 1917, President Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declares war four days later.) In 1932, aviator Charles Lindbergh and John Condon go to a cemetery in New York, where Condon turns over $50,000 to a man called “John” in exchange for Lindbergh’s kidnapped son. (The child is not returned, and is found dead the following month.) In 1974, French president Georges Pompidou dies in Paris.

April 2, 1983: Dr. Manuel Tzagournis, a Youngstown native, is named vice president for health services at Ohio State University.

Bill Fergus, director of the Eastgate Development and Transportation Agency, says the new federal jobs bill doesn’t hold very much for the Mahoning Valley. Millions will go to transit systems in Boston, Philadelphia, Sacramento, Baltimore and San Francisco; Youngstown won’t get a penny.

Harley-Davidson Motor Co., the nation’s last maker of motorcycles, is getting substantial help from the government in its rivalry with Japanese competitors. Tariffs will be increased over the next five years on large foreign motorcycles.

The Warren-Trumbull Community Services Agency in Warren reports being swamped with requests for help from people unable to pay their rising utility bills.

April 2, 1968: Six Pennsylvania state policemen and four FBI agents surround an abandoned farm house in rural Lawrence County and capture three men, critically wounding one. The men were wanted in the killing of a college student and the rape of two Slippery Rock coeds.

Ralph Nunez, 14, of Struthers, who was burned by a bolt of lightning, is reported improving but is still in the intensive care unit of St. Elizabeth Hospital.

Dr. Vernon Alden, president of Ohio University, will speak at a dinner launching the 1968 residential Cancer Crusade in Mahoning County.

April 2, 1958: An anonymous telephone call about a planted time bomb sends 10 policemen on a fruitless nighttime search through Princeton Junior High School.

The last of 15 people to face charges in the Tobin-Shade insurance swindle, Paul E. Shade, is bound over to the Mahoning County grand jury. His bond is set at $60,000 by County Judge Edgar Diehm in Boardman.

Fumes from an unvented hot water heater overcome five members of the Walter Macina family at 208 Clinton Ave. Two members of the family, Mrs. Catherine Macina and Richard, 4, remain hospitalized in fair condition at St. Elizabeth.

Look magazine reporters arrive in Youngstown to work on a story that will show the human side of unemployment. The Mahoning Valley was picked because it is one of the hardest hit areas in the country.

The Vindicator will serialize J. Edgar Hoover’s new book, “Masters of Deceit,” that exposes the plots and plans of the Communists in the United States.

April 2, 1933: Indications of a new confidence in the business world are to be found in Youngstown in the increase in the number of travelling men who visit the city to offer their nationally advertised wares to the city’s merchants. Hotels, parking garages and train porters have noticed the increased traffic.

A milk distributors’ war is raging in Sacramento, Calif., and milk is being sold for one cent a quart in stores. The bottle is worth more than the contents, and a five-cent deposit is required on bottles bought by customers who don’t bring in an empty.