Years Ago

Today is Friday, Dec. 23, the 357th day of 2011. There are eight 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.

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.

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, the Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Athens, is shot and killed outside his home by the militant group November 17.

1986: The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completes the first non-stop, non-refueled round-the-world flight as it returns safely to Edwards Air Force Base in California.

VINDICATOR FILES

1986: The Youngstown Civil Service Commission is trying to force Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro’s enforcement of the city’s residency law.

A throng of Browns fans line up early at the Southern Park Mall to buy tickets for the Browns playoff game which will be held in Cleveland Jan. 3 against an as-yet-unknown opponent.

General Motors Corp. employees at the Lordstown complex and at various Packard Electric Division plants play Santa to 300 needy area families.

1971: The Youngstown Health Department will issue identification cards to Youngstown senior citizens in the hope that merchants and others will give them price and fee reductions.

Open Road Industries of Lordstown, one of the firms that convert Lordstown-built General Motors vans into recreation vehicles will double its operation at the former Lordstown Ordnance Plant.

Youngstown Mayor Jack C. Hunter, elected to his second term as Republican mayor of Youngstown, is being prominently mentioned as a candidate for the 19th Congressional District seat held by Democrat Charles J. Carney.

1961: Two hooded gunmen terrorize 18 customers and employees at the New Waterford Bank, escaping with $25,000.

As the yuletide shopping season draws to an end, the Youngstown area’s leading stores report that their toy shelves are nearly bare.

Workers at the Kaiser Refractories plant take up a collection so that Oliver Snyder of Leetonia can buy Christmas gifts for his family after his 1958 Mercury containing his presents was stolen from the company parking lot.

1936: Dr. I. Frederic Jones, 56, former pastor of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Youngstown, dies in a Xenia hospital after an automobile accident en route to a CCC camp at Lebanon, Ohio, where he was chaplain.

About 4,000 families comprising 16,000 people, receive food and clothing during the yule season from clubs, churches, office groups and other organizations.

Gov. Martin L. Davey appoints John W. Powers municipal judge to succeed Henry P. Beckenbach who was elected to the domestic court.