Today is Wednesday, March 5, the 65th day of 2008. There are 301 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Wednesday, March 5, the 65th day of 2008. There are 301 days left in the year. On this date in 1770, the Boston Massacre takes place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists open fire, killing five people.

In 1868, the Senate is organized into a Court of Impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson, who is later acquitted. In 1908, actor Rex Harrison is born in Lancashire, England. In 1933, in German parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party wins 44 percent of the vote; the Nazis join with a conservative nationalist party to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag. In 1946, Winston Churchill delivers his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. In 1953, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin dies after three decades in power. In 1963, country music performers Patsy Cline, “Cowboy” Copas and “Hawkshaw” Hawkins die in a plane crash near Camden, Tenn., that also claims the life of pilot Randy Hughes (Cline’s manager). In 1977, President Carter takes questions from 42 telephone callers in 26 states on a network radio call-in program moderated by Walter Cronkite. In 1982, comedian John Belushi is found dead of a drug overdose in a rented bungalow in Hollywood; he was 33.

March 5, 1983: Sheriff James A Traficant Jr. shrugs off a warning by federal Judge Ann Aldrich that “almost no one in his right mind” would attempt such a thing, and says he will defend himself against bribery charges.

The Rev. William B. Carswell, pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Masury for 14 years, announces that he will retire on Easter Sunday.

General Motors employees in Lordstown collect 42,000 cans of food and $2,300 in cash for the needy and the company matches that with $23,000 in cash as part of an eight-week “Care and Share” program.

March 5, 1968: The Youngstown Board of Education will put a school operating levy on the May primary ballot to offset a projected budget deficit of $811,000.

Robert L. Pegues Jr., principal of Tod Elementary School, is named administrative assistant for urban affairs by the Youngstown Board of Education. He is the first Negro to be appointed to a top administrative position at the central board offices.

A new Ohio Turnpike toll interchange with the I-80 freeway near North Jackson will be built as part of a 2.9-mile, $5 million project.

March 5, 1958: A crackdown on numbers operations and gambling in Struthers nets four arrests at two poolrooms in the city.

J.L. Mauthe, chairman of Youngs–town Sheet & Tube Co. is honored for his contributions to Youngstown civic and industrial life by 600 Mahoning Valley industrial management leaders.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Erksine Maiden rules that Ohio’s unemployed steelworkers may draw supplemental unemployment benefits paid by the company without losing any of their state unemployment benefits. The Ohio Bureau of Unemployment had ruled that the sub payments were remuneration that reduced an employee’s entitlement to unemployment compensation.

March 5, 1933: The doors of four Youngstown banks and three building and loan companies are closed as a result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration of a four-day bank holiday.

An attempt to distill drinkable alcohol from shellac is blamed for the death of three homeless men, two of whom died in Youngstown City Jail after being found unconscious in the street.

Dr. James K. Buell, aged 90, author of an exhaustive history of Johnston Township in Trumbull County, dies at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Conrad Butcher, 247 Crandall Ave., Youngstown.