Today is Thursday, Aug. 21, the 234th day of 2008. There are 132 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Thursday, Aug. 21, the 234th day of 2008. There are 132 days left in the year. On this date in 1858, the first of seven debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas takes place.

In 1831, former slave Nat Turner leads a violent insurrection in Virginia. (He is later executed.) 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 in Paris. (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 the day before. 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.

August 21, 1983: Niles’ possession of marijuana law, one of the most stringent in Ohio, is headed for the Ohio Supreme Court after the 11th District Court of Appeals strikes it down.

Developers are willing to build apartments or condominiums downtown, says Julian Suso, if a survey shows that people are willing to live there.

Youngstown steps up its demolition program, tearing down 454 buildings in the last 10 months nearly 100 more than had been taken down in the previous year.

August 21, 1968: The Rev. John Whitcombe Wigle, rector of the Church of the Advent in Orchard Lake, Mich., is named rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Youngstown, succeeding the Rev. Hundson Cary.

William Heard, 43, of 246 Spring St., is fatally shot less that 31‚Ñ2 hours after being released from county jail on $5,000 bond on an assault case. A 24-year-old woman, who described herself as his ex-girlfriend, says she shot him in self defense.

President Lyndon Johnson calls on the Soviet Union to withdraw from Czechoslovakia, saying “it’s never too late for reason to prevail.”

August 21, 1958: Youngstown and Mahoning County officials meet to discuss the possibility of building a new $2.5 million McGuffey Road bridge.

Police confiscated 40 decks of marked cards and a number of loaded dice at a Sharon Elks Lodge picnic at a picnic grounds in Brookfield Township. Four men from the Toledo area are arrested, fined $5 by Warren Municipal Judge James A. Ravella and ordered to leave the area or face additional charges.

Dr. John W. Cernica is named head of the civil engineering department at the William Rayen School of Engineering at Youngstown University. He received his bachelor’s degree from Youngstown University and his doctorate from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.

August 21, 1933: Youngstown Mayor Mark E. More announces that the police department vice squad will be disbanded and all liquor and vice complaints will be handled directly through Chief Roy Goodwin and investigated by the detective department.

Mrs. Perry B. Owen will represent Youngstown on the National Women’s Committee for mobilization on community service work. Fifty-two women will meet in Washington to discuss ways of garnering public support for Community Chest campaigns.

Florence Baker is the general chairman for the reunion of South High’s 1929 class at the King-Glassford summer residence at Pine Lake.