In the contrasting half-full, half-empty view of life, there was plenty in 2009 to appeal to folks who look either way at that proverbial drinking glass of optimism/pessimism.

For those taking the half-empty outlook, there was the equally drained economy -- sloshing with bankruptcies, foreclosures and unemployment -- the continuing costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the possibility of nukes in Iran and North Korea, swine flu, the sweeping federal investigation of Cuyahoga County corruption, the Indians, the Browns, and an arch-rival double-whammy as the Steelers won the Super Bowl and the Yankees took the World Series.

Those toasting the year with that half-full glass could cite the fortuitous outcome of the US Airways jetliner crash into the Hudson River, not to mention Mine That Bird overcoming 50-to-one odds and winning the Kentucky Derby, or Susan Boyle's triumphant vocal retort to anyone who ever judged anything by surface appearances alone.

There also was LeBron James named MVP, the U.S. Navy rescue of a cargo ship captain captured by Somali pirates, the Cuyahoga River celebrating its 40th anniversary of not catching on fire again, the nation's first face transplant at the Cleveland Clinic, and arch swindler Bernard Madoff getting 150 years in prison.

That, and more was 2009 by the half-a-glass.

So go ahead, take a swig.

JANUARY

Jan. 2: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and the governors of Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin ask the federal government for a $1 trillion economic stimulus package to offset state budget deficits.

Also facing budget shortfalls, Cuyahoga County Sheriff Gerald McFaul lays off 18 deputies and three workers while giving raises to family members and friends working in the department.

Jan. 3: Israeli tanks and troops sweep into the Gaza Strip, opening a ground war against Hamas militants as the death toll rises to more than 400.

Dick Feagler, who authored nearly 4,000 columns in 38 years for the Cleveland Press and then The Plain Dealer, retires at age 70 to hang out with his Aunt Ida.

Jan. 7: As sleeping Dawgs lie, the Cleveland Browns hire Eric Mangini, formerly of the New York Jets, as coach.

Jan. 8: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland says the state's economy is so bad he's willing to roll the dice and consider expanded gambling ventures.

Jan. 9: University Hospitals Case Medical Center performs a procedure allowing a 10-year-old quadriplegic boy from central Ohio to breathe without a ventilator, the youngest such patient to have the surgery.

Jan. 10: Northeast Ohio is buried under nearly a foot of snow in a storm that blankets the Midwest and New England.

Jan. 12: U.S. Sen. George Voinovich announces he will retire when his term expires in 2010, ending four decades of public service, including terms as Ohio governor and mayor of Cleveland.

Jan. 15: A US Airways jetliner loses power to both engines on take-off after striking birds, and ditches in the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey. All 155 people aboard are rescued.

Jan. 16: Daniel Burns, the Cleveland schools' chief operating officer, resigns amid an investigation into district purchasing.

Jan. 20: President Barack Obama takes the oath of office as the nation's 44th President as more than a million people jam into the capital to witness the historic event.

Jan. 21: Two days after a cease-fire is arranged, the last Israeli troops withdraw from the Gaza Strip in an three-week conflict that has left more than 1,300 Palestinians killed.

Jan. 22: Cuyahoga County commissioners announce that a $425 million convention center and medical mart will be built on land occupied by the Cleveland Convention Center.

President Barack Obama orders closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, bans torturing suspected terrorists and shuts down secret CIA prisons.

Microsoft Corp. makes the first mass layoffs in its 34-year history, cutting 5,000 jobs as demand for personal computers falls.

Jan. 25:

Drum Major

John Coleman

of the Cleveland Firefighters Memorial Pipes and Drums marching unit

for nodding, waving and winking at President Obama as the unit marched past the presidential reviewing stand during the inauguration. He subsequently resigns.

Jan. 26: The Cleveland Browns hire George Kokinis, former Baltimore Ravens pro personnel director, as general manager.

Jan 28:

In his State of the State address, Ohio Gov.

Ted Strickland

outlines broad educational reforms which include extending the school year, freezing college tuitions and increasing the state's share of school costs.

The House of Representatives approves President Barack Obama's $819 billion economic recovery plan, without a single affirmative Republican vote.

Cleveland is buried under 10 inches of snow in 23 hours as part of a massive storm stretching from the southern Plains to the East Coast that kills 23 and leaves more than a million people without power.

Jan. 29: The Illinois Senate unanimously votes to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office and ban him from ever again holding elective office in the state.

FEBRUARY

Feb. 3: Pittsburgh's PNC Financial Services Group Inc. announces it will cut 5,800 jobs, most at the newly acquired National City Corp. of Cleveland.

Going for the Acapulco Gold, Olympic superstar swimmer Michael Phelps treads in hot water after a photo of him inhaling from a marijuana pipe surfaces.

