Years Ago

Today is Sunday, Dec. 12, the 346th day of 2010. There are 19 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1787: Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1870: Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the first black lawmaker sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives.

1897: “The Katzenjammer Kids,” the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, makes its debut in the New York Journal.

1906: President Theodore Roosevelt nominates Oscar Straus to be Secretary of Commerce and Labor; Straus becomes the first Jewish Cabinet member.

1917: Father Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town outside Omaha, Neb.

1925: The first motel — the Motel Inn — opens in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

1937: Japanese aircraft sink the U.S. gunboat Panay on China’s Yangtze River. (Japan apologizes, and pays $2.2 million in reparations.)

1939: Swashbuckling actor Douglas Fairbanks dies in Santa Monica, Calif. at age 56.

1985: Two hundred and forty eight American soldiers and eight crew members are killed when an Arrow Air charter crashes after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.

2000: A divided U.S. Supreme Court makes Republican George W. Bush president-elect over Democrat Al Gore as the justices reverse a state court decision for recounts in Florida’s contested election. (The nation’s highest court agrees, 7-2, to overturn the order for a state recount and votes 5-4 that there is no acceptable procedure by which a timely new recount could take place.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: Angelo Papa, named to head an administration review committee of the New Castle Area School Board, recommends that administrators, principals, teachers and parents join to enforce student discipline.

A two-month controversy is laid to rest when Warren City Council votes 8-3 to allow Planned Parenthood of the Mahoning Valley to relocate its Warren clinic to the city-owned Community Services Building.

Richard Blackwell, whose attempts to restore the Paramount Theater and B&O Railroad station downtown faltered, is calling for acquiring the Youngstown Sheet & Tube mill housing the Jeanette blast furnace and converting into a steel museum.

1970: The Youngstown Board of Zoning Appeals grants several variances to permit the construction of 106 town-house apartments on the site of the old Petrie Club on McGuffey Road.

Clarence V. Thomas, proprietor of the Holiday Inn at West Middlesex, describes his recent trip along the 6,000-mile Trans-Siberian Railway to the Youngstown Downtown Kiwanis Club.

1960: Sheriff-elect Ray T. Davis asks Paul J. Langley for permission for himself and a few “key personnel” to work with Langley and his staff during the last two weeks of December and for a complete inventory of the fixtures and equipment issued to the sheriff’s department.

Christine Fry, a 16-year-old A student at Liberty High School, is chosen to study for eight months in New Zealand under the American Field Service student exchange program.

Mrs. Maud Amon Burr, who was Hillman Street Christian Church’s first pianist at the age of 15 in 1900, returns to the piano to play during the 60th anniversary service.

1935: Daniel Rovenstein, who is Santa Claus for youngsters visiting a downtown department store, lost all his belongings, including his Santa suit, in a fire at his rented home on Colfax Ave., but is happy to have escaped with his life.

Michael J. Kirwan, retiring Youngstown 4th Ward Councilman, has been awarded a license to open a state liquor dealership in the Kirwan & DeRose men’s clothing store at 1650 Mahoning Avenue.

Representatives of the Federated Youth Council, representing 10,000 young members of 27 Protestant churches in the Youngstown area, pledge to refrain from playing the “bug” and from other forms of gambling.

Advertisement: Christmas Super Specials at Youngstown’s musical gift headquarters, Wurlitzer at 110 E. Federal St. Brand new guitar, a $9.95 value, $4.95; American made silver-plated saxophone, $69.50. Both include a month of private lessons by an excellent teacher.