Today is Monday, May 4, the 124th day of 2009. There are 241 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Monday, May 4, the 124th day of 2009. There are 241 days left in the year. On this date in 1959, the first-ever Grammy Awards ceremony is held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Domenico Modugno wins Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)”; Henry Mancini wins Album of the Year for “The Music from Peter Gunn.”

In 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an eight-hour work day turns into a deadly riot when a bomb explodes. In 1904, the United States takes over construction of the Panama Canal. In 1932, mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, enters the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. (Capone is later transferred to Alcatraz Island.) In 1945, during World War II, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agree to surrender. In 1961, a group of “Freedom Riders” leaves Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals. In 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.

May 4, 1984: Civilian unemployment in April remained at 7.9 percent, the third straight month at that rate and .4 percent above the rate President Reagan inherited from President Carter in 1981.

With less than a week to go before the primary election, a Vindicator/YSU poll shows James A. Traficant Jr. with 35 percent and Thomas J. Carney with 32 percent in the Democratic race for the 17th District congressional seat. Christopher Lardis of Warren has 7 percent.

May 4, 1969: Youngstown’s six rabbis join the groups that have announced their support for the 12-mill levy for Youngstown’s financially beleaguered schools.

A short circuit causes a loss of power in a three block section of downtown, including the city jail and WFMJ-TV.

About 60,000 Mahoning County citizens are expected to vote in party primaries and special elections.

May 4, 1959: Ohio’s mental hospitals are described in a report released by Gov. Michael DiSalle as places of dreary despair where patients are denied either medical treatment or human dignity. Some 3,000 men and women ready for discharge remain in locked wards because there aren’t enough social workers to process their release.

President Harry Truman says a constitutional ban on a president serving a third tem sends the president into his second term with one hand tied behind his back and makes no sense.

May 4, 1934: Harry Mozely Stevens of Niles, who created the all-American hot dog and built a fortune out of it, dies in New York at the age of 78. Stevens’ concessions cover every major league ball park.

Six Boardman Township students are hurt, none seriously, when a cattle truck rams a Boardman school bus with 25 children aboard that had stopped at McKay’s Corners on Boardman-Poland Road.