YEARS AGO FOR DEC. 16

Today is Sunday, Dec. 16, the 350th day of 2018. There are 15 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1773: The Boston Tea Party takes place as American colonists board a British ship and dump more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest tea taxes.

1905: The entertainment trade publication Variety publishes its first weekly issue.

1944: The World War II Battle of the Bulge begins as German forces launch a surprise attack against Allied forces through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg (the Allies were eventually able to turn the Germans back).

1950: President Harry S. Truman proclaims a national state of emergency in order to fight “world conquest by Communist imperialism.”

1960: Some 134 people are killed when a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation collide over New York City.

1976: The government halts its swine-flu vaccination program after reports of paralysis apparently linked to the vaccine.

1980: Harland Sanders, founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, dies in Shelbyville, Ky., at age 90.

1982: Environmental Protection Agency head Anne M. Gorsuch becomes the first Cabinet-level officer to be cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to submit documents requested by a congressional committee.

1985: At services in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, offer condolences to families of 248 soldiers killed in the crash of a chartered plane in Newfoundland.

1991: The U.N. General Assembly rescinds its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a vote of 111-25.

2000: President-elect George W. Bush selects Colin Powell to become the first African-American secretary of state.

2001: After nine weeks of fighting, Afghan militia leaders claim control of the last mountain bastion of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida fighters, but bin Laden himself is nowhere to be seen.

2008: The Cleveland Clinic announces its surgeons have performed the nation’s first near- total face transplant on a severely disfigured woman. (The woman, Connie Culp, went public with her identity in May 2009.

Police in Hollywood, Fla., close their investigation into the 1981 abduction-slaying of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, saying a serial killer who’d died more than a decade earlier in prison, Ottis Toole, was responsible.

2012: President Barack Obama visits Newtown, Conn., the scene of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

2013: In the first ruling of its kind, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon declares that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records likely violates the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable search.

Ray Price, 87, one of country music’s most popular and influential singers and bandleaders, dies in Mount Pleasant, Texas.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will open its first store in the Mahoning Valley, a 126,000-square-foot store at 6001 Mahoning Ave., on Jan. 4.

The Ohio Historic Preservation Office clears the way for development of Mr. Anthony’s by the River restaurant at the former St. Vincent DePaul building on Oak Hill Avenue, reversing an earlier statement that the building was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Students, employees and visitors at Youngstown’s four public high schools will begin wearing photo ID cards in January under a plan approved by the board of education.

1978: Salem’s water rates are doubling, bringing the cost for an average homeowner to $28.50 per quarter. The increase will help fund a $1.9 million expansion and improvement project.

Pete Vessella, former motel owner, and developer John Blackson submit independent proposals to build a multi-million dollar motel in New Castle, Pa., on 4.9 acres of downtown urban renewal property.

More than 400 angry members of USW Local 1462 hold a rally during which they vow to fight Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.’s plan to close the Brier Hill Works.

1968: Investigators find three head of cattle dead at the Columbiana County Home farm and the remaining 50 head in poor physical condition. Veterinarian Thomas Liggett said the three died of malnutrition, anemia and lice infestation.

The wreckage of a C119 “Flying Boxcar” from the Youngstown Reserve Air Base is found in a rain forest in Puerto Rico and the body of one of eight missing airmen is found.

A beagle barks all night in a futile attempt to bring help to his dead master. The body of Nicolo Mancini, 76, Palmyra Road, Ellsworth, is found in a field not far from his home and with his dog, Duke, standing guard.

1943: Youngstown welcomes its first army nurse home from service overseas, Lt. Virginia Frame, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Frame, 4007 Southern Blvd. She is convalescing from an illness contracted in New Caledonia.

Brig. Gen. Jesse Ladd, who recently was on assignment in Alaska, becomes commanding officer of Camp Reynolds, Pa. He has a long and distinguished career.

Jacob Friedkin was beaten about the face and head with the butt of a pistol when he resisted an armed man who tried to rob his Market Street store. He chased the would-be bandit out of the store.