YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 9, the 343rd day of 2015. There are 22 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1608: English poet John Milton is born in London.

1854: Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” is published in England.

1940: British troops open their first major offensive in North Africa during World War II.

1958: The anti-communist John Birch Society is formed in Indianapolis.

1962: The Petrified Forest in Arizona is designated a national park.

1965: Nikolai V. Podgorny replaces Anastas I. Mikoyan as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a job he would hold for almost 12 years.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the first animated TV special featuring characters from the “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, is first broadcast on CBS.

1975: President Gerald R. Ford signs a $2.3 billion seasonal loan authorization that officials of New York City and state say will prevent a city default.

1984: The 5-day-old hijacking of a Kuwaiti jetliner that claimed the lives of two Americans ends as Iranian security men seize control of the plane, parked at a Tehran airport.

1987: The first Palestinian intefadeh, or uprising, begins as riots break out in Gaza and spread to the West Bank, triggering a strong Israeli response.

1992: Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana announce their separation. (The couple’s divorce became final Aug. 28, 1996.)

2005: President George W. Bush, addressing a political fundraiser in Minnesota, says the United States will wage an unrelenting battle in Iraq to protect Americans at home.

2010: In Britain’s worst political violence in years, student protesters rain sticks and rocks on riot police, vandalize government buildings and attack a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, after lawmakers approve a controversial hike in university tuition fees.

2014: U.S. Senate investigators conclude the United States has brutalized scores of terror suspects with interrogation tactics that turned secret CIA prisons into chambers of suffering and did nothing to make Americans safer after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: An extensive check of county records by The Vindicator shows more than $2 million in goods and services for renovation of the Mahoning County Courthouse were paid for without competitive bids. Total cost of the project was $8 million.

Joe Malmisur, athletic director at Youngstown State who is a voting member of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, says three Youngstowners are among 93 candidates on the 1990 ballot: Bob Babich of Campbell Memorial and Miami of Ohio; Bob Dove of South High and Notre Dame, and Frank McPhee of Chaney and Princeton University.

The Trumbull County Board of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health is seeking to establish a residential treatment center.

1975: The Youngstown Humane Society is offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a person suspected of poisoning five dogs in the vicinity of Fairview Avenue and Hood Drive in Canfield.

Two A37 Dragonfly twin-engine Cessnas from the 910th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Youngstown crash near Fort Campbell, Ky. All four crew members, Capt. Thomas Ward, S.Sgt. Joseph Kish, Lt. Larry Hanes and T. Sgt. Francis Gradski all parachute to safety.

Youngstown State University defensive back Don Calloway is named to the Kodak All-American Football Team for the second year.

1965: Youngstown Mayor Anthony B. Flask vetoes an ordinance granting a cable-television franchise in the city to Youngstown Cable TV of Hollidaysburg, Pa.

Youngstown City Council passes a resolution urging postponement of the federal time schedule for sewage-treatment plant expansion. Massive federal and state financial aid will be needed to meet the schedule.

Youngstown Police Lt. Stephen Biscan single-handedly captures a would-be bank robber who was fleeing empty-handed from the Dollar Savings & Trust Co.

1940: The Showman’s Club winter round-up has 200 attending a meeting at the Cascades Room of Hotel Ohio. Dinner, a floor show and local acts make up the program.

Members of Post 93, Veterans of Foreign Wars, burns the mortgage on its Fifth Avenue headquarters 23 years after being chartered.

The Youngstown College dramatic club produces a three-act play starring Miss Suzanne Edwards.