Local history

50 years ago: Blair County District Attorney Amos Davis was preparing to retire after 10 years of service. He joined the Blair Co. Bar in 1938, had been a star athlete on the Altoona High football team and played football at Gettysburg Academy and Virginia University, was an assistant Blair County D.A. and an Army veteran of WWII.

25 years ago: Local Pennsylvania Railroad historians like John Conlon of Altoona were trying to save the Alto Tower near the 17th Street Bridge from demolition. It was the last switch tower between Altoona and Harrisburg.

10 years ago: Matt Pacifico, Altoona’s part-time mayor set to become full time Jan. 4, was to do so without a transition committee, saying he would “figure out my own system, what works and what doesn’t work.”

World history

Today is Friday, Dec. 26, the 360th day of 2025. There are five days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Dec. 26, 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami with waves up to 100 feet high that killed about 230,000 people across a dozen countries as far as East Africa. The worst-affected countries were Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

On this date:

– In 1908, Jack Johnson became the first Black boxer to win the world heavyweight championship as he defeated Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.

– In 1941, during World War II, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, just two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged the U.S. into the war.

– In 1966, Kwanzaa was first celebrated, a seven-day holiday to help African Americans reconnect with their African heritage.

– In 1990, Nancy Cruzan, a young woman in an irreversible vegetative state whose case led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the right to die, died at a Missouri hospital.

– In 1991, the USSR was formally dissolved through by the Supreme Soviet.

– In 2006, former President Gerald R. Ford died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at 93.

– In 2021, South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu died at 90; the retired archbishop had been an uncompromising foe of apartheid and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBTQ rights.

The Associated Press