YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 2, the 245th day of 2015. There are 120 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1666: The Great Fire of London breaks out.

1789: The United States Treasury Department is established.

1864: During the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s forces occupy Atlanta.

1901: Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offers the advice “Speak softly and carry a big stick” in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair.

1935: A Labor Day hurricane slams into the Florida Keys, claiming more than 400 lives.

1945: Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam an independent republic. (Ho died on this date in 1969.)

Japan formally surrenders in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending World War II.

1963: Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace prevents the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers.

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.

1986: A judge in Los Angeles sentences Cathy Evelyn Smith to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter for her role in the 1982 drug overdose death of comedian John Belushi. (Smith served 18 months.)

1998: A Swissair MD-11 jetliner crashes off Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people aboard.

2005: A National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolls into New Orleans four days after Hurricane Katrina. Scorched by criticism about sluggish federal help, President George W. Bush tours the Gulf Coast and meets with state and local officials, including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; at one point, Bush praised FEMA Director Michael Brown, telling him, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” During a live TV benefit concert, rapper Kanye West goes off-script to sharply criticize President Bush, saying he “doesn’t care about black people.”

2014: Islamic State group extremists release a video showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff and warned President Barack Obama against further U.S. airstrikes on the group.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Youngstown Mayor Patrick Ungaro, who suggested a 0.25 percent increase in the income tax, says that before the tax is enacted, the police department should be reorganized so that police officers are no longer assigned to desk duty.

Archie Herring runs for two touchdowns, and quarterback Ray Isaac passes for two as Youngstown State crushes Bloomsburg University 43-7 before 8,000 fans at the Penguin’s season opener at Stambaugh Stadium.

Youngstown police warn landlords that they can face criminal charges of permitting drug abuse if they knowingly rent to drug dealers.

1975: The Niles Clergy Association will host community worship services at various churches in the city before Niles Red Dragon football games.

Twelve of the Western Reserve Transit Authority’s 30 bus drivers report off sick, causing a disruption of service and the cancellation of a dry run for the authority’s newest riders, the city’s public and parochial school students. No cause for the “sick-out” was listed.

A fire that caused heavy damage to a Moore & Moore Lumber Co. warehouse on Essex Street is believed to have been arson.

1965: Common Pleas Judge David Jenkins orders the Bowlers’ Recreation Club on Nelson Avenue padlocked. The club was the scene of the fatal shooting of Laura Ann Bryan, 19, of East Liverpool, purportedly by a 28-year-old Youngstown man.

Robert A. Hovis, a magna cum laude graduate of Youngstown University, receives a $2,400 grant from the National Science Foundation for graduate study in mathematics at Western Reserve University.

Superintendent Harry Wanamaker and the Youngstown Board of Education invite interested community members to discuss plans for keeping rowdiness and violence out of night football games.

1940: John V. Donnelly, 26, wounded by a bandit during a robbery at the Italian-American Education Club on Mahoning Avenue, dies in St. Elizabeth Hospital.

The Civil Aeronautics Board launches an investigation into the crash of Pennsylvania Central Airliner near Lovettsville, Va., killing 25 people and making it the worst commercial airline disaster in U.S. history.

George Patton turns in one of the best pitching performances in the Slovak Baseball League this season, hurling a two-hitter as Campbell A.C. downs Lansingville, 6-3, at Oakland Field.