Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Dec. 18, the 352nd day of 2010. There are 13 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1865: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, is declared in effect by Secretary of State William H. Seward.

1892: Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” publicly premieres in St. Petersburg, Russia.

1940: Adolf Hitler orders secret preparations for Nazi Germany to invade the Soviet Union. (Operation Barbarossa is launched in June 1941.)

1944: In a pair of rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the wartime relocation of Japanese-Americans, but also says undeniably loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry cannot continue to be detained.

1957: The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first public, full-scale commercial nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, goes on line. (It is taken out of service in 1982.)

1958: The world’s first communications satellite, SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment), nicknamed “Chatterbox,” is launched by the United States aboard an Atlas rocket.

1969: Britain’s House of Lords joins the House of Commons in making permanent a 1965 ban on the death penalty for cases of murder.

1972: The United States begins heavy bombing of North Vietnamese targets during the Vietnam War. (The bombardment ends 11 days later.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: The federal government denies a request for $150,000 to improve the disaster alert system in the Mahoning Valley.

A lawyer investigating for the Ohio High School Athletic Association says there is evidence of possible recruiting that could make a Detroit boy ineligible to play basketball for Boardman High School.

Youngstown Bishop James W. Malone, president of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, acknowledges there are differences between church liberals and conservatives during the recent Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, but says “there was no shootout” and press reports exaggerated the level of conflict.

1970: A masked bandit armed with tear gas robs the Lawson’s Dairy on Oak Street and the Gastown service station in North Jackson.

Mayor Jack C. Hunter calls for creation of a waiting room for witnesses at Youngstown Municipal Court following a shootout in which an armed woman was killed and a city patrolman wounded.

Youngstown City Council approves borrowing $484,000 to make the last payday of the year for city employees.

1960: Col. Wade C. Christy, 81, one of northeastern Ohio’s best known military heroes and Ohio National Guard leader, dies at the Dep Lake Manor Nursing Home. He was born on a Southington Township farm in 1879 and began his distinguished military career when he enlisted in 1898,

The Mahoning County Welfare Department is seeking a record $1.9 million for poor relief in 1961 in response to extensive unemployment.

The Youngstown Hospital Association will launch a drive for $1 million for expansion projects, including intern housing and the YHA School of Nursing.

1935: Firemen say a kerosene explosion caused a fire at an East Liverpool home in which Mrs. Verna Mullen, 26, her 9-day-old son, and her grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth Roush, were killed.

Judge David G. Jenkins swears in Lionel Evans as Youngstown’s new mayor.

Youngstown city employees, already seven weeks behind in salaries, face the dismal prospect of no payday before Christmas. On top of that, many office workers at City Hall are concerned because Mayor-elect Lionel Evans has not yet named his appointments and they’re wondering if they will have jobs in the new year.