YEARS AGO

Today is Saturday, Dec. 20, the 354th day of 2014. There are 11 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1803: The Louisiana Purchase is completed as ownership of the territory is formally transferred from France to the United States.

1812: German authors Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish the first volume of the first edition of their collection of folk stories, “Children’s and Household Tales.”

1860: South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union as all 169 delegates to a special convention in Charleston vote in favor of separation.

1864: Confederate forces evacuate Savannah, Ga., as Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman nearly completes his “March to the Sea.”

VINDICATOR FILES

1989: Work-related injuries at General Motor’s Corp.’s Lordstown complex cost the automaker more than eight working days per 100 employees a year, about twice the average for manufacturing companies, says the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Of 25 Youngstown area people approached by a reporter and asked about President George Bush’s invasion of Panama with 9,500 U.S. troops, only two voiced any criticism of the decision. Most said the military action was necessary to protect American lives.

Ray Kulow, 81, attends his last meeting as a Hubbard Township trustee. He was elected six times, beginning in 1965.

1974: The Youngstown Civil Service Commission votes unanimously to not reinstate three patrolmen implicated in the police burglary ring and who served 30 days in the county jail for petty larceny.

The Camp Fire Girls of Youngstown are sued for $30,000 by the parents of a Hubbard girl on the grounds that her burst appendix was aggravated by improper treatment at camp.

A 22-year-old Campbell man is arrested by quick-acting police as they aborted an armed robbery at the Sohio Service Station, 745 Wilson Ave. Sgt. Richard Lewis and Patrolmen John Hosa and Ernie Paul, responding to a telephone tip, arrived while the robber was holding attendant Charles Wigfall at gunpoint.

1964: Postmaster Chester Bailey reports the federal government is taking bids on a new South Side post office to replace the Hylda Avenue branch.

The defeat of the Girard school levy results in major cuts. The board votes to eliminate summer school, kindergarten, summer music programs, all sports below varsity level, new books or equipment and the hiring of any new staff.

Youngstown University’s Penguins win one their most thrilling victories of the basketball season, topping Wooster College, 53-51, with a last-second shot by Charley Burns that was tipped in by Joe LaVolpa for the win.

1939: The huge Stambaugh-Thompson warehouse between Walnut and Champion streets is moved back 27 feet as one of the major phases of the Commerce Street widening project.

A U.S. House committee investigating the National Labor Relations Board recesses after two members accuse the NLRB of trying to “entrap” the Inland Steel Co. into violating labor law.

Postal workers in Youngstown handle 480,000 letters and cards in a day, which is nearly 50 percent more than the previous record, set Dec. 20, 1937.

Samuel Stites, general manager of the Youngstown division of the Ohio Edison Co., is named chairman of a committee that will gather information on airport management and operations to serve as a guide for the municipal airport being built in Vienna.