Feb. 6: A woman who underwent the first face transplant in the U.S. is released from the Cleveland Clinic after a two-month recovery from the 23-hour operation.

Kent State University Prof. Gertrude Steuernagel dies a week after being severely beaten in her Kent home. Her 18-year-old autistic son is charged for her death and assaulting a police officer.

Feb. 10: The U.S. Senate approves an $838 billion economic stimulus package that could bring $7.9 billion to Ohio. Revisions trim the total to $789 billion.

Feb. 11: The Ohio Department of Transportation says two, five-lane Inner Belt bridges will be built by 2015, involving either two brand new structures or one new span and rehabbing the existing bridge.

Feb. 12: A Continental commuter plane from Newark, N.J., crashes into a house in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., killing all 49 aboard the aircraft and a person in the house.

Feb. 15: Local culinary history takes a double hit with the death, at age 101, of Herman Pirchner, founder of the Alpine Village supper club on Playhouse Square which served a host of celebrities from the early 1930s to 1961; and the third generation of the Swingos family shuts down the last of its namesake restaurants in a dining tradition that started in downtown Cleveland in the 1960s.

Feb. 16: A Stamford, Conn., woman is severely mauled by "Travis," a 200-pound chimpanzee owned by the woman's friend. The chimp is shot to death when it attacks police responding to the scene. The blinded and disfigured victim lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids and is flown to the Cleveland Clinic, which recently did the first face transplant in the United States.

Feb. 23: Two Cleveland Clinic workers are shot in the head, one fatally, during an apparent robbery at Reserve Square in downtown Cleveland. Four suspects are arrested the next day.

Bratenahl Police Chief Paul Falzone resigns shortly before release of a report regarding missing guns, drugs and money from the department's evidence room.

Feb. 28: Stand by for news! Radio legend Paul Harvey, who worked for more than 50 years in the business, dies at 90. Now we'll never know the rest of the story.

More than 650,000 Americans lose jobs for a record third straight month, bringing unemployment -- now 12.5 million people, more than the population of Pennsylvania -- to a quarter-century peak of 8.1 percent nationally.

MARCH

March 9:

A ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is lifted by President

Barack Obama

.

March 11: Germany files an arrest warrant for John Demjanjuk, 88, a retired Seven Hills auto worker, accusing him of being an accessory to murder as a concentration camp guard in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.

Plans for four Las Vegas-style casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and Cincinnati are announced. Proponents including Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, an investor, say $660 million in tax revenue could be generated if the proposal is approved by voters.

March 12: Joanne Schneider, 67, of Lakewood, is sentenced to three years in prison for bilking $60 million from investors. And in New York, Bernard Madoff, 70, pleads guilty to running perhaps the biggest (an estimated $65 billion) investment scam in Wall Street history.

The Cleveland Institute of Art announces that it will soon break ground on a $50.3 million expansion in University Circle.

March 13: Former Cleveland Councilman Robert White is sentenced to 18 months in prison for taking a $500 bribe from a businessman in 2007.

March 15: The Cleveland Catholic Diocese announces plans to close 29 churches and merge 41 others into 18 new parishes.

March 18: The state Senate approves legislation increasing the speed limit for trucks on Ohio interstates from 55 to 65 mph.

March 19: Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who resigned in 2008 after a sex scandal in his office, is found guilty of violating election laws by spending campaign funds on personal items and fined $1,000.

An Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years, fathering seven children, is sentenced to life in a mental institution.

March 20: J. Kevin Kelly, subject of FBI searches last summer in a probe of county corruption, resigns from the Parma Board of Education.

March 23: Cleveland City Council approves new ward boundaries, eliminating two of the 21 council seats to reflect the city's shrinking population. The change takes effect in 2010.

March 25: Citing failing health, Cuyahoga County Sheriff Gerald McFaul, 74, resigns amid controversy regarding his conduct in the office he held for 32 years.

March 26: The Ohio Department of Transportation announces plans to build a new $300 million Inner Belt Bridge next to the current bridge over the Cuyahoga River which will be rehabbed or replaced at a cost of about $250 million.

March 29: Warrensville Heights Police Chief Frank Bova, 48, is named interim Cuyahoga County Sheriff, replacing Gerald McFaul.

Cleveland Central Catholic High School wins its first-ever basketball state championship.

APRIL

April 1: Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth is charged by Florida prosecutors with DUI manslaughter for hitting and killing a pedestrian in Miami Beach on March 14.

Oberlin College becomes the first in Ohio to push its annual tuition, room and board costs to over $50,000.

April 4: Cleveland hosts induction ceremonies for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with featured honorees including Metallica, Bobby Womack, Jeff Beck, Run D.M.C., Wanda Jackson and Little Anthony and the Imperials.

