Years Ago
Today is Thursday, Dec. 24, the 358th day of 2009. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve. On this date in 1809, legendary American frontiersman Christopher “Kit” Carson is born in Madison County, Ky.
In 1524, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama — who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India — dies in Cochin, India. In 1814, the War of 1812 officially ends as the United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium. In 1851, fire devastates the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes. In 1865, several veterans of the Confederate Army form a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., called the Ku Klux Klan. In 1871, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Aida” has its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt. In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord. In 1951, Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” the first opera written specifically for television, is first broadcast by NBC.
December 24, 1984: Youngs-town area service stations are slashing prices well below Ohio averages of $1.06 a gallon, with many stations selling fuel below a dollar and some as low as 96 cents a gallon.
Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Robert A. Nader dismisses an appeal by Robert D. Parks, who claimed incompetent representation in his trial that resulted in conviction for the 1977 murders of a Girard doctor and his receptionist.
A man who opened his clothing store in Columbia, S.C., dressed as Santa on the Sunday before Christmas was one of five merchants arrested for violating South Carolina’s blue laws prohibiting Sunday sales.
December 24, 1969: The name of Lt. Cmdr. Robert Shumaker, 36, of Wilmington Township, Lawrence County, Pa., is on a list of servicemen described as prisoners of war in North Vietnam. His plane was reported lost while on a mission in February 1965. There was no word on a missing Youngstown flier, Maj. Charles E. Franklin, missing since Aug. 14, 1966.
A group of Lake Milton residents files a declaratory judgment action asking Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to determine what rights they have to use Lake Milton waters and the shoreline.
December 24, 1959: Youngs-town officials sign a $5.5 million contract with the Malan Corp. of New York for construction of a sewage disposal and treatment plant.
Mayor Frank X. Kryzan says Youngstown will end the year with a $500,000 surplus and there “is no excuse for burdening” city taxpayers with an increased income tax. He says he’ll veto an ordinance that increases the tax from 9 mills to a full percent.
December 24, 1934: The Rt. Rev. Monsignor William A. Kane, pastor of St. Patrick Church and dean of Mahoning Valley clergy, is one of 20 priests of the Cleveland diocese invested as a domestic prelate of Pope Pius XI.
Robert W. Kelly, president of Robert W. Kelly Publishing Co. and a former Youngstowner, has produced a book, “Youngstown in Pen and Pencil,” which contains 57 sketches of Youngstown landmarks by New York artist Nicholas Comito.