Today is Saturday, Aug. 23, the 236th day of 2008. There are 130 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Saturday, Aug. 23, the 236th day of 2008. There are 130 days left in the year. On this date in 1927, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. (Fifty years later, on this date in 1977, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis proclaims that “any stigma and disgrace should be forever removed” from their names.)

In 1754, France’s King Louis XVI is born at Versailles. In 1775, Britain’s King George III proclaims the American colonies in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.” In 1858, “Ten Nights in a Bar-room,” a play about the tragic consequences of consuming alcohol, opens in New York. In 1914, Japan declares war against Germany in World War I. In 1926, silent film star Rudolph Valentino dies in New York at age 31. In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree to a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in Moscow. In 1944, Romanian prime minister Ion Antonescu is dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania to abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies. In 1960, Broadway librettist Oscar Hammerstein II dies in Doylestown, Pa., at age 65. In 1973, a bank robbery-turned-hostage standoff begins in Stockholm, Sweden; by the time the crisis ends, the four hostages had come to empathize with their captors, an occurrence now referred to as “Stockholm Syndrome.”

August 23, 1983: More than 4,000 new support brackets are being installed on benches at Arnold D. Stambaugh Stadium a Youngstown State University. The original brackets were made of a weaker alloy and some benches gave way under the load.

After getting into a shouting match with Sheriff James A. Traficant Jr., Judge Charles Bannon still suspends 97 days remaining of Traficant’s 100-day contempt of court sentence that he imposed in February when Traficant refused to sign foreclosure deeds.

The Ohio Highway Patrol says a survey of 67,000 motorists shows that 57 percent favor a law requiring the use of seat belts.

August 23, 1968: Production is underway on three new lines of Republic Steel Corp.’s pre-engineered steel buildings at its Truscon manufacturing division plant in Youngstown.

A train with “Soviets Go Home” chalked on its side carries 426 weary people, including nine Youngstown students, into Vienna, Austria, from Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia.

August 23, 1958: William Scheele, director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, predicts that the Great Lakes area is undergoing a weather change and in 30 to 60 years there will be warmer temperatures and more rain in the summer, less snow in the winter.

Eleven people, including four children, are homeless after a fire guts a four-room frame house in Davis Street in Brookfield, near the Ohio-Pennsylvania line.

August 23, 1933: A letter is sent to city council by R.A. McClain, president of the Taxpayers Protective League, states that unless council orders a complete investigation of the police department, the organization would ask for a federal investigation.

Youngstown Municipal Judge Peter Mulholland fines Sidney Moyer of the Moyer Manufacturing Co. $200 for working employees longer than is allowed by state law.

The South Main Street viaduct in Niles will be completed and open for use by Oct. 15, say officials of the Latham Construction Co.