Today is Thursday, Dec. 4, the 339th day of 2008. There are 27 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Thursday, Dec. 4, the 339th day of 2008. There are 27 days left in the year. On this date in 1619, a group of settlers from Bristol, England, arrives at Berkeley Hundred in present-day Charles City County, Va., where they hold a service thanking God for their safe arrival. (Some suggest this is the true first Thanksgiving in America, ahead of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Massachusetts.)

In 1816, James Monroe of Virginia is elected the fifth president of the United States. In 1875, William Marcy Tweed, the “Boss” of New York City’s Tammany Hall political organization, escapes from jail and flees the country. In 1942, U.S. bombers strike the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression. In 1965, the United States launches Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard. In 1978, San Francisco gets its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein is named to replace the assassinated George Moscone. In 1991, the original Pan American World Airways ceases operations.

December 4, 1983: The office of Gov. Richard Celeste will step in to referee a power struggle between two members of the Ohio boxing commission, Joseph “Blackie” Gennaro of Canfield and Steven L. Ball of Columbus.

Basketball Coach Mike Rice’s Penguins give LaSalle, a Division 1 power house from Philadelphia, its first defeat, 81-76, at Beeghly Center. YSU has a 3-0 record in the young season.

Dale L. LaRue, a trooper with the Ohio State Highway Patrol at Hiram is named the post’s Trooper of the Year.

December 4, 1968: A strike by a Canton manufacturing company shuts off the state’s supply of sign supports, placing in doubt the mid-December opening of the mammoth Interstate 80-Route 11 interchange in Austintown.

The closing of Youngstown city schools for the month of December because of a lack of funds could affect the scholastic accreditation of the city’s six high schools.

December 4, 1958: A 33-ton girder being unloaded for the new Lincoln Park Bridge topples into Lincoln Park. The girder began swinging, threatening to topple the crane after it was lifted from a truck, and the crane operator quickly dropped the load, averting disaster.

Frank Cammarata, Warren rackets figure, testifies before a U.S. Senate Rackets Committee in Washington, saying he knows nothing about gangland control of the juke box industry in Ohio. Cammarata, who is facing a deportation order, says he will be leaving the country for Cuba in about a week.

A 23-year-old burglar serving a nine month sentence is the first prisoner to escape from the new Mahoning County Jail. While being taken to the basement to shower, he darted out an open garage door and disappeared.

December 4, 1933: Volunteers from the American Veterans Association will conduct first-hand checks of Mahoning County CWA projects to “drive from their jobs all unqualified workers and see that veterans and others qualified take their places.”

Mayor Mark E. Moore announces that Dr. W.E. Hammaker and Mrs. U.F. Kistler, wife of the city law director, are his members of the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority, which will direct the spending of $3 million in federal funds for slum removal.