Years Ago

Today is Sunday, Sept. 2, the 246th day of 2012. There are 120 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1789: The United States Treasury Department is established.

1901: During an appearance at the Minnesota State Fair, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offers what would become famous advice: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

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.

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.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: An explosion at the Belmont Avenue substation of Ohio Edison injures four Ohio Edison employees and blacks out parts of downtown and the North Side of Youngstown.

Ohio is one of several states submitting proposals for the Department of Energy’s proposed superconducting supercollider. Each state was required to submit 30 copies of a 40-pound application. Ohio’s application would place the facility beneath Union, Delaware and Marion counties, with a 330-acre campus located in Delaware County.

1972: Nine Boardman High School marching band members and a counselor remain hospitalized at Brown Hospital in Conneaut for suspected food poisoning during band camp at Camp Lambeck near Erie, Pa. Forty others of the 250 at the camp were released after treatment for stomach cramps.

Woodside Receiving Hospital is designated by Gov. John J. Gilligan as one of five state institutions that will share $15 million to provide expanded mental health services.

Thirteen Navajo Indian children from northeastern Arizona, ages 8 to 14, arrive at Calvary Temple on S. Raccoon Road to begin their nine-month stays with members of the church.

1962: Intermittent rain fails to dampen the spirits of an estimated 44,000 attendees at the third day of the Canfield Fair, bring attendance so far to 101,181 with two days to go.

August was the driest month in a period of eight months of sub-normal rainfall, leaving crops parched by drought and the Meander, Berlin, Milton and Mosquito Creek reservoirs at their lowest levels on record.

1937: It’s entry day at the Canfield Fair and trucks from all over the Mahoning Valley are rumbling into the grounds loaded with livestock, as well as gimcracks and doodads for the midway – a cargo of the million-and-one things that make up a fair, writes The Vindicator’s Esther Hamilton.

Youngstown police arrest nine men in a raid on a “bug” headquarters at 1105 South Ave. Only Tony Melo, 23, and one other man are held on gambling charges after Melo admits ownership of the number slips.

After Niles City Council defeats an ordinance by Councilman C.W. Robinson to license gambling devices in the city, Robinson demands a crackdown. “Get me two officers, and we’ll go out and make some arrests right now,” he tells Mayor Fred R. Williams.