YEARS AGO FOR DECEMBER 18

Today is Monday, Dec. 18, the 352nd day of 2017. 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.

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

1892: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” publicly premieres in St. Petersburg, Russia; although now considered a classic, it received a generally negative reception from critics.

1917: Congress passes the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” and sends it to the states for ratification.

1956: The panel game show “To Tell the Truth” debuts on CBS-TV.

1972: The United States begins heavy bombing of North Vietnamese targets during the Vietnam War.

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

2012: Classes resume in Newtown, Conn., except at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the scene of a massacre four days earlier.

2016: Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor dies at her Los Angeles home at age 99.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: The president of Sharon Steel Corp.’s largest employee union says the company has failed to pay $8 million in active and retired employee health care claims.

A 5-1 vote by Girard City Council to join a countywide 911 emergency calling system puts Trumbull County over the 60 percent mark needed to put the issue before county commissioners.

Responding to a suggestion by Youngstown Superintendent Alfred Tutela, Mayor Patrick Ungaro and Law Director Edwin Romero says the city law department will provide the board with legal representation. Tutela says the district is spending too much on outside legal help.

1977: Youngstown Finance Director John Benninger and chief municipal court bailiff Thomas DiBernardi propose a plan to collect $45,000 in unpaid city ambulance bills by utilizing the court’s small claims process.

Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms set fire to a cache of 55 pounds of dynamite discovered by John Sanders in a shed off Tenney Avenue in Campbell, not far from where moonshine whiskey was distilled years ago.

Eight winners at the Struthers Lions Club speech tournament receive trophies: Mark Boyd, Matt Barrett, Kitty McGlone, Cammie Morain, Dave Cipriano, Melody Oakes, Liz Vietez and Ann Michael.

1967: Youngstown police arrest four men and seize 10 cases of liquor after a burglary at the state liquor store at 3303 Mahoning Ave.

Howard Cooper, Parkland Avenue, one of Youngstown’s all-time tennis stars and a retired South Side businessman, dies of a heart attack.

Michael DiRienzo, owner of DiRienzo’s Spaghetti Shoppe in Salem, dies in a fire that gutted his restaurant.

1942: Youngstown coal dealers affiliated with the Mahoning Coal Council, will close their yards Saturday, Dec. 26, giving their employees a three-day holiday.

With hundreds of extra clerks and bundle wrappers on duty in Youngstown stores, Christmas shoppers swarm into stores to buy up what merchandise they could find as many items won’t be available for the duration of the war.

Thousands of oil furnaces are burning low during one of the coldest Decembers on record.