Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 28, the 362nd day of 2011. There are three days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1694: Queen Mary II of England dies after more than five years of joint rule with her husband, King William III.

1832: John C. Calhoun becomes the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson.

1908: A major earthquake followed by a tsunami devastates the Italian city of Messina, killing at least 70,000 people.

1945: Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance.

1961: The Tennessee Williams play “Night of the Iguana” opens on Broadway.

1981: Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American “test-tube” baby, is born in Norfolk, Va.

1991: Nine people die in a crush to get into a rap celebrity basketball game at City College in New York.

2001: The National Guard is called out to help Buffalo, N.Y., dig out from a paralyzing, 5-day storm that had unloaded nearly 7 feet of snow.

Vindicator files

1986: Mayor Patrick Ungaro says he will begin the process of firing several municipal employees who live outside the city in an attempt to enforce Youngstown’s long-ignored residency law.

Monobloc USA in Hermitage says it expects to produce 80 million seamless aerosol cans in 1987.

Dawn and Bob Henderson are converting an 83-year-old former fraternity house on Waugh Avenue in New Wilmington into a bed and breakfast that will be called Gabriel’s.

1971: Mayor Jack C. Hunter says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will conduct a thorough inspection of Lake Milton Dam because of its steadily deteriorating condition.

Four Youngstown area subdivisions are approved for $500,000 in federal Emergency Employment funds that will be earmarked for hiring the unemployed, especially Vietnam veterans.

A federal judge orders 16 anti-war veterans and the barricades they have erected removed from the inside the Statue of Liberty, where they have been protesting continued involvement in the war.

Campbell Police Chief John Wasko tells Mayor Rocco Mico that he will retire Jan. 1 after 48 years of service.

1961: Youngstown Mayor-elect Harry Savasten names Capt. William R. Golden, 64, a 31-year veteran of the police department, as the new chief.

Youngstown City Council approves an expansion plan for Youngstown University that would expand the campus to include virtually all land between Wick and Fifth Avenues from east to west and between Lincoln Avenue and the proposed Madison Expressway from south to north.

Frigid temperatures and falling snow brings the speed limit on the entire Pennsylvania Turnpike down to 35 mph.

1936: Final figures show Youngstown’s Christmas trade was 30 percent above the 1935 numbers, but fell short of breaking the 1929 record.

Youngstown will get a completely staffed and equipped district Social Security office, which will open in the Terminal Building.

Youngstown Mayor Lionel Evans says none of the city jobs abolished when he took office at the beginning of 1936 will be restored in the new year because the city has no funds for the old positions.