YEARS AGO

Today is Sunday, Dec. 7, the 341st day of 2014. There are 24 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1787: Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1796: Electors choose John Adams to be the second president of the United States.

1808: Electors choose James Madison to be the fourth president of the United States.

1836: Martin Van Buren is elected the eighth president of the United States.

1842: The New York Philharmonic performs its first concert.

1909: Chemist Leo H. Baekeland received a U.S. patent for Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic.

1911: China abolishes the requirement that men wear their hair in a queue, or ponytail.

1941: The Empire of Japan launches a pre-emptive air raid on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as well as targets in Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines and Wake Island; the United States declares war against Japan the next day.

1963: During the Army-Navy game, videotaped instant replay is used for the first time in a live sports telecast as CBS re-shows a touchdown run by Army quarterback Rollie Stichweh. (Navy beat Army, 21-15.)

1972: America’s last moon mission to date is launched as Apollo 17 blasts off from Cape Canaveral.

1987: Forty-three people are killed after a gunman aboard a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner in California opens fire on a fellow passenger, the pilots and himself, causing the plane to crash.

1993: Gunman Colin Ferguson opens fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 19. (Ferguson was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.)

2004: Hamid Karzai is sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president.

2009: The Barack Obama administration takes a major step toward imposing the first federal limits on pollution from cars, power plants and factories the same day an international conference on climate change opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Gov. Richard F. Celeste asks the U.S. Department of Energy to extend by one year the Dec. 31 deadline faced by Ohio Clean Fuels Inc., which is proposing a $235 million clean fuels plant in Warren.

Youngstown City Council approves pay raises for 150 managers and non-union city employees, but only after Mayor Patrick Ungaro agrees to hire a personnel director to monitor the employees.

Dr. Max A. Malkoff is refusing to take Medicaid clients at his downtown office, saying he made the decision reluctantly because the Mahoning County Department of Human Services owes him $21,000 for overdue bills. A sign on the office advises patients to call Atty. Robert Douglas, the welfare department director.

1974: Ohio’s elderly can look forward to riding municipal buses for free in 1975 under an Ohio Department of Transportation plan to provide subsidies of 30 cents a ride for senior citizens. In Youngstown, the WRTA fare for senior citizens is 25 cents.

The Buckeye Publishing Co. of Lisbon purchases the East Palestine Daily Leader, which has been owned for 70 years by the Merwin family. Paul H. Merwin will remain as editor of the paper.

Some 60 members of the Curbstone Coaches of Youngstown get the royal treatment during a night at the races at Waterford Park.

1964: Six Youngstown area football players are among 25 picked by coaches to play in the 20th annual North-South game in Canton. They are: Jim Smart, Chaney; Mark Kujala, Warren Harding; Bob Babich, Campbell Memorial; Judd Featsent, Ashtabula; George Infante, Niles McKinley; Joe Virostek, Mineral Ridge.

Leroy E. Shaner, former president of the Metropolitan Savings and Loan Co., dies at his Alameda Avenue residence. Shaner was on the advisory committee of the Mahoning Valley Smoke Council.

1939: Five people are injured when their car is struck by a fire truck at Belmont and Rayen avenues. The one-year-old truck was enroute to a small fire at United Engineering and Foundry Co.

Youngstown has sufficient facilities for amateur baseball, but is in dire need of a professional ball field, says Tom Pemberton, superintendent of city parks.

Dr. Thomas J. Arundel, an outstanding physician since coming to Youngstown in 1897 after graduating from Albany Medical College, dies in St. Elizabeth Hospital at 71.