Today is Friday, Dec. 19, the 353rd day of 2003. There are 12 days left in the year. The Jewish

Today is Friday, Dec. 19, the 353rd day of 2003. There are 12 days left in the year. The Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, begins at sunset. On this date in 1843, "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens, is first published in England.
In 1732, Benjamin Franklin begins publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac." In 1777, Gen. George Washington leads his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pa., to camp for the winter. In 1907, 239 workers die in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pa. In 1932, the British Broadcasting Corporation begins transmitting overseas with its Empire Service to Australia. In 1957, Meredith Willson's musical play "The Music Man" opens on Broadway. In 1972, Apollo 17 splashes down in the Pacific, winding up the Apollo program of manned lunar landings. In 1974, Nelson A. Rockefeller is sworn in as the 41st vice president of the United States.
December 19, 1978: While Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich was at one bank pulling out his savings in a well-publicized protest involving the city's financial difficulties, his youngest brother, Perry, was pulling a bank robbery on the other side of town, police say.
The Youngstown Post Office handles more mail than on any other night in history -- more than 600,000 pieces -- and postal workers sorted it and distributed it with scarcely a hitch. The Monday before Christmas is traditionally the biggest night for mail originating in Youngstown.
December 19, 1963: The Legal Arts Corp., a new firm, purchases the old Sears, Roebuck & amp; Co. store at Market and E. Boardman St. from two Wick interests for $150,000.
A tidy fortune of $40,310, hidden by Charles Hopps in a closet and the basement of his Ridge Avenue home in Youngstown, will go to the Valencia, Pa., United Presbyterian Children's home, the Ohio Supreme Court rules. The Women's Missionary Society of Tabernacle United Presbyterian Church had argued that it should get the money, since Hopps' will bequeathed his household contents to the society.
Irving and Berkely Froomkin hold a grand opening for their new Plaza Donuts store at 3435 Belmont Ave. The store, advertising 54 varieties of doughnuts, is the second of its type opened by the brothers
December 19, 1953: War on unleashed dogs in the Wick and Crandall park areas is declared by Dog Warden Dan Pecchio after three dogs kill one of Crandall Park's swans.
The job of carrying through Youngstown's fight against obscene literature, inaugurated by Mayor Charles P. Henderson's administration, will fall to the incoming administration.
The first of two giant 106,000 kilowatt turbo-generators at Ohio Edison Co.'s new Niles power plant begins spinning as the $32 million plant goes into operation.
December 19, 1928: Traveling across the Atlantic alone from their home in Poland, two little blondgirls, Anna Wolanin, 7, and Veronika, 8, are reunited with their father, Frank, and a 12-year-old sister, who live on Gibson St. in Youngstown. They had been living with their mother in Poland while their father got established in the United States. Their mother died in June.
Nineteen teachers of the Austintown Township schools fail to get their Christmas week pay because of delinquent tax collections in the Wickliffe allotment, Jerome Hull, county superintendent of schools, says.
Two Youngstown girls, 14 and 16, who have been missing from their homes for four days, may have fallen victims of a white slave ring that is known to operate through Youngstown, it is feared by William A. Cleaver, chief probation officer.