YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, May 8, the 128th day of 2015. There are 237 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1541: Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River.

1794: Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, is executed on the guillotine during France’s Reign of Terror.

1915: Regret becomes the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.

1921: Sweden’s Parliament votes to abolish the death penalty.

1945: President Harry S. Truman announces on radio that Nazi Germany’s forces have surrendered, and that “the flags of freedom fly all over Europe.”

Setif Massacre begins in Algeria as French authorities clash with protesters celebrating the surrender of Nazi Germany and calling for freedom from colonial rule; tens of thousands of Algerians are believed to have died in weeks of violence.

1958: Vice President Richard Nixon is shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by anti-American protesters in Lima, Peru.

1962: The musical comedy “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” opens on Broadway.

1972: President Richard Nixon announces that he has ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor during the Vietnam War.

1973: Militant American Indians who’d held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrender.

1984: The Soviet Union announces it will boycott the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

1999: The Citadel, South Carolina’s formerly all-male military school, graduates its first female cadet, Nancy Ruth Mace.

2005: President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, meeting in Moscow, go out of their way to take a unified stand on Middle East peace and terrorism after sharp words in recent days about democratic backsliding and postwar Soviet domination.

Steve Nash edges Shaquille O’Neal by 34 points to win the NBA’s most valuable player award.

Lloyd Cutler, White House counsel to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and adviser to presidents of both parties, dies at his Washington home at age 87.

2010: Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, targeted by tea party activists and other groups, loses his bid to serve a fourth term after failing to advance past the GOP state convention in Salt Lake City.

A coal mine in western Siberia is rocked by the first of two methane explosions that claim the lives of 90 miners.

Andor Lilienthal, 99, the last surviving member of the 27 original grandmasters of chess players, dies in Budapest.

Actress Betty White hosts NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” as the result of a Facebook campaign.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Trumbull County Probate Court Judge Thomas Swift announces a summer experiment in offering marriage licenses from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays from a booth in the main concourse of the Eastwood Mall.

Donald E. Foley, chairman of Foley Medical Inc., 1915 Belmont Ave., wins the Youngstown Area Chamber of Commerce Small Business Person of the year award for 1990.

After 11 years of planning and public controversy, Waste Technologies Industries finally plans to build a $100 million incinerator that will burn 60,000 tons of hazardous waste a year.

1975: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has delayed for six month implementation of water pollution guidelines affecting the Mahoning Valley, officials of Western Reserve Economic Development Agency report.

The Federal Energy Administration notifies nine utilities in the Midwest that they will have to convert their power plants to coal rather than natural gas or oil.

Highway Tabernacle Church Assemblies of God will open a full-time school in September in 12 classrooms of the former Bancroft School at 125 Wychwood Lane.

1965: The Rev. Elizabeth Powell, founder of the Interdenominational World Fellowship International Church on Glenwood Avenue is honored as “Mother of the Year” by the Mothers Council of the West Federal Street YMCA.

The Ohio Department of Aviation is asked to inspect several suggested sites for the Columbiana County Airport.

Rayen School’s track team defeats South High School, 75-43, and sets three new records to South’s one. Ben Blunt improves the 440-yard dash to 50.3 seconds; Tigers ran 880-yard relay in 1:31.5 and the mile in 3:26.7. South’s Dave Costello was clocked in 880-yard run at 2:02.8.

1940: Teachers who have married secretly and continue in their jobs are subject to suit for recovery of wages, the Ohio Bureau of Inspection tells Youngstown Superintendent of Schools Pliny H. Powers.

Preliminary figures from the 1940 census show that between 1930 and 1940, Campbell’s population declined from 14,673 to 13,777 and Lowellville’s from 2,550 to 2,355.

Gov. John W. Bricker proclaims Sunday May 12 as Mother’s Day in Ohio and calls for the display of the American flag and requests all citizens to pay tribute to their mothers on that day.