Years Ago

Today is Friday, Sept. 2, the 245th day of 2011. There are 120 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1666: The Great Fire of London breaks out.

1864: During the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s forces occupy Atlanta.

1901: Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offers the advice, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair.

1935: A Labor Day hurricane slams into the Florida Keys, claiming more than 400 lives.

1945: Japan formally surrenders in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending World War II.

Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam an independent republic. (Ho dies on this date in 1969.)

1969: In what some regard as the birth of the Internet, two connected computers at the University of California, Los Angeles, pass test data through a 15-foot cable.

1991: President George H.W. Bush formally recognizes the independence of the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

1998: A Swissair MD-11 jetliner crashes off Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people aboard.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: Youngstown school teachers ratify a one-year contract with the Board of Education, ending a one-day strike

Sunday’s crowd of 146,607, the second biggest ever for the Canfield Fair, helps push the total attendance to 476,919, within 25,000 of the record half-million mark.

Joseph Fiorino, president of the Trumbull County Federation of Labor, says President Reagan’s veto of the textile import bill will cost 157,000 U.S. jobs over a period of eight years. The Mahoning Valley can empathize, he says, because it has lost 40,000 jobs.

1971: General Motors is looking to respond to increasing demand for its Lordstown-built Vega 2300 by stepping up the rate of output.

The Visiting Nurse Association withdraws its proposal to supply health services to the Youngstown public school system because of possible legal problems.

The Palace Burlesque Theater at 1213 Market St. reopens a day after police raided it for nude dancing, but is only showing a movie when vice squad operators arrive. Fifteen patrons watching the movie leave when police arrive.

1961: U.S. Sen. Stephen Young of Cleveland and U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan of Youngstown speak before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of the confirmation of Judge Frank J. Battisti of Youngstown as a U.S. District Court judge.

Attendance for the first two days of the Canfield Fair is 556,441, an increase of 3,800 over a year earlier for the same days.

William Z. Foster, the U.S. Communist Party boss who was known as the “American Lenin” because of his work with the party, dies in Moscow. He first achieved national recognition and local notoriety when he organized the East Youngstown steel strike of 1919 and returned to the area a number of times over the years.

1936: E.W. “Ernie” Travers, prominent local sportsman, is named to head the YMCA members campaign. He has been closely connected with the Y for 42 years.

The National Resources Board selects the Mahoning River basin as the first Ohio stream to be studied for sanitation improvement, Frederick H. Weed, the board’s consultant, announces in Washington, D.C.

The Youngstown Chamber of Commerce is negotiating with officials of Standard Steel Spring Co. of Coraopolis , Pa., to locate its plant here.