Years Ago

Today is Sunday, Dec. 23, the 358th day of 2012. There are eight days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1823: The poem now known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” is published anonymously as “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel.

1928: The National Broadcasting Company sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast network.

1941: During World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrender to the Japanese.

1962: Cuba begins releasing prisoners from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion under an agreement in which Cuba would receive more than $50 million worth of food and medical supplies.

1968: Eighty-two crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo are released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.

1972: In what becomes known as football’s “Immaculate Reception,” Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers catches a pass thrown by Terry Bradshaw and scores a touchdown after the ball had been deflected during a collision between Jack Tatum of the Oakland Raiders and the Steelers’ John Fuqua; the Steelers win the game (and an AFC divisional playoff) 13-7.

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Browning Ferris Industries files a complaint in Franklin County Court against the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency saying the agency is unfairly attempting to limit the amount of trash going into its Poland landfill.

U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. pushes through Congress a $3.5 million program that would provide federally approved counseling services to struggling homeowners facing foreclosure.

Sen. Robert J. Boggs, D-18th, Jefferson, introduces a bill that would add a fourth judge to the 11th District Court of Appeals.

1972: Leroy Fort, 21, of 453 W. Evergreen Ave., a construction worker, is fatally wounded when one of two unidentified men fires a shotgun into his car as it stops in the 300 block of Wallace Avenue to discharge a passenger.

The Rev. Kevin R. Keelan, president of Steubenville College, denies a request by some students for a policy that would allow dormitory room visits between the sexes.

1962: Some 600 Alliance residents send a telegram to favorite son Len Dawson wishing the star quarterback luck in the American Football League championship game between the Dallas Texans and Houston Oilers.

Three Youngstown mail carriers who have walked a total of 300,000 miles between mail boxes are retiring after completing their last Christmas rush: Walter I. Colbrunn, Harry T. Dobrindt and Paul A. Ricker Sr.

1937: A 14-year-old Lane Avenue boy is in South Side hospital with a bullet wound of the abdomen after being shot by a Youngstown policeman while fleeing down an alley with two other boys in an area where copper plumbing has been systematically stripped from vacant houses.

Fifteen of 16 firemen overcome while fighting a $25,000 fire at the Autenreith store in New Castle, Pa., remain hospitalized from the effects of a strange gas that rose from the basement.

A U.S. Senate civil liberties committee charges that Mahoning Valley companies spent about $133,000 on labor spies over four years that culminated with strikes in the summer of 1937.