Today is Monday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2008. There are 359 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Monday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2008. There are 359 days left in the year. On this date in 1789, the first U.S. presidential election is held. Americans vote for electors who, a month later, choose George Washington to be the nation’s first president.

In 1608, an accidental fire devastates the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony. In 1904, the Marconi International Marine Communication Co. of London announces that the telegraphed letters “CQD” would serve as a maritime distress call (it is later replaced by “SOS”). In 1927, commercial transatlantic telephone service is inaugurated between New York and London. In 1942, the Japanese siege of Bataan begins during World War II. In 1953, President Truman announces in his State of the Union message to Congress that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb. In 1972, Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H. Rehnquist are sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2006, Jill Carroll, a freelance journalist for The Christian Science Monitor, is kidnapped and her interpreter shot dead in one of Baghdad’s most dangerous Sunni Arab neighborhoods. (Carroll is freed almost three months later.)

January 7, 1983: The U.S. Justice Department is asking $108 million in fines from LTV Corp., a move that might force LTV’s subsidiary, Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., to abandon its plan to retain its Campbell Works byproduct coke plant.  

San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh comes to Youngstown to meet with Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., after which DeBartolo declares that Walsh “is going to be with the San Francisco 49ers for a long time to come.

The Department of Energy says natural gas prices will rise even faster than anticipated, possibly as high as 25 percent over the remainder of the winter.

January 7, 1968: Eight highway projects in Mahoning County costing about $40 million will be placed under contract in 1968.

The Youngstown Board of Education gives its emphatic support to Superintendent Woodrow Zinser in resolving a discipline incident at East High School by reinstating a 14-year-old female student to class a month after she was suspended for scuffling with a teacher.

Austintown Fitch and Cardinal Mooney high school debaters tie in the third annual debate tournament at Austintown, but Fitch wins the sweepstakes trophy in a tie-breaker.

January 7, 1958 Youngstown officials launch an investigation into cardboard partitions and other substandard construction in an old two-story school building at 110 Funston Street where 10 children and nine adults were routed from their apartments by an afternoon blaze.

Two Youngstown Board of Education members, Dr. Earl H. Young and George W. Brown, urge their colleagues to take immediate steps toward construction of new schools that will be necessary to meet the wave of children expected in the next few years.

The Eastern Ohio Pharmaceutical Association responds to complaints by Youngstown pharmacists angered by downtown druggists cutting prices on prescriptions for welfare clients and creating unfair competition for neighborhood stores. The association sets a maximum discount that pharmacies will be permitted to give on a $5 prescription.

January 7, 1933: The Rev. Michael Jonwinski, pastor of St. John’s Polish Roman Catholic Church in Campbell, announces that he is considering entering the race for Campbell mayor.

Mrs. George E. McNab, the oldest active member of Trinity M.E. Church, dies suddenly at her Crandall Avenue home. She was 79.

The first large order of the year for pipe is received by the Republic Steel Corp., which is awarded the contract to furnish 4,000 tons of 5, 6 and 8-inch electric welded pipe for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District.