YEARS AGO

Today is Thursday, Dec. 22, the 357th day of 2016. There are nine days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1775: Esek Hopkins is appointed the commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy.

1894: French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggers worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. (Dreyfus was eventually vindicated.)

1941: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington for a wartime conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1944: During the World War II Battle of the Bulge, U.S. Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe rejects a German demand for surrender, writing “Nuts!” in his official reply.

1989: Playwright Samuel Beckett, best known for his “Waiting for Godot,” dies in Paris at 83.

2010: President Barack Obama signs a law allowing gays for the first time in history to serve openly in America’s military, repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

2015: Migration experts say more than a million people who had been driven out of their countries by war, poverty and persecution entered Europe in 2015.

Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey is named The Associated Press college football player of the year.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: Coach Jim Tressel’s Youngstown State University Penguins win the NCAA Division 1-AA Championship, defeating Marshall University 25-17 in Statesboro, Ga. Tressel joins his father, Lee, as the first father-son duo to win a national championship.

About 30 families have uprooted their lives in the Soviet Union to escape religious persecution and to build a new life in the Youngstown area.

A videotape of 85 years of the history of Idora Park made primarily from home movies and photographs shot by parkgoers is released by Atty. Edward Learner in time for Christmas giving.

1976: Thomas DiBernardi, Youngstown Municipal Court chief bailiff, says arrest warrants will be issued for motorists holding some 12,000 unpaid parking tickets.

Incoming Mahoning County Sheriff Michael Yarosh is expected to name four city police officers as his top aides in the sheriff’s department.

With Canfield Fair gate admissions more than double those of the previous year and expenditures down by $25,000, the Mahoning County Agricultural Society reports that it is ending 1976 in the black.

1966: Higbee’s department stores of Cleveland expects to announce in January or February exactly where it will locate two stores in the Youngstown-Warren area.

The child welfare board seeks an additional quarter-million dollars in its 1967 budget to cover costs of spending and operating the new Mahoning County School for Retarded Children.

Sixteen-hour work shifts are being assigned to Warren city police in an attempt to fill the gap that resulted from a breakdown in wage negotiations between council and the Police and Firefighters Association.

1941: Because of a shortage of nurses, the Mahoning Red Cross is calling for graduate registered nurses, single, between age 21 and 40, to serve in the Army camps.

E.J. Albrecht of Chicago is the low bidder for building the Berlin Dam embankment and spillway on a bid of $1,077,112. The bid was $44,038 below the U.S. Army camps.

Women’s City Club opens the holiday season with a buffet dinner. Mrs. Sarah Peterson reviewed Elizabeth Gouge’s book, “The Well of the Star.”