Years Ago

Today is Tuesday, Dec. 31, the 365th and final day of 2013.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1526: Croat nobility chooses Habsburg rule and Croatia becomes part of the Habsburg monarchy.

1775: The British repel an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec. Montgomery is killed.

1799: The Dutch East India Company’s territories in Indonesia are taken over by the Dutch Administration in Batavia, now Jakarta.

1810: Russia’s Czar Alexander introduces new tariffs aimed at French goods.

1851: The Austrian Constitution is abolished.

1857: Britain’s Queen Victoria decides to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.

1879: U.S. inventor Thomas A. Edison gives first demonstration of his electric incandescent light at Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1919: Britain, Japan and the United States sign an agreement on East Siberia.

1961: The post World War II U.S. Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.

1966: The United States says it will halt bombing of North Vietnam when Hanoi gives assurance that it will discuss peace terms seriously.

1968: U.N. Security Council censures Israel unanimously for a helicopter commando raid on an airport in Beirut, Lebanon.

1974: Private U.S. citizens are allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.

1986: A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140 people.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles unveils a bright yellow license plate that can be placed by court order on the vehicles of people convicted of drunken driving.

Incoming Mahoning County Prosecutor James A. Philomena is replacing all of the employees hired by Prosecutor Gary L. Van Brocklin, including four attorneys in the criminal division and three in the civil division.

A partnership headed by veteran auto dealer Robert A. Stackhouse purchases Brownlee Pontiac and Subaru at the corner of Market Street and U.S. 224 in Boardman. He also owns Stackhouse Oldsmobile in Youngstown but says the auto business seems to be moving to Boardman.

1973: Two New Brighton, Pa., high school athletes are killed and a third injured when their car struck a utility pole in N. Market Street in East Palestine. Dead are John H. Kennedy II, 17, and Rodney J. Ochsenhirt, 18.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Clyde W. Osborne cuts by half the $58,700 contempt fines levied on striking teachers and other school employees in the fall, but says the fines must be paid within 60 days and he expects individual members to pay their share.

Ohio State All-American linebacker Randy Gradishar of Champion says he’s been contacted by agents and NFL teams, but he’s concentrating only on OSU’s meeting with Southern California in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.

1963: Four young children perish in a raging fire that consumed their frame home at 3021 Seifert Ave. in McGuffey Heights. Their parents and three other children escape by jumping from a porch roof. Dead are Brenda Hall, 4; Joshua Jr., 12; Josephine, 7, and Davida, 1.

Police Chief William Golden makes his last two appointments of new patrolmen before his term comes to an end at midnight. Named from a Civil Service certification list are John J. Scavina, 29, and Richard I. Prokop, 28.

The 1963 payroll of the Packard Electric Division of General Motors in Warren hit an all-time record of $40 million during a year when employment averaged 5,700, up by 600 from a year earlier.

1938: The second getaway car used in the $35,000 Railway Express holdup — the largest in Youngstown’s history — is discovered by Girard police in Dearborn Street near Trumbull Hill.

James E. Jones, 63, Youngstown finance director under Mayor Joseph L. Heffernan, dies in Washington, D.C., where he was senior administrative officer of personnel for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

George C. Brainard, president of the General Fireproofing Co. and a leader in Youngstown financial circles, is named chairman of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank for 1939.