Today is Saturday, Dec. 7, the 341st day of 2002. There are 24 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Saturday, Dec. 7, the 341st day of 2002. There are 24 days left in the year. On this date in 1941, Japanese forces attack American and British territories and possessions in the Pacific, including the home base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
In 1787, Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. In 1796, electors choose John Adams to be the second president of the United States. In 1836, Martin Van Buren is elected the eighth president of the United States. In 1842, the New York Philharmonic gives its first concert. In 1946, fire breaks out at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta; the blaze kills 119 people, including hotel founder W. Frank Winecoff. In 1972, America's last moon mission to date is launched as Apollo 17 blasts off from Cape Canaveral. In 1972, Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, is stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant who is then shot dead by her bodyguards. In 1982, convicted murderer Charlie Brooks Jr. becomes the first U.S. prisoner to be executed by injection, at a prison in Huntsville, Texas. In 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev sets foot on American soil for the first time, arriving for a Washington summit with President Reagan.
December 7, 1977: The East Ohio Gas Co. consolidates the Youngstown and Warren divisions and assigns Paul C. Herold as the manager of the new division, which will be headquartered in Youngstown.
Trumbull County may be without a Welfare Department by Jan. 1 if a dispute is not resolved between county and state officials over the responsibility for funding the department.
If a new chapel is built in Vienna by Roman Catholics favoring the old-style Latin Mass over the new English Mass, it will not receive the sanction of Bishop James W. Malone of the Youngstown Catholic Diocese.
December 7, 1962: The first heavy storm of winter dumps 9 inches of snow on the Youngstown district, causing traffic jams as long as a mile and closing some schools.
Operations resume at the Johnson Bronze Co. after the United Auto Workers Local 69 approves a new two-year contract, ending a strike that began Sept.. 26.
Seventeen top area law officers agree at a special meeting in Mahoning County to seek legislation to help police rather than protect the criminal. One thing that will be sought is a law providing for the stricter control of dynamite.
Members of the Mahoning Valley chapter, Ohio Motel Association, attack a proposal for a motel at Youngstown Municipal Airport, saying there is not enough business for current hotel and motel facilities.
December 7, 1952: Youngstown shows its big heart and opens its purse for the needy, putting $23,285 into the Alias Santa Claus Fund at Esther Hamilton's 22nd annual show at Stambaugh Auditorium, which was once again sold out.
Volunteers launch a door-to-door census of some 60,000 homes in an effort to determine the religious affiliation of every family in the Youngstown district.
Thousands of shoppers jam the downtown district in what is graded by many merchants as the beginning of the 1952 Christmas buying rush. Sidewalks and stores in all sections of the main shopping district are jammed with people, their arms loaded with packages.
Dr. Nada Lekinko, Youngstown scientist who is a member of the Yale University School of Medicine, is awarded a two-year fellowship to study and do research in Austria.
December 7, 1927: While about 80 brother officers of Patrolman Henry A. Clemens attend impressive funeral services at St. Patrick's Church, police were momentarily expecting an 18-year-old Struthers youth to break down and confess that he fired the shot that killed the Youngstown police officer.
About 60,000 pounds of baby beef on the hoof is being offered for sale by the Mercer County Baby Beef Club in the largest sale of its kind ever held in Pennsylvania.
The new Brownlee Woods branch library is slated to open Dec. 16, with hours yet to be announced.
Andy Dyken, 15, sought by posses for the slaying of his mother and shooting of his father and a farmhand near St. Clairsville, is found hiding in a straw stack on the Dyken farm about 200 yards from the place where the shooting took place.