YEARS AGO FOR DECEMBER 13

Today is Dec. 13, the 347th day of 2017. There are 18 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1642: Dutch navigator Abel Tasman sights present-day New Zealand.

1769: Dartmouth College in New Hampshire receives its charter.

1862: Union forces led by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside launch futile attacks against entrenched Confederate soldiers during the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg.

1918: President Woodrow Wilson arrives in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.

1937: The Chinese city of Nanjing falls to Japanese forces during the Sino-Japanese War. What followed was a massacre of war prisoners, soldiers and citizens. (China maintains that up to 300,000 people were killed.)

1962: The United States launches Relay 1, a communications satellite that retransmits television, telephone and digital signals.

2003: Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit.

2012: U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdraws from consideration to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton after running into opposition from Republicans over her explanation of the September attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: Boardman Township officials say traffic along Route 224 has increased from between 17 percent and 66 percent over 10 years, but the state has not cooperated in efforts to smooth the traffic flow by synchronizing traffic lights.

Packard Electric enters an agreement as a supplier for BMW automobiles that will be built in South Carolina as part of its goal to compete on a global scale.

Youngstown State University advances to the Division 1-AA championship game, beating Northern Iowa 19-7 on a punt return by senior safety Dave Roberts and four Jeff Wilkins’ field goals.

1977: The Lykes Corp. says it is willing to sell the Campbell Works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. to the community or its employees – but only if the price is right.

Warren Councilman Herbert Laukhart calls for an independent investigation of the city’s urban-renewal program after Vindicator stories about questionable practices in the demolition program.

Warren Mayor Arthur Richards and seven members of City Council pledge to provide sewer service and up to 6 million gallons of water a day if Miller Brewing Co. chooses a Lordstown site for a new brewery.

1967: Columbiana County commissioners give the 305 county employees an $80,000 Christmas present: fully paid coverage for health and hospitalization insurance.

Joseph Kulifay, 72, dies in a fire that destroyed his home at 1132 Struthers-New Middletown Road in Poland Township.

Youngstown and Austintown will have 268 polling places open for balloting on the city’s half-percent income tax increase for police and firemen and for Austintown’s 5-mill school levy.

1942: Only 217 teenagers have signed up at Mahoning County draft boards in the first two days after the selective-service age was dropped to 18 years old.

Lt. Col. Hyman Bruss of Warren has commanded tank units in the Allied attack in Tunisia for the past three months.

The final residential dim-out of Youngstown will be held in Zone 1, which includes the entire North Side. The warning will be sounded by whistles from local steel plants.