Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Dec. 29, the 364th day of 2012. There are two days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1170: Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is slain in Canterbury Cathedral by knights loyal to King Henry II.

1812: During the War of 1812, the American frigate USS Constitution engages and severely damages the British frigate HMS Java off Brazil.

1890: The Wounded Knee massacre takes place in South Dakota as an estimated 300 Sioux Indians are killed by U.S. troops sent to disarm them.

1940: During World War II, Germany drops incendiary bombs on London, setting off what came to be known as “The Second Great Fire of London.”

1957: Singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme are married in Las Vegas.

1972: Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, crashes into the Florida Everglades near Miami International Airport, killing 101 of the 176 people aboard.

1975: A bomb explodes in the main terminal of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 people.

2002: Secretary of State Colin Powell, making the rounds of the Sunday TV talk shows, says there is still time to find a diplomatic resolution to North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, and that the situation hadn’t yet reached the crisis stage.

Vindicator files

1987: Edward H. Rensi, who left Hermitage as an assistant manager of a McDonald’s restaurant, returns to town as president and CEO of McDonald’s USA, and helps Sam Covelli of Warren open Covelli’s 29th McDonald’s, a new store at East State Street.

Atty. David Engler, a former assistant city law director, is named by Mayor Patrick Ungaro to replace Atty. Avetis Darvanan on the city’s Civil Service Commission.

President Reagan’s secretary of Education, William J. Bennett presents his vision of the ideal high school in which every student would be required to take 36 courses, from art history and algebra to science and Western civilization.

1972: Plans for a new state-supported medical school in Northeastern Ohio — the much discussed consortium of Youngstown, Kent and Akron state universities, — are unveiled in Columbus. MEDCO, as it is being called, would provide for a six-year program that would confer bachelor of science and doctor of medicine degrees.

The Youngstown Park and Recreation Commission votes to order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to drain Lake Milton to expose the dam for inspection.

The bodies of two young women and a man are found in the basement of a Second Street SW home in Warren, the victims of execution-style shootings. Dead are Janet Kilgore, Joyce Hughley, both 19, and Clarence Williamson, 25.

1962: Niles Municipal Judge Anthony DeJute finds nine defendants guilty of “drag race participation” and fines them $200 each and suspends their licenses for six months to a year.

The Park and Recreation commission is challenging a ruling by Law Director Russell Mock that because the appropriation of funds is power vested in City Council, the park commission is barred from transferring funds designated for one use to another without council approval.

George L. Wick, 74, retired secretary of he Mahoning Valley Steel Co. dies at his residence at 2219 Fifth Ave after suffering with a severe cold for most of the month.

1937: Thousands of Youngstown workers are late to their jobs after a break in power at the North Avenue substation of Ohio Edison Co. disrupts street car and trambus service from 8 a.m. to 8:20.

Youngstown City Engineer Albert Haenny says work will begin within five weeks on a footbridge over the Erie Railroad tracks at Phelps Street. The cost is estimated at $8,000. A rare set of quadruplet calves is thriving a week after being born at the Garrettsville farm of David Miller.