YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Sept. 8, the 251st day of 2014. There are 114 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1761: Britain’s King George III marries Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz a few hours after meeting her for the first time.

1892: An early version of “The Pledge of Allegiance,” written by Francis Bellamy, appears in “The Youth’s Companion.”

1900: Galveston, Texas, is struck by a hurricane that kills about 8,000 people.

1921: Margaret Gorman, 16, of Washington, D.C., is crowned the first “Miss America” in Atlantic City.

1939: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a “limited national emergency” in response to the outbreak of war in Europe.

1944: Nazi Germany fires the first of its V-2 rockets, which are faster and more powerful than the V-1, into London during World War II.

1954: The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization is founded in Manila by the United States, France, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan.

1964: Public schools in Prince Edward County, Va., reopen after being closed for five years by officials attempting to prevent court-ordered racial desegregation.

1974: President Gerald R. Ford grants a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to former President Richard Nixon “for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 20, 1969, through Aug. 9, 1974.”

1989: Partnair Flight 394, a Convair CV-580, crashes into the sea off Denmark, killing all 55 people on board.

1994: USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737, crashes into a ravine as it is approaching Pittsburgh International Airport, killing all 132 people on board.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Idora Park, which closed in 1984, is for sale again. A Washington mortgage broker bought the property in May at a sheriff’s sale after a plan by Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church to build a “City of God” never got off the ground.

Figures released by the Census Bureau show that the Youngstown-Warren statistical area dropped from a population of 531,350 in 1980 to 501,700 in 1988.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge William Houser orders house arrest for an 18-year-old man found guilty of auto theft, the first time electronic surveillance is being used in the county in a felony case.

1974: Youngstown Osteopathic Hospital had a net loss of $291,000 in 1973 as a result of government cost controls enforced on hospitals, but not their suppliers, says Atty. Raymond Fine, executive director of the hospital.

The Dana Hotel on N. Park Avenue in Warren, which served as a dormitory for the Dana School of Music until 1941, will be razed and its lot converted to parking spaces. The 36-room hotel was heavily damaged by fire in July.

Dr. Andras Pogany, world president of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters of America, speaking at Our Lady of Hungary Church, calls on Hungarian- Americans to remember the humanistic and democratic ideals of the Hungarian people who revolted in 1956.

1964: Congressman Robert Taft campaigns in Mahoning County, appearing at both Idora Park and the Canfield Fair.

The 118th annual Canfield Fair ends with a record attendance of 285,000, about 15,000 more than in 1963.

1939: Youngstown district steel operations will jump seven points to 64 percent of capacity, the highest rate in two years.

Ohio Gov. John W. Bricker will attend the Republican Fish Fry at the Canfield Fairgrounds.

Arthur Fisher Jr., 17, of 33 Stambaugh Ave., Girard, who was a passenger on the British ocean liner Athenia when it was torpedoed in the Atlantic, is officially listed as missing. His mother is reported safe.