Friday, August 24, 2018
Today is Friday, Aug. 24, the 236th day of 2018. There are 129 days left in the year.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On this date in:
A.D. 79: Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash; an estimated 20,000 people die.
A.D. 410: Rome is overrun by the Visigoths, a major event in the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
1814: During the War of 1812, British forces invade Washington, D.C., setting fire to the Capitol (which was still under construction) and the White House, as well as other public buildings.
1932: Amelia Earhart embarks on a 19-hour flight from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., making her the first woman to fly solo, nonstop, from coast to coast.
1949: The North Atlantic Treaty takes effect.
1954: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.
1968: France becomes the world’s fifth thermonuclear power as it explodes a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
1981: Mark David Chapman is sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon. (Chapman remains imprisoned.)
1992: Hurricane Andrew smashes into Florida, causing $30 billion in damage; 43 U.S. deaths are blamed on the storm.
2006: The International Astronomical Union declares Pluto is no longer a full-fledged planet, demoting it to the status of a “dwarf planet.”
VINDICATOR FILES
1993: McConnell Marketing of Youngstown recommends $40,000 be spent on a downtown marketing blitz trumpeting the central business district’s advantages.
U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. returns from Israel but says he’ll continue to seek justice for John Demyanjuk, a retired Cleveland autoworker who had been accused of being a guard in a Nazi death camp.
McKinley Heights volunteer firefighter Bruce Gaus, who was severely burned in an auto-racing accident Aug. 7., returns home with a Fire Department escort but faces a long rehabilitation from second- and third-degree burns.
1978: Heavyweight boxing contender Earnie Shavers of Leavittsburg blames his failure to win the world heavyweight boxing title in a match against Muhammad Ali on his manager, Blackie Gennaro, and files a $5 million lawsuit.
The Youngstown Engineering Department inadvertently gives Trumbull County $7,130 worth of paving when it does both lanes of Gypsy Lane, half of which is in the city and half of which is in Trumbull County.
1968: The time-honored “period scheduling” and the ringing of a bell signaling the end of each period will end at Hubbard High School. A new plan will divide the school day into twenty-seven 15-minute periods.
John Dickerson, 7, of Cortland is treated at Trumbull Memorial Hospital for a leg injury suffered when a shotgun shell he was striking with a hammer exploded.
The Rev. R. Harry Bolen delivers his first sermon as pastor of Wickliffe Christian Church.
1943: Approximately 7,000 men and women in the Youngstown area must change from non-essential jobs by July 1, 1964. Persons in doubt about the war-usefulness of their jobs should contact the U.S. employment service.
Two new cases of infantile paralysis bring South Side Hospital’s polio-isolation ward to its capacity.
Between 900 and 1,000 Mahoning County fathers will be drafted by the end of the year if the county is to meet its selective-service quota.
Youngstown City Engineer Ralph W. O’Neill submits proposals for more than $14 million in post-war public works.