Years Ago

Today is Thursday, Dec. 30, the 364th day of 2010. There is one day left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1853: The Gadsden Purchase is signed with Mexico to sell the southern portion of Arizona and New Mexico to the United States for $10 million.

1903: Some 600 people die in the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago.

1972: The United States halts its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.

1980: The Spanish government agrees to allow the autonomous Basque government to raise taxes in the region and return only about one-third of the revenue to Madrid.

1993: Israel and the Vatican agree to establish full diplomatic ties.

VINDICATOR FILES

1985: Firefighters and the Crawford County Scuba team salvage a ski plane owned by Richard Flemming of Kinsman that broke through the ice and began to sink after landing on Conneaut Lake.

About 30 communities across the country have responded to attacks on people by pit bull dogs by restricting or outright banning the breed.

1970: The Campbell Board of Education approves a new teacher salary schedule that increases the starting pay for a teacher from $5,800 to $6,500.

Pfc. Richard J. Knickerbocker, 20, son of Maj. H.S. Knickerbocker, coordinator of the Salivation Army in Youngstown, is reported to have died in a military hospital in South Vietnam, without learning that his daughter had been born three days earlier. He had been injured by an explosive device two weeks earlier.

1960: Presiding Judge Forrest J. Cavalier says people filing civil action in Youngstown Municipal Court will have to pay $5 toward costs and a $1.50 filing fee at the time suit is filed.

Youngstown begins the new year with thousands of workers being recalled as output of area mills goes from 20 percent of capacity to 33 percent.

1935: A car owned by William Clark of 3648 Neilson Ave., is stuck on the ice of Lake Glacier after Clark went through a guard rail and skidded onto the lake. Clark tried driving across the lake to the bathing beach but one tire cut through the 5-inch thick ice.