Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, Sept. 1, the 244th day of 2009. There are 121 days left in the year. On this date in 1939, World War II begins as Nazi Germany invades Poland.

In 1807, former Vice President Aaron Burr is found not guilty of treason. (Burr is then tried on a misdemeanor charge, but is again acquitted.) In 1894, the Great Hinckley Fire destroys Hinckley, Minn., and five other communities, and kills more than 400 people. In 1897, the first section of Boston’s new subway system is opened. In 1905, Alberta and Saskatchewan enter Confederation as the eighth and ninth provinces of Canada. In 1923, the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama are devastated by an earthquake that claims some 140,000 lives. In 1951, the United States, Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense pact, the ANZUS treaty. In 1969, a coup in Libya brings Moammar Gadhafi to power. In 1972, American Bobby Fischer wins the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, as Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union resigns before the resumption of game 21. In 1983, 269 people are killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 is shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner had entered Soviet airspace. In 1999, twenty-two of baseball’s 68 permanent umpires find themselves jobless, the fallout from their union’s failed attempt to force an early start to negotiations for a new labor contract. Ten American tourists and two Tanzanians are killed when their small plane crashes as they are leaving Serengeti National Park. In 2004, more than 1,000 people are taken hostage by heavily armed Chechen militants at a school in Beslan in southern Russia; more than 330, mostly children, are eventually killed in the three-day ordeal.

September 1, 1984: Gov. Richard F. Celeste honors Henry Guzman, deputy director of the Ohio Commission on State and Local Government, at a dinner of the Organizacion Civica y Cultural Hispana Americana in Youngstown. Guzman received OCCHA’s Distinguished Citizenship Award.

The Army’s Golden Knights parachute team drops into the Canfield Fair, free-falling from a plane two miles above the fairgrounds and pulling their chutes as they reach 2,000 feet.

Youngstown will seek bids to complete the rebuilding of downtown sidewalks after the Building and Trades Union complains that the work is being done by Street Department workers.

September 1, 1969: Continued high production levels at Youngstown area steel plants have kept the labor market tight over the summer and it will get even tighter as hundreds of high school and college students return to school.

More than 119,000 people visit the Canfield Fair, an increase of more than !3,500 over Sunday at the fair a year earlier.

Public and parochial schools in Mahoning County will open their doors to nearly 80,000 students.

September 1, 1959: Trumbull County is requiring residents to work in exchange for welfare payments, but Mahoning County Commissioner John Palermo says he won’t support a similar requirement because it is contrary to state law.

Stambaugh-Thompson Co. holds a grand opening for its new hardware store in the Austintown Plaza.

John J. Arnold of Struthers, Mahoning County auditor from 1926 to 1938, dies of a heart attack in North Side Hospital.

September 1, 1934: Exhibits of seven Mahoning County granges and 10,000 early visitors are at the fairgrounds in Canfield.

Final mill schedules show that steel ingot output in the Mahoning Valley will not rise above 20 percent, even though there will be a greater number of open hearth furnaces in operation.

Warren police are attempting to find out how slain roadhouse operator Elmer J. Martin managed to have $16,000 in his possession that is linked to a $130,000 holdup in New Jersey.