Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 4, the 338th day of 2013. There are 27 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1619: A group of settlers from Bristol, England, arrives at Berkeley Hundred in present-day Charles City County, Va., where they hold a service thanking God for their safe arrival. (Some suggest this was the true first Thanksgiving in America, ahead of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Massachusetts.)

1783: Gen. George Washington bids farewell to his Continental Army officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.

1816: James Monroe of Virginia is elected the fifth president of the United States.

1918: President Woodrow Wilson leaves Washington on a trip to France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference.

1942: U.S. bombers strike the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.

1945: The Senate approves U.S. participation in the United Nations by a vote of 65-7.

1965: The United States launches Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard.

1978: San Francisco gets its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein is named to replace the assassinated George Moscone .

1984: A five-day hijack drama begins as four armed men seize a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and force it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers kill American passenger Charles Hegna.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: Warner Realty Inc. of Warren sues the U.S. Postal Service on a claim that the post office is $87,600 in arrears on its rent for the Poland postal station.

Warren JFK High School wins the 30th annual T. Craig Bond Memorial Speech Tournament at Niles McKinley High.

Hundreds of people gather in front of the Mahoning County Courthouse on a cold and blustery Saturday to greet the arrival of Santa and Mrs. Claus, who arrive in a sleigh pulled by a huge yellow Youngstown Street Department truck.

1973: Winning the Ohio State Triple A football championship brought fame to Cardinal Mooney High School, but not fortune. Travel costs for playoff games exceeded what the school received from the Ohio Athletic Association by $492.

Youngstown City Hall is represented at the National League of Cities annual conference in San Juan , Puerto Rico, with 12 administrative and legislative leaders in attendance, at a cost of about $700 each.

“Efforts to achieve racial balance in the Youngstown schools will be a major goal of the NAACP” in 1974, says Roland Alexander, president of the local NAACP branch.

1963: Five fire companies answer an alarm for a minor blaze in a service elevator at Hotel Pick-Ohio after a short circuit ignited grease on the cables.

Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., the nation’s fourth largest steelmaker, will spend $30 million to improve its huge Cleveland Works, Charles M. Beeghly, former Youngstowner and now J&L chairman, announces.

Addition of $4.5 million to an appropriation bill in the Ohio legislature to build a technical institute at Youngstown University is promised by two key state officials.

1938: Nearly 700 citizens, including many of Mahoning County’s prominent political and business leaders, attend a banquet at the Hotel Ohio in honor of Congressman Michael J. Kirwan’s 53rd birthday.

An alleged auto thief surrenders to police after a two-mile chase during which police fired shots at the car. Two accomplices escaped.

Throngs of shoppers crowd downtown Youngstown stores in spite of a cold rain, leaving merchants anticipating the best Christmas shopping season in years.