Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Aug. 31, the 243rd day of 2013. There are 122 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1688: Preacher and novelist John Bunyan, author of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” dies in London.

1886: An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.3 devastates Charleston, S.C., killing at least 60 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

1888: Mary Ann Nichols, apparently the first victim of “Jack the Ripper,” is found slain in London’s East End.

1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act prohibiting the export of U.S. arms to belligerents.

1941: The radio program “The Great Gildersleeve,” a spinoff from “Fibber McGee and Molly” starring Harold Peary, debuts on NBC.

1954: Hurricane Carol hits the northeastern Atlantic states; Connecticut, Rhode Island and part of Massachusetts bear the brunt of the storm, which results in nearly 70 deaths.

1963: French artist Georges Braque, 81, dies in Paris.

1972: At the Munich Summer Olympics, American swimmer Mark Spitz wins his fourth and fifth gold medals, in the 100-meter butterfly and 800- meter freestyle relay; Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut wins gold medals in floor exercise and the balance beam.

1973: Movie director John Ford, 79, dies in Palm Desert, Calif.

1980: Poland’s Solidarity labor movement is born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ends a 17-day-old strike.

1986: Eighty-two people are killed when an Aeromexico jetliner and a small private plane collide over Cerritos, Calif. Also, the Soviet passenger ship Admiral Nakhimov collides with a merchant vessel in the Black Sea, causing both to sink; up to 448 people reportedly died.

1988: Fourteen people are killed when a Delta Boeing 727 crashes during takeoff from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

1991: Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan declare their independence, raising to 10 the number of republics seeking to secede from the Soviet Union.

2012: Writer Richard Bach, 76, author of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” is seriously hurt after his small plane goes down in Washington state.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: Antje Conrad, wife of Clyde Lee Conrad, an accused spy, tells Vindicator reporter Ellen J. Sullivan in an exclusive telephone interview, that her husband is innocent and “just a good guy.”

The loss is estimated at $4 million in a fire that destroyed the Lyons Medical Supply Co. in Struthers.

1973: Lightning strikes a transformer cutting power to GF Business Equipment Inc., shutting down the third-shift assembly line.

Richard Hardy, 43, is shot to death by city police after he allegedly shot and wounded Eugene Naples, 53, during an argument over their teenage daughters.

Workmen lower the McKelvey sign on the W. Federal Street department store, ending an era that began 90 years earlier, when George M. McKelvey founded the store. It will be replaced by a Higbee’s sign; the store became a division of the Cleveland company in 1969.

1963: Youngstown City Council is asked to find $54,613 as the city’s share of a major runway lighting program at the Youngstown Municipal Airport.

Mario Francis Walker, 35, is injured when he jumps through his bedroom window after fire breaks out at his home at 2755 Miltonia Ave.

Dick Taylor of Canfield gets a record-breaking price of $1.55 a pound for his winning steer at the 4-H Club steer sale at the Canfield Fair.

1938: An examination of Municipal Court records shows that fines publicly leveled on bug men are being reduced behind the scenes. In July there was a reduction of $880 in fines in 30 lottery cases.

Brothers Michael and Carmine Ficocelli will conduct 30 musicians in a concert of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra at Wick Park.

Seven liquor stills are confiscated and a woman and two men are jailed following raids in Warren by federal agents and state liquor inspectors. Inspector Ernest E. Williams of Youngstown said the liquor was being made under filthy conditions and that people drinking illicit booze are foolish.