April 7: The Cleveland Play House will sell its historic complex on Euclid Avenue and move to PlayhouseSquare's Allen Theatre along with Cleveland State University's drama program.

April 8: Somali pirates attack a U.S.-flagged cargo ship off the coast of Africa and take the vessel's captain hostage. He is rescued five days later when Navy SEAL snipers aboard a U.S. destroyer kill the kidnappers.

April 16: Cuyahoga County commissioners unanimously approve a contract to invest $900 million in taxpayer money on a downtown convention center and medical mart.

United Airlines joins eight other carriers in mandating that passengers who can't fit in their seats must buy a second seat.

April 19: Cavaliers coach Mike Brown is named NBA Coach of the Year after leading his team to a 66-16 franchise record.

April 23: Longtime WEWS Channel 5 anchor Ted Henry, 63, retires after nearly 28 years at the station.

U.S. News & World Report rankings name Case Western Reserve University as Ohio's best medical school.

April 24: Ronald Berkman, provost at Florida International University, becomes the new president of Cleveland State University.

April 27: General Motors announces its latest alternative-to-bankruptcy restructuring plan that includes shutting down 16 plants, costing 21,000 workers their jobs; closing 42 percent of its dealerships; giving the government half or more of its stock; and killing the 80-year-old Pontiac line.

April 28: A free weekend health-care festival at the Cuyahoga County fairgrounds is canceled due to concerns the swine flu virus could be spread by the thousands of people expected for the event. It is later rescheduled for July.

April 30: Chrysler files for bankruptcy protection, shutting down most of its plants while hoping to merge with Italian car maker Fiat. That merger could shut down the Twinsburg stamping plant by 2010.

MAY

May 1: Cuyahoga County Democrats choose Bob Reid, 57, Bedford city manager and former police chief, to be county sheriff, replacing Gerald McFaul.

May 2: The Kentucky Derby is rocked by a 50-to-1 shot, Mine That Bird, galloping to a win by nearly seven lengths.

Jack Kemp -- former Buffalo Bills quarterback, nine-term congressman, vice presidential nominee and self-described "bleeding-heart conservative" -- dies at 73.

May 4: In a day of honors, LeBron James receives the NBA's Most Valuable Player award at his former high school in Akron; Cleveland restaurateur and Iron Chef Michael Symon wins the 2009 James Beard Foundation Award in the Best Chef Great Lakes category; and Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett receives the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel award for her columns on open discovery.

May 5: The nation's first face transplant, Connie Culp, shows the new look she got last December in a 23-hour surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. Her debut comes a day after surgeons perform the nation's first double hand transplant on a man at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Actor/comedian Dom DeLuise, who got his theatrical start in Cleveland before becoming a well-known Hollywood celebrity, dies at 75.

May 6: Cleveland's Domestic Registry starts with the hopes of unmarried couples that it may prompt employers and hospitals to extend them the same rights as those reserved for married people.

May 11: After repeated appeals and delays fail, John Demjanjuk, 89, of Seven Hills, is flown to Germany to face charges of being an accessory in the deaths of 29,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp in 1943.

May 13: A former local pharmacist is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the 2006 death of Emily Jerry, 2, who died from an accidental lethal injection of a salt solution during cancer treatment at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital. Her death prompted passage of "Emily's Law," setting state guidelines and requirements for pharmacy technicians.

May 14: Chrysler closes 14 dealerships in Greater Cleveland, among 789 shut down nationwide as part of its bankruptcy reorganization. GM follows suit a day later, canceling contracts with 1,100 dealers nationally.

Anthony Gutierrez

, ex-director of general services for former Ohio Attorney General

Marc Dann

who resigned in 2008 resulting from a sexual harassment scandal,

including theft in office.

May 19: The Urban League of Greater Cleveland, $2.75 million in debt, almost folds after 92 years of service to low-income residents. A temporary reprieve is announced 11 days later.

May 26: Federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor is chosen by President Barack Obama as his Supreme Court nominee. She will be the first Hispanic to serve on the court.

May 27: Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital opens its new 30,000-square-foot, $26 million neonatal intensive care unit.

May 29: Comedian Jay Leno ends a 17-year run with his final hosting of "The Tonight Show."

The Cleveland Hebrew School announces that it will close after 119 years of Hebrew and religion instruction, due to declining enrollment.

May 31: An Air France jet carrying 228 passengers and crew disappears in a thunderstorm over the Atlantic Ocean while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. A week later the first bodies and wreckage are found floating in the ocean; all are presumed lost, cause unknown.

Millvina Dean, last survivor of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic on its maiden voyage to New York, dies at 97 in Southampton, England.

JUNE

June 1: General Motors files for bankruptcy protection and plans to close 14 plants nationwide (including one in Ohio), costing 10,000 workers their jobs and eliminating 2,000 dealerships.

