Years Ago

Today is Saturday, Dec. 27, the 361st day of 2014. There are four days left in the year.

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On this date in:

1831: Naturalist Charles Darwin sets out on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.

1904: James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opens at the Duke of York’s Theater in London.

1927: The musical play “Show Boat,” with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II, opens at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York.

1932: New York City’s Radio City Music Hall first opens.

1945: Twenty-eight nations sign an agreement creating the World Bank.

1947: The original version of the puppet character Howdy Doody makes its TV debut on NBC’s “Puppet Playhouse.”

1949: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands signs an act recognizing Indonesia’s sovereignty after more than three centuries of Dutch rule.

1964: The Cleveland Browns defeat the Baltimore Colts 27-0 to win the NFL Championship Game played at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

1968: Apollo 8 and its three astronauts make a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.

1979: Soviet forces seize control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who is overthrown and executed, is replaced by Babrak Karmal.

1985: Palestinian guerrillas open fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports; 19 victims are killed, plus four attackers who are slain by police and security personnel.

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1989: Youngstowner Nick Julian, who endured two heart transplants over a period of two years, dies of pneumonia at his home.

Youngstown Mayor Patrick Ungaro is sworn in for his fourth term, a term that he says will be his last.

Youngstown Assistant Law Director William Higgins files suit challenging an order from Law Director Edwin Romero that he use a backlog of vacation time or lose it as required by a 1986 ordinance. Higgins says he has 35 weeks of unused vacation.

1974: Serious crime in Youngstown increased 5.27 percent during the first nine months of 1974 compared to a national average jump of 8 percent, FBI statistics say.

A tentative agreement is reached between the city administration and its 1,663 employees providing a 6 percent pay increase and 2 percent increase in fringe benefits.

Paul Amodio, a Kent native and defensive coordinator for the Yale football team, is selected as Youngstown State University’s next athletic director, succeeding Willard Webster.

1964: Cyrus Eaton, Cleveland industrialist, plans a spring trip to Russia to confer with Soviet officials about more international trade between the two countries.

Mrs. Walter M. Erickson entertains 40 friends of her daughter and their mothers at a mother-daughter tea at her Stratford Road home.

Robert D. Rowland is re-elected president of the YMCA. Vice presidents A.S. Glossbrenner, James Mitchell and Dr. Craig Ells are also re-elected.

1939: Between 225 and 250 laborers in Youngstown’s engineering and water departments are being laid off for the rest of the year in compliance with Mayor Lionel Evans’ decree that all 1939 fund transactions must be completed by the end of his term Jan. 1.

Mayor Evans, in his final address to City Council expresses satisfaction with conditions in Youngstown during the last 16 months and that “no one went hungry on Christmas Day so far as I know in the entire city.”