Today is Sunday, Dec. 8, the 342nd day of 2002. There are 23 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Sunday, Dec. 8, the 342nd day of 2002. There are 23 days left in the year. On this date in 1941, the United States enters World War II as Congress declares war against Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 1776, George Washington's retreating army in the American Revolution crosses the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. In 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In 1863, President Lincoln announces his plan for the Reconstruction of the South. In 1886, the American Federation of Labor is founded in Columbus, Ohio. In 1949, the Chinese Nationalist government moves from the Chinese mainland to Formosa as the Communists press their attacks. In 1978, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir dies in Jerusalem at age 80. In 1980, rock star John Lennon is shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by an apparently deranged fan. In 1982, a man demanding an end to nuclear weapons holds the Washington Monument hostage, threatening to blow it up with explosives he claims were inside a van. After a 10-hour standoff, Norman D. Mayer is shot to death by police; it turns out there were no explosives. In 1987, President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev sign a treaty calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. In 1993, President Clinton signs into U.S. law the North American Free Trade Agreement.
December 8, 1977: The 110 technical workers, members of the Service Employees International Union Local 627, strike the Youngstown Hospital Association, joining the 1,292 striking service and maintenance employees who struck four weeks earlier.
Livi Steel Inc. of Youngstown announces at a meeting of Niles City Council that it will build a $300,000 fabricating plant on the former Niles Firebrick Co. property.
Two Youngstown men are found shot to death, execution style in the Money Arcade building on Hillman Street, which police say was a veritable merchandise mart stocked with stolen goods. Dead are Shed Bell, 56, and Ambres Thomas, 19.
December 8, 1962: Joseph "Joey" Naples, brother of slain racketeers Sandy and Billy Naples, becomes the first person to be convicted locally under a state law prohibiting the promotion of a numbers game.
Two veteran employees of the "Automatic" Sprinkler Corp. of America are crushed and asphyxiated beneath tons of dirt when a seven-foot ditch in which they were working caves in outside the Sherwin-Williams paint factory on Caroline Avenue in Hubbard. Dead are Charles Markle, 60, of Kittanning, Pa., and Wright Bradley, 55, of Vienna.
James R. Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union, says he is too scared to continue his trial on conspiracy charges in Nashville, after a Washington, D.C. laborer and former mental patient pulled out an air pistol and fired at him. The pellets bounced harmlessly off Hoffa.
December 8, 1952: An 84-year-old Cleveland woman dies of injuries received in a two-car collision at Five Points in Beaver Township, one of the most dangerous intersections in the area.
Frank McPhee, former Chaney High School star who won All-American football honors on virtually every college survey, spends three days in New York at the invitation of Look Magazine. Now captain of Princeton's football team, he was pictured with Colleen Kay Hutchins of Salt Lake City, the 1952 Miss America.
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December 8, 1927: Youngstown police release a Struthers lad who has been held several days on suspicion of killing Patrolman Henry Clemens. Police start to follow a new lead but say they'll be keeping an eye on the Struthers youth.
George W. Higgins, 66, popular watchman at the main gate of the new Valley Mould & amp; Iron Co. plant in Hubbard, dies at his home in Sharpsville of injuries sustained when he was run down by a hit-skip automobile driver as he was crossing Hubbard Road. Fellow workmen carried him to the plant emergency hospital, where he was administered first aid before being taken to his home, his injuries not being thought to be serious.
Andy Dyken, 15, of St. Clairsville, held for the murder of his mother and wounding of his father, tells police he wanted to kill his father because, "he picked me up by the heels when I was a boy and swung me around an apple tree. It's been a dog's life ever since."