YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Friday, Dec. 18, the 352nd day of 2015. There are 13 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1787: New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1863: In a speech to the Prussian Parliament, Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck declares, “Politics is not an exact science.”

1865: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, is declared in effect by Secretary of State William H. Seward.

1892: Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” publicly premieres in St. Petersburg, Russia.

1912: Fossil collector Charles Dawson reports to the Geological Society of London his discovery of supposed early human remains at a gravel pit in Piltdown. (More than four decades later, Piltdown Man was exposed as a hoax.)

1940: Adolf Hitler orders secret preparations for Nazi Germany to invade the Soviet Union. (Operation Barbarossa was launched in June 1941.)

1944: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the government’s wartime evacuation of people of Japanese descent from the West Coast while at the same time unanimously agreeing that “concededly loyal” Americans of Japanese ancestry could not continue to be detained.

1969: Britain’s House of Lords joins the House of Commons in making permanent a 1965 ban on the death penalty for murder.

1972: The United States begins heavy bombing of North Vietnamese targets during the Vietnam War. (The bombardment ended 11 days later.)

1980: Former Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin dies at age 76.

1992: Kim Young-sam is elected South Korea’s first civilian president in three decades.

2005: In a televised speech, President George W. Bush declares that Iraq’s parliamentary elections signal the birth of democracy in the Middle East.

2010: The U.S. Senate approves repeal of the military’s 17-year “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on openly gay troops in a 65-31 vote. (President Barack Obama later signed it into law.)

2014: Sternly warning the West it could not defang the metaphorical Russian bear, President Vladimir Putin promises to shore up the plummeting ruble and revive the economy within two years.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: A new study by the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland shows that 32,000 residents in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties have slipped under the poverty line, the worst for any region in the state.

Hubbard Township Police Chief Howard Bradley resigns, one day after being quoted in a published report that he had received death threats from a township trustee.

Roland and Wanda Brothers, owners of Sentco Inc,. file suit against the city of Youngstown claiming the company’s plant burned to the ground because the city did not maintain adequate water pressure.

1975: A Hubbard man, Reginald Jackson, 21, is severely beaten and robbed by six men who accosted him on Oak Hill Avenue as he walked from a tavern to his parked car.

Struthers Patrolman Jeffrey Pantall is severely beaten inside Maria’s Bar on Bridge Street by a gang of toughs after he attempted to arrest one of them.

A Mahoning County Common Pleas Curt jury awards a Canfield couple who sought $100,000 for injuries suffered in an auto accident $92, one of the lowest jury awards in many years. The couple had rejected a settlement offer of $6,000.

1965: A 36-year-old Pittsburgh ex-con is charged in the $$10,000 heist at Tony Buttar’s Jewelry in the Uptown area.

The Mahoning County Community College Board asks the Youngstown Area Board of Realtors to report on any 200-acre sites suitable for a community college.

Highway Tabernacle will celebrate its first Christmas in the congregation’s new building on Canfield Road.

The Salem Rotary Club plans its annual crippled children’s Christmas party in the Memorial Building.

1940: Gaylord Evans is re-elected president of the Cornersburg Improvement Club during a meeting at Riblet’s Grill.

Christmastime homesickness causes enlistments in the U.S. Army to drop to a new low, with only two area men, William Bistriz of Sharon, Pa., and Alben Featsent of Youngstown, enlisting.

Advertisement: Richman Brothers in downtown Youngstown has men’s suits, overcoats or tuxedos on sale for $22.50.