Today in history

Today is Friday, Aug. 24, the 237th day of 2012. There are 129 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

A.D. 79: Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash; an estimated 20,000 people die.

1814: During the War of 1812, British forces invade Washington, D.C., setting fire to the Capitol and the White House, as well as other buildings.

1912: Congress approves legislation establishing Parcel Post delivery by the U.S. Post Office Department, slated to begin on Jan. 1, 1913.

1932: Amelia Earhart embarks on a 19-hour flight from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., making her the first woman to fly solo, non-stop, from coast to coast.

1954: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.

1970: An explosives-laden van left by anti-war extremists blows up outside the University of Wisconsin’s Sterling Hall in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert Fassnacht.

1981: Mark David Chapman is sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.

1992: Hurricane Andrew smashes into Florida, causing $30 billion in damage; 43 U.S. deaths are blamed on the storm.

2006: The International Astronomical Union declares that Pluto is no longer a planet, demoting it to the status of a “dwarf planet.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Niles officials threaten to raze the Bolotin building at Main and Park Avenue unless its owners makes repairs.

Pauline Noe Saternow, second in command of the athletic department at Youngstown State University, says more women coaches of athletic teams should be a university goal.

Marie Patricia DeBar- tolo, wife of developer Edward J. DeBartolo, dies in Southside Medical Center of a respiratory ailment. She was 71.

1972: The troubled Warren-Trumbull Council of Economic Opportunity is ordered by its Chicago headquarters to repay $122,000 in misspent funds and is notified that future funding will be withheld.

Fred A. Kotheimer, 70, former entertainer with his wife, Bebe Rasmussen, and well-known dance instructor in Youngstown, dies in Orange, Calif.

1962: More than half the members of the Youngstown Police Department file applications to take civil service promotional exams for captain, lieutenant and sergeant.

Mayor Harry Savasten says that Youngstown residents who throw combustible rubbish in the pickup containers with their tin cans, bottles and such will find the entire lot left at the curb.

An alert neighbor, Paul Zigoletti, rescues two people from the third floor during a fire at the home of James Thornton, 1559 Bryson St.

1937: Lt. Ford L. Wallace, a former South High School student, is one of six men killed in the crash of a two-engined Navy plane at San Diego, Calif.

Mary Ozimok, 22, of Aliquippa, Pa., employed in the home of George G. Walker in Poland, is injured when her airplane crashes in a pasture near the Lamar Jackson home, close to Bernard Airport.

George E. Canon, 22, a former Brookfield High football star, dies three hours after he fell or was pushed by a surging crowd of 500 in front of an excursion train pulling into the Sharon station.