Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 7, the 341st day of 2011. There are 24 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1796: Electors choose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.

1909: Chemist Leo H. Baekeland receives a U.S. patent for Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic.

1911: China abolishes the requirement that men wear their hair in a queue, or ponytail.

1941: The Imperial Japanese navy launches a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The raid, which claims some 2,400 American lives, prompts the United States to declare war against Japan the next day.

1946: Fire breaks out at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, killing 119 people, including hotel founder W. Frank Winecoff.

1987: Forty-three people are killed after a gunman aboard a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner in California apparently opens fire on a fellow passenger, the pilots and himself, causing the plane to crash.

1993: Gunman Colin Ferguson opens fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 19.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: In 1985, drillers drilled 1,269 gas and oil wells in Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana, Ashtabula and Portage counties. A year later, that number has dropped to 252, the lowest number by far for any of the last five years.

William Binning, chairman of the Mahoning County Republican Party, says he will urge Republican lawmakers to move a state agency, such as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, to downtown Youngstown.

1971: A prominent Youngstown businessman and his wife, Aaron and Eunice Bishop, are killed when their executive aircraft crashes into Lake Pontchartrain while attempting a landing. Frank Salinas, an employee of Bishop’s New Orleans Servi-Clean Industries, also dies.

Postal inspectors in Youngstown charge a 47-year-old Chicago Avenue man with possessing stolen blank money orders valued at $180,000. They were found in the stolen car he was driving when stopped by Youngstown police.

1961: The people of Youngstown made a “wise choice” in not re-electing Mayor Frank R. Franko, says 1st Ward Councilman Michael J. McCullion, like Franko, a Democrat, after Franko delivers a 10 minute tirade against The Vindicator, common pleas court and councilmen in a “farewell” blast.

Burglars trying to cart off rifles, shotguns and revolvers from the Stambaugh Thompson Co. wholesale warehouse at 3745 Henricks Road trip a burglar alarm. They escape empty-handed before police arrive.

1936: Margaret Ferencik, 8, and her six-year-old brother, Joseph, are killed when struck by a car at N. Water Street and Andrews Avenue in Sharon, while returning to their nearby home from a candy store where they bought six cents worth of suckers and caramels.

Six hundred families will receive Christmas dinners thanks to Esther Hamilton’s Alias Santa Claus Club’s sixth annual show, for which 3,100 $1 tickets were sold. Carl Yacoli’s “candy butchers” raised another $400.

The former Caroline Stambaugh of Youngstown, now Mrs. Irving Snyder and socially prominent in Coronado, Calif., once moved in the same circle with Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson, whose friendship with King Edward of England has created a government crisis. Mrs. Simpson lived in California when she was married to her first husband, Lt. Spencer, a naval officer.