Today is Wednesday, Dec. 30, the 364th day of 2009. There is one day left in the year. On this date

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 30, the 364th day of 2009. There is one day left in the year. On this date in 1853, the United States and Mexico sign a treaty under which the U.S. agrees to buy some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $10 million in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase.

In 1813, the British burn Buffalo, N.Y., during the War of 1812. In 1903, about 600 people die when fire breaks out at the recently opened Iroquois Theater in Chicago. In 1907, the Mills Commission issues its final report, concluding that Abner Doubleday had invented baseball, a view few sports historians, if any, agree with. In 1936, the United Auto Workers union stages its first “sit-down” strike, at the Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, Mich. In 1948, the Cole Porter musical “Kiss Me, Kate” opens on Broadway. In 1972, the United States halts its heavy bombing of North Vietnam. In 1979, Broadway composer Richard Rodgers dies in New York at age 77. In 1989, a Northwest Airlines DC-10, which had been the target of a telephoned threat, flies safely from Paris to Detroit with 22 passengers amid extra-tight security. In 1994, a gunman walks into a pair of suburban Boston abortion clinics and opens fire, killing two employees. (John C. Salvi III is later convicted of murder; he dies in prison, an apparent suicide.)

December 30, 1984: A year after undergoing a heart transplant, Youngstown retired railroad worker Nick Julian says that although he’s still limited in what he can do, he’d encourage anyone who needed a transplant to get one.

Youngstown Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro says he will seek re-election in 1985, even though he expects a tough political battle. He says the reaction he gets from people he meets in the street is overwhelmingly positive.

Air Force Lt. Col. James Wansack, a Campbell native, is project manager on the X-29, the first experimental U.S. military craft in more than a decade. The supersonic X-29 is made of a graphite-epoxy material and has unusual forward-swept wings.

December 30, 1969: Republican Mayor Jack C. Hunter and four GOP councilmen, the first of their party to hold a council majority in many years, are sworn in. The councilmen are William Wade, William Shranko, William Bryant and Emanuel Catsoules.

The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department and the Ohio State Highway Patrol will be out in full force on traffic patrol on New Year’s Eve.

The Youngstown Board of Education agrees to pay for improved hospitalization benefits for its 1,800 employees at a cost of nearly $400,000.

December 30, 1959: The William H. Kilcawley Charitable Trust announces a $300,000 gift to Youngstown University toward construction of a student center that will be called the William H. and Mattie M. Kilcawley Student Center.

An attractive 18-year-old mother of three, Mrs. Carolyn Retort, is shot to death in an East Side New Castle, Pa., house. The 43-year-old owner of the home surrenders to police in North Lima, Ohio.

Blue Cross hospitalization subscribers in Youngstown must agree to a new share-the-cost plan or a rate increase to meet the rising cost of hospital care. A typical family plan will go from $10.55 a month to $11.80.

December 30, 1934: Leaders of the steel and fabricating industries in Youngstown are optimistic entering 1935 and envision a 20 percent increase in output during the year.

State Liquor Control Board agents arrest five Youngstown area men, 10 days after making undercover buys of illicit holiday-season liquor.

A Leningrad firing squad ends the lives of 14 asserted anti-Stalin terrorists convicted of plotting and carrying out the assassination of Sergei Kiroff, a powerful Communist. They are among 176 men found guilty of terrorism in secret trials and executed.