Years Ago

Today is Thursday, Dec. 27, the 362nd day of 2012. There are four days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1512: King Ferdinand II issues the original Laws of Burgos, which are intended to regulate the treatment of indigenous people on Hispaniola by Spanish settlers.

1822: Scientist Louis Pasteur is born in Dole, France.

1831: Naturalist Charles Darwin sets out on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.

1904: James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opens at the Duke of York’s Theater in London.

1927: The musical play “Show Boat,” with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II, opens at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York.

1932: New York City’s Radio City Music Hall opens to the public in midtown Manhattan. (Opening night, consisting of several hours of live acts, is considered a disaster, prompting the owners to shift to a format of showing a movie followed by a stage show.)

1945: Twenty eight nations sign an agreement creating the World Bank.

1947: The original version of the puppet character Howdy Doody makes its TV debut on NBC’s “Puppet Playhouse.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1987: Eighth graders at St. Patrick School tested in the 81st percentile on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, which isn’t extraordinary except that the same class tested in the 3rd percentile when they entered 1st grade. The “get tough” attitude of Sister Mary Dunn, the principal, gets much of the credit.

Merchants report that stores in the Southern Park Mall were as busy the day after Christmas as they were on Christmas Eve.

Sam Bahour, 23, who works at his father’s R&S United Family Foods store on Elm Street and who has lived for about five years in the West Bank, says he supports recent protests by Palestinians against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

1972: A lone bandit robs the cashier at the 20th Century Restaurant, 1760 Belmont Ave., escaping with an undetermined amount of cash.

Dr. Douglas Goldsmith is elected chief of staff at Youngstown Osteopathic Hospital.

Youngstown’s two shopping center developers, Edward J. DeBartolo and William M. Cafaro, will be co-chairman of the 1973 Heart Fund campaign in Mahoning County.

Isabelle Miller, education placement director at Youngstown State University, estimates that 300 graduates were placed in teaching jobs in the last year and says she still has openings in math, general sciences, special education and music.

When North Carolina State faces West Virginia in the Peach Bowl, there will be a lot of local interest: N.C. head coach is East Liverpool’s Lou Holtz, one of his key assistants is Niles graduate Bo Rein and on the squad is Pat Hovance of Warren John F. Kennedy High.

1962: Frigid Canadian air sweeps through the Mahoning Valley, dropping temperatures to near zero.

Luther T. Fawcett, 77, retired chief engineer of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, dies in Daytona Beach, Fla., of heart failure.

Julio DiBenedetto, producer/director of CBS-TV’s “Candid Camera,” brings his new bride, the former “Miss England, 1962,” to Youngstown for a visit with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel DiBenedetto, 1982 Brownlee Ave.

1937: A.W. Craver, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party and a former mayor of Youngstown, is named acting postmaster of the Youngstown Post Office.

Mrs. Louis J. Campbell, daughter-in-law of the late James A. Campbell, founder of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., dies of a bullet wound from a revolver fired by her daughter, Louise, 28. During a coroner’s inquest, Miss Campbell testifies that she had impulsively fired the gun at a candle during a Christmas Eve party and that the gun discharged accidentally when her mother attempted to take it from her.

Mahoning County Clerk of Courts William Quinlan reveals that 850 aliens were naturalized in the county during 1937, about 100 more than in 1936.

Youngstown will pay $4,017 in overtime to 131 members of the fire department for overtime worked during the summer steel strikes. Payments will range from $30 to $60 per man.