Today is Friday, March 7, the 67th day of 2008. There are 299 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Friday, March 7, the 67th day of 2008. There are 299 days left in the year. On this date in 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators is broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse.

In 1849, horticulturist Luther Burbank is born in Lancaster, Mass.

In 1850, in a three-hour speech to the U.S. Senate, Daniel Webster endorses the Compromise of 1850 as a means of preserving the Union. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his telephone.In 1908, Italian actress Anna Magnani is born in Rome. In 1926, the first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversations takes place, between New York and London. In 1936, Adolf Hitler orders his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact. In 1945, during World War II, U.S. forces cross the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge. In 1975, the Senate revises its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present. In 1981, anti-government guerrillas in Colombia execute kidnapped American Bible translator Chester Allen Bitterman, whom they accuse of being a CIA agent. In 1999, movie director Stanley Kubrick dies in Hertfordshire, England, at age 70.

March 7, 1983: A 600-page study on the future of Youngstown public schools will be presented to school board members. The project is headed by Dr. Edgar Corbett, professor of secondary education at Youngstown State University.

Judge Peter C. Economus dismisses Sheriff James A. Traficant’s lawsuit that sought a court ordered moratorium of property foreclosures and sheriff’s sales.

Municipal primaries June 7 in Mahoning County are expected to bring a return to paper ballots. The ballots will be read by an optic scanner perfected by the American Information Systems of Omaha, Neb.

March 7, 1968: Shareholders of Wean Industries Inc. overwhelmingly approved a proposal to merge Wean and United Engineering Foundry Co. into a new industrial giant with more than 7,500 employees.

Youngstown area’s neighborhood center program is one of the best in the nation, without question, Dr. Samuel D. Stellman, associate professor at Ohio State University, tells the Community Action Center board.

Thieves lugged more than a ton of pennies worth $4,000 and $2,000 worth of dimes from the basement of a Cleveland man who had been collecting the coins for six years. Most of the 400,000 pennies and 20,000 dimes were packed in coin rolls.

March 7, 1958: Trustees of the Youngstown Hospital Association award a contract for the new wing at the North Side Hospital to Joseph Bucheit Sons.

Two mink fur pieces valued at $2,200 are stolen from downtown apparel shops, one from the Strouss-Hirschberg Co. and one from Abraham’s Ladies Apparel Shop.

Rear Adm. William A. Dolan Jr. tells members of the Navy League meeting at Hereford Lanes Farms in North Jackson that the St. Lawrence Seaway will make the Youngstown district much more aware of the importance of seapower to economics and national security.

March 7, 1933: Banking business on a restricted basis is resuming in Youngstown with employees instructed to report for work at noon.

Sheriff’s sales are being conducted in Mercer, Pa., but on a cash-only basis. No checks, drafts or other securities will be accepted until after the national bank holiday is over.

The bank holiday is bringing some ancient cash into circulation. Two silver half-dollars minted in 1817 and 1825 were used to purchase gasoline at Huffman’s service station at Ridge and Warner Avenues in Youngstown.