June 5: Former Cleveland Indians owner Richard E. Jacobs dies at 83.

June 6: Cleveland Heights native Alysa Stanton, 45, is ordained in Cincinnati as the first-ever black female rabbi, and will serve at a synagogue in North Carolina.

June 10: The Ohio Supreme Court upholds a 2006 state law prohibiting municipalities, including Cleveland, from requiring that city employees live in the city.

June 11: The World Health Organization designates the swine flu as a global pandemic, with some 13,000 cases of H1N1 in the U.S. and 27 deaths so far.

June 12: The first major charges in a federal investigation of corruption among Cuyahoga County officials are filed in U.S. District Court against four friends and associates of County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and County Auditor Frank Russo.

Analog TV broadcasting ends at 10 a.m. in Northeast Ohio.

June 13: Reservations open for tickets to the Statue of Liberty's crown, which has been closed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Six Flags Inc., operator of 20 amusement/theme parks in North America and $2.4 billion in debt, hops aboard a Chapter 11 coaster to Bankruptcy World.

June 14: Riots erupt in Tehran and other cities in protest of the lopsided re-election victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

June 16: Cleveland Browns receiver Donte' Stallworth gets 30 days in prison, two years of house arrest, eight years probation, 1,000 hours of community service and lifetime suspension of his driver's license after pleading guilty to DUI manslaughter for striking and killing a Miami, Fla., man with his Bentley in March. Stallworth is also suspended indefinitely without pay by the NFL.

June 17: Jacobs Investments announces that it will put a $9 million, 55,000 square-foot aquarium in the Powerhouse in the Flats, opening in 2010.

Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital is second in the nation in neonatal care for the second year in a row, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of children's hospitals. Cleveland Clinic maintains its fourth place position in neurology and neurosurgery.

June 19: Facing a $3.2 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Ted Strickland proposes slot machines at Ohio's seven horse racetracks, and $2.43 billion in state spending cuts.

Former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar, president of the Cleveland Gladiators arena football team, files for bankruptcy.

June 22: Cleveland celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire.

June 23:

Cuyahoga County Commissioner

Jimmy Dimora

, subject of a federal public corruption probe,

as the county's Democratic Party boss.

Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic retains his post as voters reject an attempted recall.

June 24: The Cavs and Phoenix Suns reach an agreement to bring basketball star Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland.

After going AWOL for several days, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admits he has been having an affair and had secretly flown to Argentina to see his mistress.

June 25: "King of Pop" Michael Jackson, 50, who recorded more than 60 Top 40 hits with the Jackson 5 and during his solo career, dies in Los Angeles on the verge of staging a planned comeback concert tour.

June 28: Cleveland Museum of Art Director Timothy Rub leaves to direct the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

June 29: Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff, 71, who bilked investors out of $13.2 billion, is sentenced to 150 years in prison.



JULY

July 1: The U.S. Census Bureau announces that Cleveland had the fastest-declining population of any American city during the past decade except New Orleans which had Hurricane Katrina to blame.

Former Cuyahoga County employees J. Kevin Kelley and Kevin Payne plead guilty to charges including conspiracy, bribery and tax evasion, resulting from a federal probe of county corruption.

Ohio ties with Arkansas as the 10th-fattest state, with 28.6 percent of adults considered obese, according to a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report. Mississippi tops the list of fattest states and Colorado was the leanest.

July 3: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin quits without finishing her first four-year term, citing a desire to effect change outside government..

July 6: Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who directed escalation of the war in Vietnam despite his own misgivings, dies at 93.

July 8: Broadview Heights contractor Steven Pumper is charged in the federal investigation of Cuyahoga County corruption with bribing officials for help getting county work.

July 10: General Motors exits bankruptcy after a judge allows the firm to sell most of its assets to a new company with 60 percent ownership by the federal government.

July 11: The newly restored Cleveland house that was once home to Jerry Siegel, co-creator of the comic icon Superman, opens to the public.

July 13: Ohio lawmakers approve a $51 billion budget that cuts state funding to universities, food banks, libraries and mental health care, but Ohioans can now play the slots at horse tracks.

July 14: Harry E. Figgie Jr.

, of Hunting Valley, founder of Fortune 500 company Figgie International, dies at 85.

July 15: The Cleveland Clinic is ranked tops in the nation for cardiac care, for the 15th straight year, by U.S. News & World Report's annual Best Hospitals ranking.

July 16: Cuyahoga County Commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones vote to put their own government reform issue on the November ballot, calling for a 15-member panel to study and recommend a new government structure. Critics say the commissioners' move is intended to foil and competing reform proposal.

Commissioner Jimmy Dimora speaks publicly for the first time since being implicated in public-corruption allegations, saying he will continue to vote on county business because "I'm innocent. Why should I step aside?"

