Today is Thursday, Sept. 25, the 269th day of 2008. There are 97 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Thursday, Sept. 25, the 269th day of 2008. There are 97 days left in the year. On this date in 1789, the first United States Congress adopts 12 amendments to the Constitution and sends them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments become the Bill of Rights.)

In 1493, Christopher Columbus sets sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere. In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and sights the Pacific Ocean. In 1690, one of the earliest American newspapers, Publick Occurrences, publishes its first — and last — edition in Boston. In 1890, Wilford Woodruff, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, issues a Manifesto formally renouncing the practice of polygamy. In 1919, President Wilson collapses after a speech in Pueblo, Colo., during a national speaking tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1956, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable goes into service. In 1957, nine black students who’d been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., because of unruly white crowds are escorted to class by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. In 1978, 144 people are killed when a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 and a private plane collide over San Diego. In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor is sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

September 25, 1983: A Canton judge throws out the results of a Breathalyzer test, challenging Ohio’s new strict drunken driving law. Canton Municipal Court Judge Gus Zielasko rules that a driver can’t tell how much he can drink to stay within the new lower legal limit of 0.10 blood alcohol.

Copperweld Steel Corp. in Warren is planning a huge investment in a high-technology continuous casting system.

Youngstown’s German community marks its tricentennial with about 150 bratwurst and beer enthusiasts celebrating 300 years of German immigration to America with a party on Federal Plaza. The event was sponsored by the Maennerchor and Saxon clubs.

September 25, 1968: Sharon Steel Corp. directors write shareholders that they are not recommending a purchase offer made by NVF Corp.

Former Alabama Gov. George Wallace will come to Youngstown as part of his presidential campaign, says William Shranko, district campaign manager for Wallace.

A 27-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy are charged with larceny in the theft of copper wire from the Carbon Limestone Co. at Hillsville.

September 25, 1958: The Mahoning County Board of Elec—tions signs up 3,000 registrants in a steady stream on the last day of registration for the November election, bringing registration to nearly 154,000.

Betty Troyan, 26, a clerk at the Builders and Investors Mortgage Loan Co., 3896 Mahoning Ave., thwarts a robbery by two armed men when she runs for cover after they demand that she “empty the cash register.” Abram Post, president of the firm, says there is no cash register and the office keeps only a small amount of cash on hand.

J.L. Mauthe, board chairman of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., tells a meeting of security analysts in Los Angeles that his company will ship about 2.5 million tons of steel in 1958, compared to 3.6 million in 1957. He says Sheet & Tube is operating at about 65 percent of capacity and expects to continue doing so in the foreseeable future.

September 25, 1933: George C. Brainard, president to General Fireproofing Co., credits recent government orders for office equipment for keeping the company operating at about 75 percent of capacity.

Charles Williams, who circled the world three times as a sailor with the U.S. and British navies and who was one of the deep-sea divers to investigate the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, dies in South Side unit of the Youngstown Hospital. He was 87.

Kenneth L. Morehouse, a Los Angeles, Calif., automotive designer brings his machine to Youngstown, a midget automobile that gets 51 miles to the gallon of gasoline and also burns benzine, or wood alcohol. The car will reach 130 mph.