Today is Tuesday, Dec. 9, the 344th day of 2008. There are 22 days left in the year. On this date in

December 9, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Tuesday, Dec. 9, the 344th day of 2008. There are 22 days left in the year. On this date in 1608, English poet John Milton is born in London.

In 1854, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” is published in England. In 1892, “Widowers’ Houses,” Bernard Shaw’s first play, opens at the Royalty Theater in London. In 1940, British troops open their first major offensive in North Africa during World War II. In 1941, China declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy. In 1942, the Aram Khachaturian ballet “Gayane,” featuring the surging “Saber Dance,” is first performed by the Kirov Ballet. In 1958, the anti-communist John Birch Society is formed in Indianapolis. In 1965, Nikolai V. Podgorny replaces Anastas I. Mikoyan as president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. In 1987, the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, begins as riots break out in Gaza and spread to the West Bank, triggering a strong Israeli counter-response. In 1990, Solidarity founder Lech Walesa wins Poland’s presidential runoff by a landslide. In 1992, Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana announce their separation. (The couple’s divorce becomes final Aug. 28, 1996.)

December 9, 1983: The Ohio Court of Claims in Franklin County dismisses a lawsuit in which an Austintown Township man charged the Ohio Lottery Commission with breach of contract for refusing to pay his winnings of $80,346 in a lump sum .

The Youngstown Park and Recreation Commission is looking to close the North Side Pool and lease the six-acre property at Belmont Avenue and Tod Lane.

General Motors Chairman Rodger B. Smith believes Packard Electric Division union and management leaders can still work together despite rejection of the “Final Assembly Option,” which would have authorized lower wages for lower skilled work by Warren hourly employees in August.

December 9, 1968: Huge stamping presses, some four-stories high, are included in plans for the new Fisher Body fabricating plant that will be built at General Motors’ Lordstown complex.

Two Youngstown girls, students at Central State University, Xenia, are treated at a hospital there after one lost a tip of a finger and the other suffered an asthmatic attack during a dormitory “panty raid.”

Two Warren surgeons, Dr. Joseph Logan and Dr. Jerome Stanislaw, are shaken up but unhurt when their single-engine plane plummets into a swamp in Vienna Township as they were returning home from a Cleveland Browns-Washington Redskins football game in Washington, D.C.

December 9, 1958: An emergency parking ban on Federal Street keeps traffic moving in Downtown Youngstown, despite five inches of snow and crowds of Christmas shoppers.

Laurin D. Woodworth is named chairman of the 1959 drive for the Mahoning County Chapter of the American Red Cross, which has a goal of $222,715.

Charles G. Watson, who headed Youngstown Welding and Engineering Co. for 21 years, during which the company saw its greatest growth, will become chairman of the board and his 34-year-old nephew, Frank C. Watson, will take over as president.

December 9, 1933: Attorney James P. Wilson, 76, one of Youngs–town’s oldest and most prominent lawyers, dies after suffering a heart attack at his home at 228 W. Madison Ave. He had been a delegate to the constitutional convention just days earlier.

Indictments have been dropped against Halbert F. Riley and J.G. Beck of a Chicago contracting firm, charging them with trying to bribe Fred A. LaBelle while he was a director and secretary of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District.

Preliminary mill schedules indicate that operations will again rise to the 35 percent mark and perhaps higher, allowing the recall of a few additional workers.