July 17: Famed CBS TV newscaster Walter Cronkite, once described as "the most trusted man in America," dies at 92. And that's the way it is.

Former D-A-S Construction Co. executive Steven Pumper pleads guilty to charges of bribing public officials to get construction contracts.

July 21: Prize-winning Plain Dealer photographer William Kennedy, of Medina, dies at 54.

July 22: The Cleveland Clinic agrees to buy the 12-acre Cleveland Play House site on Euclid Avenue for a price said to be from $13 million to $15 million. The Play House is renovating the Allen Theatre on Playhouse Square for its new home, targeted to open in 2011.

July 23: President Barack Obama visits Shaker Heights High School to push his plan to reform the nation's health care system. He also visits the Cleveland Clinic to learn more about the hospital's innovations in information technology and robotic heart surgery.

Cuyahoga County Commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawford Jones announce they will not seek re-election in three years, and agree to put a reform issue on the November ballot that would replace the three commissioners with an elected executive and 11-member county council.

July 24: The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority announces it will eliminate all 12 community circulator bus routes and raise most fares by 25 cents to offset a project $5.2 million deficit.

July 28: Cleveland also moves up from 38th to 14th place in Forbes.com's annual ranking of the best cities for single people, beating out Columbus (28th) and Cincinnati (38th).

July 30: Why can't we all just get some suds? President Barack (Bud Light) Obama shares a beer with Harvard scholar Henry Louis (Sam Adams light) Gates and police Sgt. James (Blue Moon) Crowley on the White House South Lawn in an effort to thrash out the highly publicized differences arising when Crowley arrested Gates during a mistaken case of breaking-and-entering at Gates' home.

The federal cash-for-clunkers program, offering $3,500 to $4,500 toward purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles, burns through its $950 million budget in less than four days.

A study by Cleveland Clinic researchers and others finds that redheads are more sensitive to pain in dental visits.

Smile -- or not. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport starts using whole-body scanners that can see through traveler's clothing.

AUGUST

Aug. 1: Former Philippine president Corazon "Cory" Aquino, who swept away a dictator and sustained a democracy by fighting off seven coup attempts, dies at 76 of colon cancer.

Aug. 4: Former President Bill Clinton visits North Korea and wins release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who had been arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison for illegally entering the country in March.

Aug. 6: The Senate confirms Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former MetroHealth Medical Center vice president John Carroll and Nilesh Patel, a local construction firm executive, are charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, with Carroll accused of faking cost overruns on taxpayer-funded construction contracts and using the cash to pay for a lavish lifestyle and travels around the globe.

A former RTA bus driver is charged with aggravated vehicular homicide by prosecutors who say Angela Williams, 49, of Cleveland, was talking on a cell phone when she struck and killed a pedestrian in a crosswalk in downtown Cleveland in March.

ArcelorMittal says it is restarting some operations at its Cleveland facility, bringing hundreds of laid-off steelworkers back on the job.

Aug. 7: Faced with mounting debt, the Western Reserve Historical Society puts 19 rare vehicles from its collection up for auction.

Aug. 10: Cleveland attorney Kathleen Burke assumes duties as new director of the Ohio Lottery.

Aug. 11: Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Edward Kennedy, and a recognized national advocate for the mentally disabled, dies at 88.

General Motors announces that its new gas/electric hybrid Chevrolet Volt, available for $40,000 in 2010, could get up to 230 miles per gallon in city driving.

Aug. 12: Former Bratenahl Village Police Chief Paul Falzone is indicted on charges of obstructing official business and theft in office.

Aug. 13: Former Lakewood mayor and Ohio state senator Anthony Sinagra is charged with bribery and mail fraud charges as part of the federal investigation into county corruption. The charges relate to his work as a consultant since leaving public office. He subsequently pleads guilty.

Deborah Gribbon, former director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, is named interim director of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Les Paul, guitar innovator and entertainer, dies at 94.

Public outcry forces the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a Cleveland Indians farm team in Niles, to cancel a "Traficant Release Night" promotion planned for Sept. 2, when former U.S. Rep. James Traficant is released after serving seven years in prison for racketeering, bribery and tax evasion.

Aug. 14: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, 60, former disciple of Charles Manson, convicted of trying to kill President Gerald Ford in 1975, is released from prison.

Aug. 15: Original Woodstock music groups and fans gather in Bethel, N.Y., for a concert to remember the epic rock festival on its 40th anniversary.

Aug. 18: GM restarts a second shift at its Lordstown plant, bringing more than 1,000 people back to work, due to increased consumer demand resulting from the federal "Cash for Clunkers" rebate program.

Kim Dae-jung, former South Korean president from 1998-2003 and Nobel laureate, dies at 85.

