YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Dec. 14, the 348th day of 2015. There are 17 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1799: The first president of the United States, George Washington, dies at his Mount Vernon, Va., home at age 67.

1819: Alabama joins the Union as the 22nd state.

1911: Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team become the first men to reach the South Pole, beating out a British expedition led by Robert F. Scott.

1939: The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.

1946: The United Nations General Assembly votes to establish the U.N.’s headquarters in New York.

1964: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, rules that Congress was within its authority to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against racial discrimination by private businesses (in this case, a motel that refused to cater to blacks).

1972: Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan conclude their third and final moonwalk and blast off for their rendezvous with the command module.

1981: Israel annexes the Golan Heights, which it had seized from Syria in 1967.

1985: Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she takes office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

Former New York Yankees outfielder Roger Maris, who’d hit 61 home runs during the 1961 season, dies in Houston at age 51.

1995: Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia sign the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris.

2005: President George W. Bush defends his decision to wage the Iraq war, even as he acknowledges that “much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalates his anti-Israeli rhetoric, calling the Holocaust a “myth” used by Europeans to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.

2010: The White House insists the implementation of President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law would not be affected by a negative federal court ruling, and the Justice Department says it will appeal.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi scrapes through two parliamentary votes of no confidence.

2012: A gunman with a semiautomatic rifle kills 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then commits suicide as police arrive; 20-year-old Adam Lanza had fatally shot his mother at their home before carrying out the attack on the school.

2014: A last-minute deal salvages U.N. climate talks in Lima, Peru, from collapse.

Politician, TV personality and onetime Miss America Bess Myerson dies in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 90.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Youngstown State University trustees are considering a tuition increase from $46 per credit hour to $48 and requiring students to carry between 15 and 18 hours to be full time.

H.L. Libby Corp. officials say their $2 million downtown parking garage will make the adjacent Stambaugh Building and the downtown area more competitive.

The Youngstown Area United Way allocates $2.6 million to 34 agencies, with 21 seeing increases over 1989, nine staying the same and four declining.

1975: Hundreds of Youngstown area business and holiday travelers are being inconvenienced by United Airlines’ announcement that it is canceling all 1,400 flights through Christmas due to a lack of a contract with 16,700 machinists. John Tiffany, United manager at Youngstown Municipal Airport, says the office remains open to help passengers exchange tickets.

Franco Harris runs for 118 yards and two touchdowns as the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Cincinnati Bengals, 35-14, and win their third division title in four seasons.

Copperweld Steel Co. pours its first heat of high-grade steel from its modernized and enlarged No. 6 electric furnace at its Warren plant.

1965: Gene Trace of Canfield, owner of WBBW radio station, dies of a heart attack at Good Samaritan Hospital near his second home in Riviera Beach, Fla.

Sylvia Ciancola, a 19-year-old clerk at Tony Buttar Jewelry, returns from a dinner break and interrupts a robbery at the Uptown store. Police responding to a call from the clerk recover a getaway car driven by one of the robbers and about half of the $30,000 worth of rings and watches taken after Buttar and his wife were forced at gunpoint into a back room. Two other robbers kidnapped Victor Lilley, 44, of Poland and drove to Steubenville in his car before releasing him unharmed.

The Mothers Athletic Club of East Palestine will serve lunches to the high school basketball team, opponents, coaches and cheerleaders after the eight remaining home games.

1940: The Youngstown Safety Council is considering broadcasting the disposition of traffic cases in Youngstown Municipal Court as a way of discouraging motorists from disregarding stop signs, crashing red lights or speeding.

More than 3,300 people attend the dedication of the $150,000 field house and gymnasium at South High School. During a basketball double-header, South loses to Massillon, and Youngstown College beats Carnegie Tech.

William Welsh, assistant traffic manager of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., goes to Memphis to testify against the proposed reduction of freight rates between Memphis, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala. A reduction would affect the competitiveness of independent steel companies in Youngstown and Pittsburgh.