Years Ago

Today is Monday, May 9, the 129th day of 2011. There are 236 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1754: A cartoon in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette shows a snake cut in pieces, with each part representing an American colony; the caption reads, “JOIN, or DIE.”

1945: U.S. officials announce that a midnight entertainment curfew is being lifted immediately.

1951: The U.S. conducts its first thermonuclear experiment as part of Operation Greenhouse by detonating a 225-kiloton device on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific.

1980: Thirty-five people are killed when a freighter rams the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section of the southbound span to collapse.

1994: South Africa’s newly elected parliament chooses Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first black president.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Authorities defuse a dynamite bomb found at Robinson Road and 16th Street in Campbell, after evacuating 300 students from Reed Middle School and a number of neighborhood residents.

Choral groups from five Youngstown junior high schools entertain the downtown lunch crowd with songs on Federal Plaza.

1971: A shortage of funds will keep the Youngstown Police Department from activating its summer cadet program.

David and Sharon Barber of Cheyenne. Wyo., check into the Marvette Motor Lodge, 6640 Market St., with their pet lion, Boris, which is 10 months old and weighs 250 pounds. The Barbers have 52 other lions at home.

1961: An Ellwood City boy and three Columbiana County residents are among those reported injured as hurricane-force winds sweep through the area.

Youngstown officials announce a crackdown on manhole-cover thieves, who are taking the 140-pound covers at the rate of about five a night and selling them for scrap, getting 50 to 75 cents for each cover, which cost the city $12 to replace.

1936: Democratic congressional candidate John Lyden accuses one of his primary election opponents, Mike Kirwan, of being “the Ohio Edison candidate.”

The Treasury Department undertakes an investigation toward construction of a new post office in Struthers.