YEARS AGO FOR DEC. 7

Today is Friday, Dec. 7, the 341st day of 2018. There are 24 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

43 B.C.: Roman statesman and scholar Marcus Tullius Cicero is slain at the order of the Second Triumvirate.

1787: Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1911: China abolishes the requirement that men wear their hair in a ponytail.

1917: During World War I, the United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1941: Japan launches a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as part of its plan to conquer Southeast Asian territories; the raid, which would claim some 2,400 American lives, prompts the United States to declare war against Japan the next day.

1946: Fire breaks out at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, killing 119 people.

1972: America’s last moon mission to date is launched as Apollo 17 blasts off from Cape Canaveral.

1993: A gunman opens fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train, killing six people and wounding 19.

2017: Democratic Sen. Al Franken says he will resign after a series of sexual-harassment allegations.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: Mahoning County prosecutors dismiss robbery charges against two men accused of holding up a restaurant on the Ohio Turnpike because a court rules that all of the evidence against them was obtained by the Ohio State Highway Patrol through an improper search warrant.

Regal Cinemas Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., purchases three area theaters from National Theater Holdings Corp.: Cinema South in Boardman and Boulevard Center and Movie World theaters in Niles.

Marilyn Geewax, an editorial writer for The Atlanta Constitution and a graduate of Campbell Memorial High School, writes a column about her 20th high-school reunion and how times have changed. “We did not have these words in our vocabulary: AIDS, crack, AK-47s, homeless shelters and drive-by shootings.”

1978: The Urban League and NAACP give their support to building a low-income housing project on the West Side. City council has four days to find an alternative site for the project after neighborhood opposition caused the city to abandon a site in the Schenley Park area.

The Health Systems Agency of Northeast Ohio approves the purchase of a $1 million CAT scanner. It will be located at Trumbull Memorial but will serve TMH and Warren General and St. Joseph Riverside hospitals.

1968: The Dollar Savings and Trust Co. and the Mahoning National Bank will have branches in Southern Park Mall under construction in Boardman.

A Salem man, Clifford Fitzwater, 25, is fatally injured in an auto accident in Columbiana County when he failed to negotiate a curve on Route 14A between Salem and Washington.

Five seniors on the Youngstown State University football team are honored by members of the Downtown Kiwanis: James Smart, Gary Smith, Craig Cotton, Kenneth Kacenga and Charles Joseph.

1943: If a 17-cent-an-hour increase sought by the United Steelworkers of America is approved, it would add $17 million to $18 million a year to Youngstown’s four steelmakers, Youngstown Sheet & Tube, Republic Steel, Sharon Steel and Carnegie-Illinois Corp.

In the two years since Pearl Harbor, 261 Youngstown homes have received telegrams saying loved ones are either dead, missing, wounded or held prisoner.