Today is Sunday, Dec. 14, the 349th day of 2008. There are 17 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Sunday, Dec. 14, the 349th day of 2008. There are 17 days left in the year. On this date in 1799, the first president of the United States, George Washington, dies at his Mount Vernon, Va., home at age 67.

In 1819, Alabama joins the Union as the 22nd state. In 1861, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, dies in London. In 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his group become the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott. In 1939, the Soviet Union is dropped from the League of Nations. In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly votes to establish U.N. headquarters in New York.In 1962, the U.S. space probe Mariner 2 approaches Venus, transmitting information about the planet. In 1975, six South Moluccan extremists surrender after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen. In 1981, Israel annexes the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in 1967. In 1995, Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia sign the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris. In 2006, South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon is sworn in as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations.

December 14, 1983: At least six weapons confiscated in a 1981 FBI raid at the home of Youngstown racketeer Joseph “Little Joey” Naples were returned to the Naples family by Mahoning County Prosecutor Vincent Gilmartin, although the weapons were stolen and used to convict Naples in 1962 of receiving stolen property. Gilmartin says returning the weapons was a “stupid oversight.”

The Youngstown-Warren area, which on several occasions in 1983 had the highest metropolitan unemployment rate in the United States, records the second largest jobless rate drop over the year. The unemployment rate dropped 6.6 percent, second only to Rockford, Ill.’s, drop of 8.7 percent. The unemployment rate in Mahoning-Trumbull County remains at 13.7 percent, which is the lowest in two years.

Don Gurd of Vienna is installed as president of the Organization of Protestant men during a service at the First Free Methodist Church in Canfield.

December 14, 1968: A 4-mill school operating levy is approved for Austintown schools at a special election, five weeks after being defeated in the general election.

A Poland woman who manages the Book Sale Store at 258 W. Federal St. is fined $200 on charges of possession of obscene magazines with the intention to sell after being arrested by two Youngstown patrolmen. Municipal Judge Joseph Donofrio says the First Amendment does not cover magazines comprised of obscene photos.

Woodside Receiving Hospital and Little Forest Medical Center join St. Elizabeth, North Side and South Side hospitals in restricting visitation because of an increase in respiratory disease.

December 14, 1958: Charles M. White, chairman of Republic Steel Corp., says the company will proceed with a multimillion dollar expansion program at its Youngstown works despite a recession.

With only nine shopping days remaining until Christmas, shoppers jam downtown stores, giving merchants the best sales day of the season.

Charles Machuga, 10, of 712 Oxford Ave., Youngstown, wins top prize in the Ohio Bell Telephone Co.’s sixth annual Christmas art contest. His winter scene of a rural church appears on the cover of December issue of the company magazine.

December 14, 1933: County Relief Director Ray Noble says he will continue to ask increases in Mahoning County’s Civil Works Administration quota until every qualified job applicant is put to work.

A monument to CWA is planned by Water Commissioner Dan Parish in the form of a fire department drill tower for which Fire Chief Harry Callan and former Chief Joseph Wallace have been pleading for more than 10 years. It will be built from Brier Hill stone.