Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Nov. 30, the 334th day of 2013. There are 31 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1782: The United States and Britain sign preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War.

1803: Spain completes the process of ceding Louisiana to France, which had sold it to the United States.

1835: Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is born in Florida, Mo.

1874: British statesman Sir Winston Churchill is born at Blenheim Palace.

1936: London’s famed Crystal Palace, constructed for the Great Exhibition of 1851, is destroyed in a fire.

1939: The Russo-Finnish War begins as Soviet troops invade Finland.

1962: U Thant of Burma, who had been acting secretary-general of the United Nations following the death of Dag Hammarskjold the year before, is elected to a four-year term.

1966: The former British colony of Barbados becomes independent.

1981: The United States and the Soviet Union open negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.

1982: The Michael Jackson album “Thriller” is released by Epic Records.

1988: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. is declared the winner of the corporate free-for-all to take over RJR Nabisco Inc. with a bid of $24.53 billion.

2003: U.S. soldiers in Iraq fight back coordinated attacks throughout the northern city of Samarra.

Nathaniel Jones, a black man, dies during a fight with Cincinnati police in a case that heightens racial tensions.

Walt Disney Co. vice chairman Roy E. Disney steps down from the board of directors.

Former U.S. congressman and World Bank chairman Barber B. Conable Jr. dies in Sarasota, Fla., at age 81.

Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, dies in Wyckoff, N.J., at age 98.

VINDICATOR FILES

1988: Boardman police, working with Pennsylvania State Police, break up a two-state sports betting operation with a weekly play of $550,000.

John R. Getchey will become executive director of the Eastgate Development and Transportation Agency when William P. Fergus resigns to take the office of Mahoning County engineer.

A hearing officer rules the Mahoning County Board of Health may limit dumping at the Browning-Ferris landfill to 17 percent of current levels.

1973: U.S. Rep. Charles J. Carney announces that he will seek re- election to Congress and says he will open a part-time office in the basement of the Niles Post Office Building.

The Ice Rink at the James L. Wick Recreation Area in Mill Creek Park opens for its new season.

The Rev. David Rhodes, vice chancellor of the Diocese of Youngstown, is named chancellor, and the Rev. John H. DeMarinis, religion instructor at Ursuline High School, is named pastor of St. Anthony Church.

1963: Youngstowners crowd downtown stores on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is normally a busy day but was even more so with only 21 shopping days before Christmas.

U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan begins circulating petitions for the Democratic nomination for 19th District Congress in May. It would be Kirwan’s 15th term.

The Optimist Club of Youngstown sponsors its 3rd annual Free Bowling tournaments for youngsters under 18, with 233 bowlers participating at Gran Lanes.

1938: Gen. Hugh S. Johnson is ill and unable to address the annual meeting of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce at the Hotel Ohio; in his place Alexander Kerensky, prime minister of the first Russian Republic, will speak.

The WPA’s 4-acre equipment, tool and supply depot just off Mahoning Avenue in Wickliffe rivals some of the nation’s biggest private building and construction yards.

Columbiana County Coroner Arnold W. Devon exonerates an East Liverpool school bus driver in the death of Ian Tice, 12, whose coaster sled swerved and ran underneath the vehicle.