Years Ago

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2013. There are 20 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1792: France’s King Louis XVI goes before the Convention to face charges of treason. (Louis is convicted and executed the following month.)

1816: Indiana becomes the 19th state.

1912: Movie producer Carlo Ponti is born in Magenta, Italy.

1928: Police in Buenos Aires announce they have thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.

1936: King Edward VIII of Britain abdicates the throne so he can marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson; his brother, Prince Albert, becomes King George VI.

1937: Italy announces it is withdrawing from the League of Nations.

1941: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States; the U.S. responds in kind.

1946: The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.

1972: Apollo 17’s lunar module lands on the moon with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard; during three extravehicular activities, they become the last two men to date to step onto the lunar surface.

1981: The U.N. Security Council chooses Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru to be the fifth secretary-general.

Muhammad Ali, 39, fights his final fight, losing by unanimous decision to Trevor Berbick in Nassau, Bahamas.

1997: More than 150 countries agree at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth’s greenhouse gases.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: The Ashtabula Board of Education is considering a new drug policy that could include drug testing of athletes attending city schools.

The Westminster College Titans stun Wisconsin-LaCrosse, 21-14, to win the NAIA Division II football national championship.

William B. Phillips, the “answer man” at the Mahoning County Cooperative Extension Service, retires after 31 years fielding questions on gardens, herbicides, fruits, nuts, vegetables and berries.

1973: The small Trumbull County community of Cortland is rocked for the second time in six months by the shotgun slaying of a village couple. Dead are Hermer McLaughlin, 70, and his wife, Edna, 57, whose bodies were found in their home at 165 High St.

The volume of mail being handled by the Youngstown Post Office is up 10.6 percent over the amount handled in the weeks leading up to Christmas a year earlier.

The East Ohio Gas Co. says it may have to begin a 10 to 25 percent cutback in natural gas supplies to industrial customer beginning in April.

1963: Liberty Township police arrest four boys believed responsible for a six-month crime spree that included burglaries, auto thefts and petty larceny.

Avery C. Adams, a Youngstown native who was former board chairman of Jones &Laughlin Steel Corp., dies of an apparent heart attack in Pittsburgh. He was 65.

Robert E. Hagan, Trumbull County commissioner, announces that he will seek the Democratic nomination for 19th District Congress, challenging Youngstown’s veteran congressman, Michael J. Kirwan.

1938: The Youngstown Junior Chamber of Commerce opens the final week of the annual Christmas seal drive with a goal of raising “a mile of dimes.” The campaign has already raised more than $4,000.

More than 4,000 people jam Stambaugh Auditorium for Vindicator columnist Esther Hamilton’s eighth annual Alias Santa Claus show.

Trumbull County Commissioner Neil Duck says the board of commissioners is proposing state legislation that would legalize slot machines, dog racing and other forms of gambling in Ohio to raise funds for relief purposes.