Years Ago

Today is Thursday, Dec. 23, the 357th day of 2010. There are 8 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1783: George Washington resigns as commander in chief of the Continental Army and retires to his home at Mount Vernon, Va.

1788: Maryland passes an act to cede an area “not exceeding 10 miles square” for the seat of the national government, which becomes the District of Columbia.

1823: The poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” is published anonymously in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel; the verse, more popularly known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” is later attributed to Clement C. Moore.

1893: The Engelbert Humperdinck opera “Haensel und Gretel” is first performed, in Weimar, Germany.

1928: The National Broadcasting Company sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast network.

1941: During World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrender to the Japanese.

1948: Former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders are executed in Tokyo.

1968: Eighty-two crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo are released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.

1975: Richard S. Welch, CIA station chief in Athens, is shot and killed outside his home by the militant group November 17.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: The Ungaro administration and the union representing Youngstown police officers submit 24 unresolved issues to binding arbitration.

Gasoline prices in the Youngstown area have risen considerably since Christmas of 1984 and range from $1.01 to $1.04 per gallon for unleaded self-serve regular, but is still several cents below the national average.

Gov. Richard F. Celeste says former Gov. James A. Rhodes is partially responsible for the demise of the steel industry in the Mahoning Valley because the Rhodes administration did not develop a strategy for the state to assist in mill modernization.

1970: Bradley Smith of Lake Milton, a Navy pilot downed over Vietnam in 1965, is one of nine Ohioans on a list of 339 prisoners being held in North Vietnam provided by Hanoi.

At least 12 of the 15 black members of the Mayor’s Human Relations Commission say they will quit to protest Mayor Jack Hunter’s firing of E. Thaxton King as Model Cities director.

1960: A $40,000 fire destroys 42 purebred cattle at the Charles Foster dairy farm on route 170 six miles north of East Palestine.

Municipal Judge Don Hanni stalks out of City Hall after a quarrel with Detective Lou Houser who expressed a preference for a different judge in a case involving a used car dealer charged with not keeping records required by ordinance to be kept by junk dealers.

1935: Youngstown Mayor Mark Moore announces that the city has enough money to pay $50 in overdue wages payments for each employee before Christmas.

As the mercury drops to three below zero, three elderly area residents die from the effects of the cold: Jemima Jackson of Youngstown, Harry Penn of Sharon and Edward McCormick of Youngstown.