Ohio executes Jason Getsy, 33, for the 1995 murder of Ann Serafino of Hubbard.

Aug. 20: The Scottish government releases a terminally ill Libyan man convicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270. The man had served eight years of a life sentence.

Aug. 21: Clifton Onunwor, son of former East Cleveland mayor Emmanuel Onunwor, is sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting his mother, Diane Onunwor, eight times in the face last September.

Aug. 25: Sen. Ted Kennedy, a 46-year legislator, one-time presidential candidate and last of a political dynasty, dies of brain cancer at 77.

Aug. 26: A Beachwood man and 40 associates are indicted in a mortgage fraud scheme involving 453 homes in Cuyahoga County and $44 million in fraudulent loans.

Aug. 27: A woman kidnapped in 1991 as an 11-year-old, then held hostage by a sex offender who fathered two children with her, walks into a Northern California police station. The accused abductor and his wife are arrested.

Aug. 31: A wildfire burns more than 100,000 acres in a week as it approaches 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

Walt Disney buys Marvel Entertainment and its 5,000 comic-book characters for $4 billion, prompting speculation that the next crime-fighting duo will be Spider-Man and Mickey Mouse.

SEPTEMBER

Sept. 1: The recession claims another victim in the Bang and the Clatter Theatre, with stages in Cleveland and Akron.

Sept. 2: Former U.S. Rep. James Traficant of Youngstown is released from federal prison after serving a seven-year term for bribery and racketeering.

Pfizer Inc. agrees to pay a $1.2 billion criminal fine, the largest in U.S. history, for fraudulently marketing drugs for uses other than those approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Sept. 9: During an address by President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, of South Carolina, shouts, "You lie."

Sept. 10.: Alex "Kiki" Olejko, former Lorain mayor from 1984-1995, dies at age 87.

Sept. 11: Award-winning writer Larry Gelbart, who helped create the Broadway hit "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," the films "Tootsie" and "Oh, God!", and the TV series "M*A*S*H", dies at age 81.

Sept. 13: Cleveland Clinic chief Dr. Delos "Toby" Cosgrove sends an e-mail to employees, apologizing for comments he made a month earlier about extending the Clinic's ban on hiring smokers to obese people.

Agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, who won a Nobel Prize for his role in combating world hunger, and described as the father of the "green revolution," dies at age 95.

Sept. 15: President Barack Obama visits the GM plant at Lordstown and tells workers the economy is improving due to administration policies like bailing out the automakers.

The state's execution of convicted murderer Romell Broom is canceled when a suitable vein cannot be found to administer a lethal injection.

Rebuilding the east bank of the Flats gets a boost from a $54 million financial aid package of public loans and grants that could result in construction of a $270 million first phase opening in 2012.

Harrah's Operating Co. buys the bankrupt Thistledown Racetrack in North Randall for $89.5 million.

Sept. 16: The Mandel foundation offers $16 million to move the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland from PlayhouseSquare to Beachwood after more than 40 years at its downtown location.

Sept. 17: A Postal Service carrier, Daniel Kondas, 53, of Cleveland, is fatally shot in the head while delivering mail in Maple Heights. Police say the attack appears to have been an attempted robbery.

Sept. 18: Santina Klimkowski resigns as chief administrator to Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo after federal prosecutors file charges accusing her of funneling more than $1.2 million in cash bribes to Russo.

Cavaliers guard Delonte West is arrested on weapons charges for carrying two handguns and a shotgun while riding his motorcycle, speeding and cutting off a police cruiser, near his Maryland home.

Citing unspecified health concerns and a recall effort, Brooklyn Mayor Kenneth Patton resigns in the wake of charges that he assaulted and sexually harassed a city hall employee.

CBS extinguishes the "Guiding Light" soap opera that started on radio and later switched to daytime TV, running for more than 72 years and 15,700 episodes.

Sept. 21: The Ohio Supreme Court rules that Gov. Ted Strickland's proposal to put slot machines at seven horse racing tracks in the state must be put to a public vote.

Susan Atkins, imprisoned for life following a 1969 killing spree as a follower of Charles Manson, dies of natural causes behind bars in California at age 61.

Sept. 25: Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray vows to investigate Cuyahoga County's appraisal system as a result of a federal investigation of Auditor Frank Russo's office.

Dobama Theatre celebrates its 50th season and a new location on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights.

Sept. 26: Kings Island removes a controversial scene from its Halloween Haunt promotion, depicting skeletons dressed to resemble recently deceased celebrities including singer Michael Jackson, actress Farrah Fawcett and former NFL quarterback Steve McNair.

Sept. 27: William Safire -- former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon, novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for the New York Times, dies at age 79.

