Saturday, December 24, 2011
Today is Saturday, Dec. 24, the 358th day of 2011. There are seven days left in the year. This is Christmas Eve.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
On this date in:
1851: Fire devastates the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.
1814: The War of 1812 officially ends as the United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent.
1865: Several veterans of the Confederate Army form a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., called the Ku Klux Klan.
1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe as part of Operation Overlord.
1968: The Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve telecast.
1980: Americans remember the U.S. hostages in Iran by burning candles or shining lights for 417 seconds — one second for each day of captivity.
VINDICATOR FILES
1986: Youngstown area charities, inundated with more requests than a year earlier for Christmas food baskets, are scrambling to help everyone in need.
General Motors operations in the Mahoning Valley at the Lordstown assembly complex and Packard Electric Division plants added $1.6 billion to the area economy in 1986.
1971: At least 6,000 district unemployed industrial workers get a Christmas gift worth thousands of dollars, an extension of their state unemployment benefits.
Gary Bryner, president of Local 1112, United Auto Workers Union, reacts angrily to a letter from Plant Manager A.B. Anderson that accuses some workers at the Lordstown plant of “shoddy work and sabotage.”
Coach Dom Rosselli’s Youngstown State Penguins win their sixth straight cage outing, beating Illinois Wesleyan, 85-76, before 2,630 enthusiastic fans at Struthers Field House.
1961: Harry Meshel is the new president of the Lincoln Chapter 89, Order of Ahepa, succeeding Chris Chengelis
Bill Ruby of Hubbard, who gained fame as a defensive terror with the Wake Forest College Deacons, has signed a professional contract with the Washington Redskins of the NFL.
1936: An elderly woman who died of exposure in a snow bank along the tracks of the Lake Erie & Eastern Railroad in Youngstown remains at Fortunato Funeral Home, unidentified after two days. Only two people have called at Fortunato’s to see if they recognized the woman.
West Federal Street is barely passable as last-minute shoppers jam downtown Youngstown.
The Rotary Club puts on its annual Christmas party for crippled children at the Hotel Ohio.