YEARS AGO

Today is Monday, Dec. 26, the 361st day of 2016. There are five days left in the year. The seven-day African-American holiday Kwanzaa begins today. This is Boxing Day.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1776: British forces suffer a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War.

1941: During World War II, Winston Churchill becomes the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. Churchill grimly warns that “many disappointments and unpleasant surprises await us,” but also expresses faith that “the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and for the good of all, walk together in majesty, in justice and in peace.”

1966: Kwanzaa is first celebrated.

1972: The 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, dies in Kansas City, Mo., at age 88.

1996: Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colo. (To date, the slaying remains unsolved.)

2004: More than 230,000 people, mostly in southern Asia, are killed by a 100-foot-high tsunami triggered by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean.

2006: Former President Gerald R. Ford dies in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at age 93.

VINDICATOR FILES

1991: An Indiana truck driver is charged with kidnapping and felonious assault of a Hubbard Township woman in her home on Christmas Day.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Scott Krichbaum ends political speculation, saying he will not run for a seat on the 7th District Court of Appeals.

1976: An early Christmas drag race on Fifth Avenue on Youngstown’s North Side results in a collision that sends five people to the hospital.

The Austintown home of Mrs. Norma Mahone, the widow of Air Force Capt. William Mahone, is vandalized while she and her three daughters were shopping. Mrs. Mahone is black and says there is a history of racially inspired incidents dating to when she and her husband bought the house in 1967, shortly before he was killed in an airplane crash.

1966: The first baby born Christmas Day in Youngstown is Richard Alan, son of Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Kovach of Hazel Street, Girard.

Sam T. Fasline, for 16 years the official shorthand reporter for Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, is appointed chief official reporter.

The Youngstown University Chapter of the American Chemical Society plans a lecture tour of area junior and senior high schools during the winter and spring to encourage interest in the study of chemistry.

Jerry Eyster, a 17-year-old Canfield High senior, will be an American Field Service exchange student in South Africa in 1967.

1941: Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Bard of McDonald receive the best Christmas morning gift any parent could desire – news that their son, Joseph, reported killed at Pearl Harbor, is alive and safe.

Mrs. Katie Moses, Evanston Avenue, Youngstown, also receives a joyful Christmas message. Her two sons, Ray and Arden Stillings, both on a ship reported sunk at Pearl Harbor, are safe.

Christmas Day is saddened in several district homes by accidents in which 23 were injured and three killed. Dead are Richard Quinn, 7, of Salem; Joseph Pasquino, 68, of Niles and C.B. Wilson, 75, of Youngstown.

Handicapped by a lack of cruisers, Youngstown police had but two cars and two police emergency wagons in which to answer police calls and a deluge of accident calls on Christmas.