Sept. 28: Cleveland City Council approves a $2 million loan to a subsidiary of Jacobs Investments Inc. for construction of an indoor aquarium at the Powerhouse complex on the west bank of the Flats.

An undersea earthquake triggers a tsunami that kills more than 100 on the islands of Samoa and American Samoa.

Sept. 29: Cleveland is selected to host the 2014 Gay Games, a sports and cultural festival that could pump $60 million into the local economy from visiting athletes and guests.

The Cleveland Clinic announces that it will provide free H1N1 flu vaccinations at its 15 family health centers, nine community hospitals and main campus.

Sept. 30: The Cleveland Indians fire 7-year manager Eric Wedge at the end of a slumping season.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland wants to repeal the fifth and final year of a state income tax reduction, providing $844 million to help pay for a budget deficit.

General Motors shuts down Saturn and its dealerships after failing to sell the unit to the Penske Automotive Group.

The nation's jobless rate hits 9.8 percent, highest in 26 years.

OCTOBER

Oct. 1: Researchers including seven Northeast Ohioans unveil a 4.4-million-year-old skeleton of a human ancestor showing the oldest evidence of upright walking.

Oct. 2: Santina Klimkowski, former aide to the Cuyahoga County auditor, pleads guilty in federal court to taking bribes for public contracts.

Inkstop closes all of its 152 stores nationwide (14 in Northeast Ohio) and lays off 550 employees.

The International Olympics Committee rejects Chicago, opting for Rio de Janeiro as site of the 2016 Summer Games, despite personal lobbying for the Windy City by President Barack Obama.

A CBS producer is arrested for trying to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million, forcing the late-night TV comic to admit, on-air, to having sex with some of the women who worked for him. Ratings for the show that night soar 38 percent.

A state court in Munich, Germany, rules that former Seven Hills auto worker John Demjanjuk can be tried for the murder of thousands at a Nazi death camp during World War II.

Oct. 3: Protesters objecting to the sale of vintage cars by the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum are joined outside the facility by Kay Crawford, the 94-year-old widow of the museum's founder.

Oct. 5: Gov. Ted Strickland halts executions until December so the state's system of lethal injection can be reviewed in light of the failed execution of an Romell Broom in September.

Gourmet magazine, described as the dean of culinary publishing, folds after 70 years.

Oct. 7: A FirstEnergy Corp. plan to deliver 3.75 million energy-efficient light bulbs to its customers -- charging each household $21.60 for two bulbs, plus the cost of electricity not used because of the bulbs -- is postponed after coming under fire by consumers and public officials.

Oct. 9: President Barack Obama wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

NASA slams a rocket into a crater near the moon's south pole in hopes that the resulting cloud of debris can be analyzed for evidence of frozen water.

Oct. 10: Regina High School announces the Catholic girls school will close at the end of the school year due to money woes, after operating for 56 years in South Euclid.

Oct. 12: Renowned Little Italy baker/restaurateur Charles Presti of Pepper Pike dies at age 93.

In rural India, a "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign started two years ago results in 1.4 million toilets being built in a country where half the 665 million people lack access to latrines.

Oct. 13: The Cleveland Clinic sets a world record for most lung transplants (129) performed at a hospital in a single year.

Oct. 14: The Dow Jones industrial average tops 10,000 for the first time in a year, and folks off Wall Street start looking for the trickle-down effect.

Oct. 15: Viewers anxiously watch live TV coverage as a runaway homemade helium balloon, possibly carrying a 6-year-old boy, drifts 50 miles across the Colorado countryside before landing. Turns out the boy was back home all along, hiding in his garage attic. His parents later admit the whole thing was a hoax, plead guilty to criminal charges and get sent to jail.

Due to negative inflation rate this year, Social Security recipients will not get a cost-of-living adjustment in 2010 for the first time since the automatic adjustment was created in 1975.

Oct. 16: Playboy magazine hits newstands with Marge Simpson as its November cover girl, the first cartoon character on the front of the bunny book in an effort to reach 20-something readers. As hubbie Homer Simpson would say, "D'oh!"

Oct. 18: A new state law takes effect allowing restaurants to start serving liquor and wine at 11 a.m. instead of 1 p.m. in areas where voters have approved Sunday liquor sales.

Oct. 20: Marine Lance Cpl. David Baker, 22, of Painesville, is killed by a bomb while on foot patrol in Afghanistan just weeks before he was due to return home.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai agrees to a runoff election Nov. 7 in response to widespread claims of ballot fraud in his August election. The election is subsequently canceled when his opponent drops out of the race.

Oct. 21: LakeEast Medical Center, serving Painesville since 1904, closes with opening of the $155 million TriPoint Medical Center in Concord Township.

Two pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight from San Diego to Minneapolis fail to notice when they fly 150 miles past their destination and don't hear efforts to contact them for 90 minutes.

