Today is Thursday, May 8, the 129th day of 2008. There are 237 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Thursday, May 8, the 129th day of 2008. There are 237 days left in the year. On this date in 1945, President Truman announces in a radio address that World War II had ended in Europe.

In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River. In 1794, Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, is executed on the guillotine during France’s Reign of Terror. In 1846, the first major battle of the Mexican-American War is fought at Palo Alto, Texas; U.S. forces led by Gen. Zachary Taylor are able to beat back the invading Mexican forces. In 1884, the 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, is born near Lamar, Mo. In 1958, Vice President Richard Nixon is shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by anti-American protesters in Lima, Peru. In 1962, the musical comedy “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” opens on Broadway. In 1970, antiwar protests take place across the United States and around the world; in New York, construction workers break up a demonstration on Wall Street. In 1973, militant American Indians who’d held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrender. In 1978, David R. Berkowitz pleads guilty in a Brooklyn courtroom to murder, attempted murder and assault in connection with one of the “Son of Sam” shootings that had terrified New Yorkers. In 1988, science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein dies in Carmel, Calif., at age 80.

May 8, 1983: Mahoning County commissioners name Michael Malone, 27, as the department’s personnel director, over the complaints of some employees in the department who say the appointment should have come from within. Malone had been working at the Ohio Department of Administrative Services in Columbus.

Dr. Andrew Detesco, who has practiced medicine in Youngstown since 1945, is named Man of the Year by the Italian Scholarship League.

Steve Dorbish heaves the shot put 56 feet, 1 inch for a record as he helps Austintown Fitch score 69 points to beat out a field of 23 teams in the third annual Optimist Invitational Track and Field Meet at Falcon Stadium.

May 8, 1968: U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan wins the Democratic nomination for his 17th term in Congress, receiving 55 percent of the vote over two opponents, state Rep. Thomas P. Gilmartin and Trumbull County Commissioner Robert E. Hagan.

Dr. Rembert Stokes, president of the predominantly Negro Wilberforce University at Xenia, tells a Youngstown United Negro College Fund luncheon in Youngstown that the militant black power movement will run its course in a few years as educational and economic opportunities for Negroes improve.

Ohio will elect its first Negro to Congress in the fall after two Negroes, Democrat Louis Stokes and Republican Charles P. Lucas, win their party’s nominations.

May 8, 1958: A Youngstown Transit Co. bus driver is charged with embezzlement, accused of manufacturing a “robbery” in which $60 in change and bus passes were taken.

A steak thief misjudged the timing of an automatic opener on a glass door at the Century Food Market on Oak Street and crashed into the glass. He was treated for cuts and taken to jail.

Frank Kuvakas, well-known manager of the Mural Room Restaurant at 225 W. Boardman St., dies of cancer at the age of 30.

May 8, 1933: Mills in Youngs-town are operating at 36 percent of capacity, the highest level in 21 months.

Social workers in Youngstown say they have found a marked decrease in juvenile delinquency in the Caldwell Street district as a result of slum elimination and the construction of better housing facilities I the area.

Over 1,500 high school students of Youngstown and vicinity with their parents and friends visit Youngstown College at the annual open house held from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.