Years Ago

Today is Monday, Aug. 20, the 233rd day of 2012. There are 133 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1833: Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States, is born in North Bend, Ohio.

1862: The New York Tribune publishes an open letter by editor Horace Greeley to President Abraham Lincoln titled “The Prayer of Twenty Millions”; in it, Greeley calls on Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free the slaves and end the South’s rebellion.

1882: Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” has its premiere in Moscow.

1910: A series of forest fires sweeps through parts of Idaho, Montana and Washington, killing at least 85 people and burning some 3 million acres.

1968: The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations begin invading Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalization drive.

1992: Shortly after midnight, the Republican National Convention in Houston renominates President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: The owners of the former Lustig Shoes building in downtown Youngstown offer the building to the city as a gift in hope that it will spur redevelopment of Federal Plaza West.

First Federal Savings & Loan Co. is moving its downtown office from 124 Federal Plaza West to the International Towers.

1972: At least two dozen of the 281 doctoral programs at Ohio’s state universities may be too small to be efficient; Ohio taxpayers pay $3,990 per year for doctoral candidates, compared to $1,035 to subsidize undergraduates.

Dan Maggianetti Jr., Republican candidate for Mahoning County commissioner, says he will seek reinstatement to his job as Boardman police chief, a job he lost when township trustees set a mandatory retirement age of 65.

1962: For the first time in a decade, Youngstown University reports that it is not expecting an enrollment increase in the fall. There were 7,662 full- and part-time students in fall 1961.

A three-day School-o-Rama is launched with a parade down Federal Street led by the Scot-Eres, a Niles baton squad.

1937: Youngstown Mayor Lionel Evans urges placing a five-year tax levy on the ballot as the best way to finance $2.7 million in road and bridge improvements in the city.

William Manley, master mechanic of Republic Steel Corp. threatened before the steel strike to fire all machinists if they continued CIO talk, Emil Walters, a machinist, testifies before the National Labor Relations Board meeting in Youngstown.

The Ohio Leather Co. goes to a work week of five 8-hour days.