Today is Thursday, Sept. 11, the 255th day of 2008. There are 111 days left in the year. This is

Today is Thursday, Sept. 11, the 255th day of 2008. There are 111 days left in the year. This is Patriot Day. On this date in 2001, in the single worst act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil, nearly 3,000 people die when two hijacked jetliners crash into New York’s World Trade Center, causing the twin towers to collapse; a commandeered jetliner smashes into the Pentagon; and a fourth hijacked plane crashes in western Pennsylvania.

In 1789, Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. In 1857, the Mountain Meadows Massacre takes place in present-day southern Utah as a 120-member Arkansas immigrant party is slaughtered by Mormon settlers. In 1941, Charles A. Lindbergh sparks charges of anti-Semitism with a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, in which he says “the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration” are trying to draw the United States into World War II. In 1958, responding to Communist China’s artillery attacks on the Taiwan-held islands of Quemoy and Matsu, President Eisenhower says in a broadcast address the U.S. has to be prepared to fight to prevent a communist takeover of the islands. In 1971, former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev dies at age 77. In 1972, the troubled Munich Summer Olympics ends. In 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende dies in a violent military coup. In 1974, an Eastern Airlines DC-9 crashes during a landing attempt in Charlotte, N.C., killing 72 of the people on board. In 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian defector, dies at a British hospital four days after being stabbed by a man wielding a poisoned umbrella tip.

September 11, 1983: The YSU football season opens with festive tailgating parties at Stambaugh Stadium. The Penguins lose the opener, 28-23, against Eastern Kentucky, the defending 1-AA national champions.

More than 500 swimmers from 10 swimming clubs in Mahoning, Trumbull, Ashtabula and Columbiana counties compete in the annual Youngstown Swim League meet at the Poland Swim Club.

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September 11, 1968: Ohio Atty. Gen. William B. Saxbe opens his Youngstown headquarters at 101 W. Federal St., telling about 100 Republican Party officials and supporters that he is best qualified to be U.S. senator from Ohio.

The Girard Board of Education votes to place renewal of a 7-mill levy on the November ballot and to ask voter approval of an additional 2-mill levy that would produce $86,000 a year for operations.

Richard J. Dixon, 24, a former Niles McKinley High School football star, is named a cadet patrolman on the Niles Police Department by Safety Director Anthony Corso.

September 11, 1958: Welfare directors in eight Ohio counties threaten to shut down by Oct. 1 unless Ohio does something about meeting its financial obligations to the counties, Mahoning County welfare director I.L. Feuer says.

The United States Conference of Mayors opens in Miami, Fla., with seven Youngstown councilmen in attendance, but not Mayor Frank X. Kryzan, who stayed in Youngstown, with symptoms of a cold. Council appropriated $2,500 for the trip.

Atty. Theodore R. Cubbison is elected president of the Youngstown University Alumni Association, succeeding William Valentini.

September 11, 1933: A second death and two new cases of infantile paralysis bring a delay in the opening of two suburban school districts and the banning of football games until further notice.

Miss Ohio, Corrine Porter, returns home to Youngstown after turning down several modeling offers in New York City. A witness reports that the crowd in Atlantic City booed judges when Corrine was eliminated from the competition. She said it was the “grandest week” in her life.

Duke Ellington, famed composer, arranger and director, brings his internationally famous dance band to Idora Park.