YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Nov. 3, the 307th day of 2014. There are 58 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1839: The first Opium War between China and Britain breaks out.

1852: Emperor Meiji of Japan is born in Kyoto.

1903: Panama proclaims its independence from Colombia.

1911: The Chevrolet Motor Car Co. is founded in Detroit by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant. (The company was acquired by General Motors in 1918.)

1936: President Franklin D. Roosevelt wins a landslide election victory over Republican challenger Alfred M. “Alf” Landon.

1954: The Japanese monster movie “Godzilla” is released by Toho Co.

1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, the second manmade satellite, into orbit; on board is a dog named Laika who was sacrificed in the experiment.

1960: The Meredith Willson musical “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” opens on Broadway with Tammy Grimes in the title role.

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson soundly defeats Republican Barry Goldwater to win a White House term in his own right.

1970: Salvador Allende is inaugurated as president of Chile.

1979: Five Communist Workers Party members are killed in a clash with heavily armed Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis during an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro, N.C.

1986: The Iran-Contra affair begins to come to light as Ash-Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, first breaks the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran.

1994: Susan Smith of Union, S.C., is arrested for drowning her two young sons, Michael and Alex, nine days after claiming the children had been abducted by a black carjacker.

2004: President George W. Bush claims a re-election mandate a day after more than 62 million Americans chose him over Democrat John Kerry; Kerry concedes defeat in make-or-break Ohio rather than launch a legal fight reminiscent of the contentious Florida recount of four years earlier.

2009: In the 2009 elections, Chris Christie, a Republican former U.S. attorney, unseats New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine while in Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell beats Democrat R. Creigh Deeds.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: A network of nearly 30 general practitioners in Akron, Canton and Youngstown that developed over a period of months to treat AIDS patients is applying for a research grant from the National Institutes of Health.

An explosion and fire destroy six storefronts in the Marwood Office Center at Market Street and Wildwood Drive in Boardman.

Austintown police urge residents to keep Halloween treats in storage until tests determine if something in candy given out in the township caused flu-like symptoms in at least five people who ate similar hard candy.

1974: Al Sisk, deputy director of the Trumbull County Board of Elections, predicts that 66,500 voters will go to Trumbull County’s 283 polling places to cast ballots in the November general election.

As part of a move to get closer to emerging markets, Lykes-Youngstown Corp.’s steel group is resurrecting plans to build two mini[steel mills, one in Puerto Rico and the other on the Gulf Coast, says company President Frank Nemec.

A goodwill gesture by Mill Creek Park commissioners goes awry when more than 3,000 people show up for the 700 free chrysanthemum plants the park was giving away. Workers obligingly dug up 2,500 plants a few weeks earlier than planned.

1964: General Motors reports net earnings for the first three quarters of $1.36 billion or $4.75 a share on sales of $13 billion.

Frank E. Waterman is named assistant general superintendent of U.S. Steel, and Carl B. Heckert is named division superintendent at McDonald.

Cynthia Ann Myers, 23, a graduate of Malone College in Canton, drowns in the Bay of Bengal while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer.

1939: The world’s largest blast furnace is “blown in” by Republic Steel Corp. in Warren.

Charles W. Whiteley, 41, of Youngstown is arrested by federal authorities, one of 74 people indicted in 40 cities in an alleged $20 million lottery racket.

Tom L. Barrowman, candidate for Youngstown mayor, says during a candidates’ forum in Stambaugh Auditorium that he was offered $40,000 for his campaign by area racketeers. He suggests that two other unnamed candidates among the six on stage accepted rackets money.