YEARS AGO FOR DEC. 26

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 26, the 360th day of 2018. There are five days left in the year. The seven-day African-American holiday Kwanzaa begins today.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1799: Former President George Washington is eulogized by Col. Henry Lee as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

1908: Jack Johnson becomes the first African-American boxer to win the world heavyweight championship as he defeats Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.

1944: Tennessee Williams’ play “The Glass Menagerie” is first performed at the Civic Theatre in Chicago.

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.

2004: More than 230,000 people, mostly in southern Asia, are killed by a 100-foot-high tsunami.

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

2017: The snowfall total from a storm that began on Christmas Day reaches 53 inches in Erie, Pa. – the biggest two-day total in state history.

VINDICATOR FILES

1993: The Packard Electric Division of General Motors, headquartered in Warren, has evolved into a global company of 65,000 people, but the Warren workforce has about 7,000 – half of what it was at its peak.

Mary Lee Neely, 51, dies in Pittsburgh Presbyterian Hospital of smoke inhalation, the seventh member of the Neely family to die from an early morning fire Dec. 22.

A 22-room structure that now houses three apartments at state Route 7 and Warren-Sharon Road in Brookfield is now known as the Detelich House, but 150 years earlier it was a stop on the Underground Railroad and had a tunnel leading to Old Yankee Creek.

1978: Sarah Joy Wasson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Wasson of Canfield was the first of 10 Christmas Day babies born in Youngstown hospitals.

The Mahoning Valley Steel Co. wants to reopen the closed Jones & Laughlin conduit plant in Niles. The company is seeking a $2.5 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

Northwestern Pennsylvania had a white Christmas, but people weren’t singing about it. Four to 8 inches of fast-falling snow brought down trees and power lines, leaving many without electricity on the holiday.

1968: A chartered Greyhound bus en route from Chicago to Washington, D.C., for a church convention runs off the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Beaver Falls and overturns, killing three and injuring 35.

A 7-pound, 9-ounce boy born in North Side Hospital to Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Pagan is Youngstown’s first Christmas baby and a Christmas present for his four brothers and three sisters.

Christmas Day was white, sparkling and colder than it has been in 20 years. Eight inches of snow and a temperature of 7 degrees broke the 1948 record of 9 degrees.

1943: Dominic Mallamo, confessed bug racketeer, will be free from the county jail until 7 p.m. Dec. 27 under orders issued by Judge J.H.C. Lyon during a Christmas Day hearing at the judge’s home. Sheriff Ralph Elser has been questioning special treatment given Mallamo and other bugmen by probation officers and judges.

Lester Hulin, LaClede Avenue, is retiring after 60 years as a Valley educator in every capacity, from a teacher in a one-room school to president of the board of education.

The Blaine Avenue Police Station, conceived as a branch station for the Youngstown Police Department, has become a nest for rats and bums.