Years Ago

Today is Thursday, Dec. 16, the 350th day of 2010. There are 15 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1770: Composer Ludwig van Beethoven is born in Bonn, Germany.

1773: The Boston Tea Party takes place as American colonists board a British ship and dump more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest tea taxes.

1907: Sixteen U.S. Navy battleships, which com to be known as the “Great White Fleet,” set sail on a 14-month round-the-world voyage to demonstrate American sea power.

1944: The World War II Battle of the Bulge begins as German forces launch a surprise attack against Allied forces in Belgium (the Allies are eventually able to beat the Germans back).

1950: President Harry S. Truman proclaims a national state of emergency in order to fight “world conquest by Communist imperialism.”

1960: One hundred and thirty-four people are killed when a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collide over New York City.

1985: Organized-crime chief Paul Castellano and bodyguard Thomas Billotti are shot to death outside a New York City restaurant on orders from John Gotti.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: Michael Lanese of Mayfield, Ohio, a cocaptain on the Ohio State University football team, is named a Rhodes scholar, the first from the university since 1931.

A 20-year-old Griffith Street man is indicted on a murder charge in the Nov. 5 shooting death of North Side store owner Mohammed Awadalla.

Advertisement: An American Bandstand Style New Year’s Eve at the Fountain-Bleu, featuring Boots Bell spinning hits from the ’50s through ’80s. $35 a couple, includes dinner and drink mixers; BYOB.

1970: Jack Hall, 50, well-known area musician and a friend to many, is founded beaten to death in an alley alongside the Youngstown Hotel. He had been robbed.

FBI agents conducting a probe into illegal gambling serve warrants on 23 locations in northeast Ohio, including cherry’s Top of the Mall restaurant and night club in Niles and the Warren home of Anthony “Tony the Dope” Delsanter.

Mizell Stewart, exalted ruler of the Buckeye Elks Lodge, says two more contributions have been made by area organizations to the capital fund-raising campaign for the new youth center.

Atty. Virgil McGuffin Jr. is chosen prophet of the Year at Aut Mori Grotto’s annual appreciation dinner at the Grotto Hall.

1960: Youngstown district hoodlum “Big John” Schuller, 42, is shot to death by assailants in old Route 82, a mile west of Route 90 in Vienna Township. Schuller had cheated death in 1958 when his automobile was bombed.

Warren Mayor Walter Pestrak says the Chicago district office of the Department of Public Health, Education and Welfare has warned Warren that its federal grant for a sewage disposal system is in jeopardy because of delays on the project.

The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. receives approval from Youngstown City Council for its proposed oxygen jet system on its open hearths.

1935: Margaret Rohman, 12, is in very critical condition in South Side Hospital a with a gunshot wound suffered while she attempted to reassemble an antique pistol at her Poland home to see if it would work.

Sheriff Ralph Elser celebrates his 50th birthday with raids on five liquor dens and the arrests of five men.

A proposed Youngstown district airport at Vienna would be 10 miles, or about 20 minutes drive, from the heart of Youngstown, but it would still be closer by many miles and minutes than are airports of some larger cities, supporters say.