YEARS AGO

YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Dec. 28, the 362nd day of 2015. There are three days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1612: Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observes the planet Neptune, but mistakes it for a star.

1832: John C. Calhoun becomes the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson.

1845: Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance.

1856: The 28th president of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, is born in Staunton, Va.

1895: The Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, have the first public showing of their movies in Paris.

1945: Fritz Lang’s film noir, “Scarlet Street,” starring Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett, is released by Universal Pictures.

1961: The Tennessee Williams play “Night of the Iguana” opens on Broadway.

1975: The “Hail Mary pass” enters the football lexicon as Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach tosses the ball to Drew Pearson for an improbable 50-yard touchdown with 24 seconds left to help the Cowboys come back to edge the Minnesota Vikings 17-14.

1989: Alexander Dubcek, the former Czechoslovak Communist leader who was deposed in a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, is named president of the country’s parliament.

2005: Former top Enron Corp. accountant Richard Causey pleads guilty to securities fraud and agrees to help pursue convictions against Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling. (Causey was sentenced later to 51/2 years in prison.)

Barry Cowsill, a member of the popular 1960s singing family The Cowsills, is found dead on a New Orleans wharf nearly four months after he disappeared when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city.

2014: The United States and allied forces end the combat mission in Afghanistan, which began in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.; about 13,000 troops will stay to train Afghan police and military forces in their fight against the Taliban.

AirAsia Flight 8501, an Airbus A-320, crashes during a flight from Indonesia to Singapore, killing all 162 people on board.

VINDICATOR FILES

1990: Youngstown has installed 60,000 new water meters at a cost of $3 million, which is expected to increase gauged water use by 12 percent or $900,000. It will take two years before it is known whether the savings are realized.

Mahoning and Trumbull counties are locking horns over how $8 million in State Issue 2 funds for road improvements in the two counties will be divided.

Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Robert Nader retires and, when he begins serving as an appeals court judge in 1991, will receive a pension of about $35,000 and his jurist’s pay of $89,700.

1975: For the third year, construction values show a decline for Warren and the unincorporated areas of Trumbull County.

To mark the Bicentennial, Ira Thomas Associates Inc. and Superior Printing Co. of Warren collaborate on 200 high-quality reproductions of a painting from the Butler Institute of American Art, “The Battle of Bunker Hill” by John Trumbull.

Reserve Quarterback Ron Jaworski runs for one touchdown and throws a long bomb for another as the Los Angeles Rams whip the St. Louis Cardinals, 35-23, in the National Football League’s National Conference playoff opener.

1965: Three Youngstown banks begin opening Christmas Club accounts for 1966. Dollar Savings & Trust, Mahoning National Bank and Peoples Bank of Youngstown paid out $2 million in club accounts in 1965.

F. Edwin Miller, director of choral music at Salem Senior High School, will be honored for 25 years of service in Ohio Music Educators Association.

Burglars break into the Fifth Avenue home of Louis Hollander, president of the L. Hollander Co., and escape with jewelry, silverware and liquor valued at $5,000.

1940: The first “iron lung” in Youngstown will be installed at South Side Hospital, a gift from the Jewish War Veterans as a memorial to Hymen Greenblatt and Mrs. Ike Rudolph, who were killed in an auto accident.

Arrangements are complete for a “Welcome Home” party at the armory on West Rayen Avenue for all Youngstown soldiers, sailors and Marines and their families.

The year is ending with a freak display of weather, which has held the thermometer in the low 50s for a week. Golfers have been seen on local courses.