Today is Saturday, March 8, the 68th day of 2008. There are 298 days left in the year. Daylight-

Today is Saturday, March 8, the 68th day of 2008. There are 298 days left in the year. Daylight-saving time returns Sunday at 2 a.m. local time; clocks go forward one hour. On this date in 1862, during the Civil War, the ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) rams and sinks the USS Cumberland and inflicts heavy damage on the USS Congress, both frigates, off Newport News, Va.

In 1782, the Gnadenhutten massacre takes place as more than 90 Indians are slain by militiamen in Ohio in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians. In 1854, U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry makes his second landing in Japan; within a month, he concludes a treaty with the Japanese. In 1917, Russia’s “February Revolution” (so called because of the Old Style calendar being used by Russians at the time) begins with rioting and strikes in Petrograd. In 1917, the U.S. Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule. In 1930, the 27th president of the United States, William Howard Taft, dies in Washington at age 72. In 1948, the Supreme Court, in McCollum v. Board of Education, strikes down voluntary religious education classes in Champaign, Ill., public schools, saying the program violates separation of church and state. In 1965, the United States lands its first combat troops in South Vietnam, about 3,500 Marines sent to defend the U.S. air base at Da Nang. In 1999, New York Yankees baseball star Joe DiMaggio dies in Hollywood, Fla., at age 84.

March 8, 1983: About 300 people attend the third annual “Ytown is My Town” beer bash at Finnigan’s Pub in Columbus. Attendees wore name tags claiming to be Jim Traficant, Esther Hamilton, Pete Starks, Jack Hunter, “Boom Boom” Mancini and Gordon Ward — the appliance store owner whose commercials made his name a household word.

A facilities master plan suggests that only one of Youngstown’s 32 schools, Jackson Elementary, be abandoned because of its poor physical condition.

March 8, 1968: The Navy Cross is awarded posthumously to Marine Cpl. Thomas Soliz, 19, who was killed in Vietnam while manning a machine gun that allowed the rest of his platoon to improve their position and evacuate the wounded. The award was accepted by his widow, Mrs. Kathleen Woolam Soliz of New Waterford and the couple’s toddler daughter, Linda Marie.

A violent dynamite explosion causes about $8,000 in damage to the home of an independent contractor, Steve Kandis, at 610 Afton Ave. in Boardman.

March 8, 1958: The one-year-old home of former city solicitor Paul Van Such in the Hill district of Campbell is destroyed by fire. Atty. Van Such, his wife and four children escaped after one of the boys, 8-year-old Lynn, smelled smoke and alerted the family.

Mrs. Lottie Moyer, 64, a patient in North Side Hospital for 22 years after her back was broken in a Pennsylvania Railroad train derailment in Pittsburgh, dies following a stroke.

March 8, 1933: Rep. Charles V. Truax of Ohio will introduce a bill in the House calling for a national moratorium on foreclosures.

Elliott Roosevelt, 22-year-old son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, heads west out of Washington in an old car looking for work after telling friends that he found it impossible to work in the advertising business in Washington because all of the jobs were in some way connected with government.