Oct. 22: Comedian Soupy Sales, who took the first of a career 20,000 pies to the face as host of a 1950s children's TV show in Cleveland before hitting national TV stardom, dies at age 83. Former Sales co-stars White Fang and Black Tooth could not be reached for comment.

Oct. 24: President Barack Obama declares the H1N1 flu a national emergency as the virus sweeps the nation and vaccine supplies fall short.

Oct. 25: The Indians sign Manny Acta, formerly of the Washington Nationals, as the Tribe's new manager.

Oct. 27: Cradle to Grave: Wal-Mart starts selling caskets on its Web site; 15 models, most for less than $2,000.

Oct. 28: NASA successfully tests the Ares I-X rocket which includes a section designed and built at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center.

President Barack Obama signs legislation making acts of violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people a federal hate crime.

Oct. 30: Cleveland police don't find convicted rapist Anthony Sowell at his Imperial Avenue home when they go there to arrest him in connection with a reported rape, but they do find the bodies of six women. Sowell is picked up the next day. Four more bodies and a skull, all female, are subsequently found at the house.

NOVEMBER

Nov. 2: On the heels of the Browns' seventh loss, owner Randy Lerner sacks his general manager, George Kokinis.



Nov. 3: Voters re-elect Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, approve replacing Cuyahoga County's three-commissioner system with an elected executive and 11-member council, and OK casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo.

Nov. 5: An Army psychiatrist goes on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 28 before being shot by a civilian police officer.

Cuyahoga County abandons plans to buy Public Auditorium for a medical mart and convention project after learning that renovating the historic structure would cost millions of dollars more than budgeted.

Nov. 9:

German Chancellor

Angela Merkel

leads a gathering of world leaders and spectators in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

.

Nov. 10: John Allen Muhammad, the sniper who killed 10 people in a three-week random killing spree in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002, is executed in Virginia's death chamber.

Nov. 14: Climate data released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that the country has experienced twice as many daily record high temperatures as record lows in the past decade.

Nov. 17:

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo officials discover during a routine physical exam that a 400-pound giant "female" tortoise that came to the zoo in 1955, is really a male. Thus Mary becomes Terry.

Nov. 18: A former RTA bus driver gets six months in jail after being convicted of vehicular homicide for killing a man in a downtown crosswalk in March.

Nov. 23: "Buckeye," a peregrine falcon who nested on the Terminal Tower and sired 34 chicks, dies at age 14, possibly from an aerial collision.

Nov. 27: In an early morning accident, Tiger Woods crashes his SUV into a tree at his Windermere, Fla., home and declines to explain why. As stories of marital infidelity subsequently arise, Woods takes an indefinite leave from golf.

DECEMBER

Dec. 1: President Barack Obama says he will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan but pledges to start bringing U.S. forces home in mid-2011.

Dec. 3: Accused serial killer Anthony Sowell, 50, of Cleveland, pleads not guilty by reason of insanity during arraignment on charges of murdering 11 women whose bodies were found at his house on Imperial Avenue.

Continental Airlines will stop offering direct flights from Cleveland to London.

Dec. 4: Federal regulators seize AmTrust Bank of Cleveland, latest of 130 banks to fail nationally this year, and sell it to the New York Community Bank of Westbury, NY.

Dec. 6. The Lancer Steakhouse, a landmark in Cleveland's black community since 1960, burns to an extremely well-done crisp. The restaurant was uninsured.

Dec. 8: Ohio executes Kenneth Biros using the first single-drug lethal injection procedure in the nation.

Dec. 11: Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus, as the 1-11 Browns beat the Super Bowl Champ Steelers, 13-6, in subfreezing temperatures at home.

The Cleveland Orchestra reports a $2 million deficit, its first since 2005.

Dec.13: A Plain Dealer investigation finds that Cleveland aggravated its own foreclosure problems by helping low-income people buy homes they couldn't afford.

Dec. 15: Televangelist Oral Roberts, who pioneered use of TV and computer databases to spread the Gospel, and founded his own university in Oklahoma, dies at age 91.

Dec. 21: Former Seahawks and Packers Super-Bowl-winning coach Mike Holmgren agrees to become president of the Cleveland Browns.

Dec. 22: Federal prosecutors charge Joseph Gallucci with conducting a bogus 2006 election campaign against incumbent Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo in exchange for a job in Russo's office.

Dec. 23: The Ohio High School Athletic Association strips the 2009 state Division II girls soccer title from Hathaway Brown for using an ineligible player.

Dec. 24: The Senate passes a health care reform bill intended to provide greater medical coverage for Americans.

Dec. 25: Passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam subdue a Nigerian man who tried to set off an explosive strapped to his body as the plane was landing in Detroit.