Today is Thursday, Dec. 31, the 365th and final day of 2009. Today is New Year’s Eve. On this

Today is Thursday, Dec. 31, the 365th and final day of 2009. Today is New Year’s Eve. On this date in 1909, the Manhattan Bridge, spanning the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, is officially opened to vehicular traffic by New York City Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. on his last day in office.

In 1759, Arthur Guinness founds his famous brewery at St. James’s Gate in Dublin. In 1775, the British repulse an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery is killed. In 1879, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrates his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J. In 1946, President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II. In 1969, Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America, is shot to death along with his wife and daughter in their Clarksville, Pa., home by hit men acting under the orders of UMWA President Tony Boyle.

December 31, 1984: Lillian Butcher Stambaugh, who devoted her life to Youngstown’s cultural interests, primarily through the Monday Musical Club which she served for 65 years, dies in St. Elizabeth hospital.

Some $47,600 in financial pledges are made to the United Negro College Fund by Youngstown area residents during a nationally broadcast telethon.

Gertrude “Kitty” McCabe of Boardman, administrative assistant and calendar scheduling coordinator at Youngstown State University, retires after 25 years service to YSU.

December 31, 1969: Incoming Youngstown Police Chief Donald G. Baker announces that Capt. Carmen Bruno will head the department’s Juvenile Bureau. Baker says he will abolish the Intelligence and Security Squad that has been headed by Sgt. William Leshnock and create a new vice section headed by Sgt. Randall Wellington.

General Motors will close its Fisher Body-Chevrolet Plant in Lordstown for two days, idling more than 5,000 employees, in an effort to balance inventory.

William L. Spencer, local insurance executive, is re-elected president of the Youngstown Area Chamber of commerce.

December 31, 1959: Mayor Frank X. Kryzan completes his 10-year public service career, turning over City Hall to Frank R. Franko, who takes office with a salary of $17,500, a $2,500 increase.

Youngstown City Council bows to the demands of outgoing Mayor Frank X. Kryzan, renewing a 9-mill income tax rather than hiking it to an even 1 percent.

About 150 spectators overflow into the halls and passageways of Judge Frank J. Battisti’s Common Pleas courtroom for the swearing in of Youngstown Municipal judges Martin P. Joyce and Don L. Hanni Jr.

December 31, 1934: Youngs-town district steel plants are ending the year operating at 50 percent of capacity.

Congressman John G. Cooper, Youngstown Republican, is in Washington ready for the opening of the 74th Congress and prepared to defend himself against an effort by Locke Miller, the defeated Democrat, who has filed a statement with the clerk of the House to prevent Cooper from taking his seat.

As the mercury stays below 20 degrees, ice at Lake Newport is smooth and black and skating throughout the area is reported the best in years.

“A godless civilization cannot abide,” says Rabbi I.E. Philo at Rodef Sholem Temple during an address on “Can Intelligent Man Believe in God.”