Years Ago

Today is Sunday, Dec. 18, the 352nd day of 2011. There are 13 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

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.)

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.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: A West Branch High School student, Lennie Hofstetter, is fighting to keep the Mohawk hairstyle he adopted during football season when he was the school’s “Warrior Chief” athletic mascot.

General Motors will shut down the Lordstown complex from Jan. 19 to 26 as part of a nationwide effort to cut car inventories.

1971: The Lordstown General Motors plant is shut down for a day after more than 8,000 workers are sent home early as the result of a continuing labor dispute over work assignments.

A 41-year-old South Side man tried to out-talk and outgun Lena Centofanti, co-owner of the Peacock Garden on South Avenue, but she wrestled his gun away from him and then pulled her own pistol and held him until police arrived to arrest him.

1961: Nearly 1,300 people, including Gov. Michael DiSalle, U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan and other state and federal officials, attend a testimonial dinner at the Idora Park Ballroom for U.S. district Judge Frank J. Battisti.

1936: Unemployment in Youngstown as measured by records of three relief and work agencies has dropped more than 60 percent in three years.

The Youngstown Lions Club entertains 70 blind children during a Christmas party at Indianola M.E. Church.