Today is Thursday, Dec. 5, the 339th day of 2002. There are 26 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Thursday, Dec. 5, the 339th day of 2002. There are 26 days left in the year. On this date in 1933, national Prohibition comes to an end as Utah becomes the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment.
In 1776, the first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, is organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. In 1782, the first native U.S. president, Martin Van Buren, is born in Kinderhook, N.Y. In 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in Vienna, Austria, at age 35. In 1792, George Washington is re-elected president; John Adams was re-elected vice president. In 1831, former President John Quincy Adams takes his seat as a member of the House of Representatives. In 1848, President Polk triggers the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California. In 1901, movie producer Walt Disney is born in Chicago. In 1932, German physicist Albert Einstein is granted a visa, making it possible for him to travel to the United States. In 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge to form the AFL-CIO under its first president, George Meany. In 1991, Richard Speck, who'd murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966, dies a day short of his 50th birthday while serving eight consecutive prison terms of 50 to 150 years each.
December 5, 1977: Ground is finally broken for the controversial $1.2 million Federal Plaza extension project.
Ohio's troubled school financing system is declared unconstitutional by a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge. The suit filed by the Cincinnati school district alleged that the Ohio Legislature had failed to meet the constitutional requirement that the state provide a "thorough and efficient education."
The Youngstown City School District is spending $1,433 to educate each school child in the 1977-78 fiscal year, the fourth highest among the state's 10 largest school districts.
December 5, 1962: Youngstown Army Reserve Training Center stands to gain a new engineering company in the Defense Department's planned reorganization of reserve and National Guard forces, while some Ohio reserve units face cutbacks.
The Youngstown-Warren area and other districts that rely heavily on steel show the greatest job losses in manufacturing employment among nine metropolitan areas in the 4th Federal Reserve District between May 1960 and September 1962.
A mandamus action is filed to compel the Trumbull County Board of Elections to recount 149 precincts in the close race between Republican James H. Grose and Democrat Michael J. McCullion in the state Senate race. The official count gave Grose a 70-vote margin of victory with more than 140,000 votes cast.
December 5, 1952: A Cleveland police lieutenant says he was given a tip two days before the $71,000 Warren bank robbery, but the tipster only knew who would do the robbery and when, not where it would occur.
A.P. Steckel, inventor of the famous Steckel process of cold rolling steel, notifies the Mahoning Community Corporation that he will make up the shortage in the Chest drive from funds due him from a patent settlement. The shortage is $26,000 and cuts in support to Community Chest agencies had been anticipated.
Advertisement: Hartzell's Christmas sale of ties, regular $1.50, 42.50, $3.50 and $5 values, all 99 cents. Pure silks and beautiful rayons in stripes, check, plaids, figures, dots and neats.
December 5, 1927: Four suspects who are known to have been in the vicinity when Youngstown Patrolman Henry A. Clemens was shot by robbers are jailed and police are continuing a general cleanup of the city, under orders to bring in all suspicious persons.
Pasqueral Carano of Hubbard is killed instantly in Wheatland when he is struck by a street car while working on the P & amp;O lines.