YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Dec. 8, the 342nd day of 2014. There are 23 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: During the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington’s retreating army crosses the Delaware River from New Jersey into Pennsylvania.

1813: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92, is first performed in Vienna, with Beethoven himself conducting.

1854: Pope Pius IX proclaims the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free of original sin from the moment of her own conception.

1914: “Watch Your Step,” the first musical revue to feature a score composed entirely by Irving Berlin, opens in New York.

1941: The United States enters World War II as Congress declares war against Imperial Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1949: The Chinese Nationalist government moves from the Chinese mainland to Formosa as the Communists press their attacks.

1960: NBC broadcasts a new, color videotape version of the TV special “Peter Pan” starring Mary Martin. (Two previous telecasts, also starring Martin, had been performed live in 1955 and 1956.)

1972: A United Airlines Boeing 737 crashes while attempting to land at Chicago-Midway Airport, killing 43 of the 61 people on board, as well as two people on the ground; among the dead are Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt, U.S. Rep. George W. Collins, D-Ill., and CBS News correspondent Michele Clark.

1980: Rock star and former Beatle John Lennon is shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by an apparently deranged fan.

1982: A man demanding an end to nuclear weapons holds the Washington Monument hostage, threatening to blow it up with explosives he claims were inside a van. (After a 10-hour standoff, Norman D. Mayer was shot dead by police; it turned out there were no explosives.)

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: U.S. Rep. Dennis Eckart, D-Mentor, calls for a federal investigation of Nintendo, the giant electronic game manufacturer, claiming that the company is using unfair and abusive sales practices to monopolize the market.

The NAACP is protesting Warren’s hiring of a white man for a newly created $29,000 job to oversee the predominantly black city Sanitation Department.

Fire destroys a two-story Pulaski Township farmhouse owned by Don L. Hanni Jr., chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party. Firefighters rescue Hanni’s 18-year-old son, Dru, who was asleep in the house.

1974: Damage is estimated at $250,000 in a fire that ravaged the Cortland Tractor Sales on state Route 5 in Johnson, Trumbull County.

Steel imports into the United States, which have haunted Youngstown district steelworkers and executives in the past, are on the rise again.

Miami University Coach Dick Crum of Boardman, who guided the Redskins to a 9-0-1 record and the Mid-American Conference championship, is named the 1974 Ohio College football coach of the year. Rey Dempsey of Youngstown State finished second.

1964: Three Youngstown City Series and two other area football players are named to the Associated Press All-Ohio Class AA team. They are: Niles Linebacker Bill Watterson; Ursuline offense player Jim Burns and linebacker Dick Angle; Chaney tackle Jim Smart, and Warren Harding middle guard Jerry Tabacca.

Youngstown Congressman Michael J. Kirwan celebrates his 78th birthday with a party in Youngstown after the Esther Hamilton’s Alias Santa Claus show and with one in San Francisco when Kirwan and his wife returned from a trip to Hawaii.

Local firemen fight a blaze in an Erie-Lackawanna mail car that was spotted on fire as the train from Akron pulled into the downtown area; 280 sacks of mail were charred or destroyed.

1939: Ohio Gov. John Bricker accuses the Roosevelt administration of being more interested in trying to discredit Republicans and get votes than in supporting relief funding for human welfare.

Pat Kinney, nationally known as Youngstown’s first traffic policeman, collapses and dies after attending Mass at St. Columba Church. He was 70.

William B. Pollack II and Atty. Russell McKay are elected to three-year terms as directors of the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce.