Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 8, the 221st day of 2012. There are 145 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1911: President William Howard Taft signs a measure raising the number of U.S. representatives from 391 to 433, effective with the next Congress, with a proviso to add two more when New Mexico and Arizona become states.

1937: During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan completes its occupation of Beijing.

1942: During World War II, six Nazi saboteurs who were captured after landing in the U.S. are executed in Washington, D.C.

1968: The Republican national convention in Miami Beach nominates Richard Nixon for president on the first ballot.

1973: Vice President Spiro T. Agnew brands as “damned lies” reports he had taken kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland, and vows not to resign — which he ends up doing.

1974: President Richard Nixon announces his resignation, effective the next day, following damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Seven Youngstown area men are sentenced in U.S. District Court in Akron for their involvement in a multimillion-dollar cocaine ring. A Struthers man receives the stiffest sentence: 12 years in a federal prison.

1972: The Mahoning County Board of Health decides during a secret meeting to permit the dumping of 120 tons per week of dry sludge from a Cleveland sewage treatment plant in a Smith Township landfill.

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Rubin in Columbus makes permanent an injunction banning Ohio from enforcing its six-month voter residency requirement.

1962: Dr. Harry J. Wanamaker, superintendent of Youngstown schools, says classes will resume Sept. 4 with an estimated 28,300 pupils and a force of 1,100 teachers.

Youngstown Intelligence and Security Squad members raid the Greek-Syrian Coffee House at 28 South Ave. looking for evidence of illegal gambling, but come up empty-handed.

1937: Work schedules in some Youngstown district steel mills are being arranged to establish a 40-hour work week where possible, reports Ernest N. Nemenyi, Vindicator business writer.

After several weeks of “watchful waiting,” Youngstown vice raiders arrest Sam Scarpo, 52, alleged operator of an illicit liquor plant at 572 Dean St. A 200-gallon still with 70 gallons of finished liquor and 1,050 gallons of fermenting mash are destroyed.