Today is Sunday, March 9, the 69th day of 2008. There are 297 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Sunday, March 9, the 69th day of 2008. There are 297 days left in the year. On this date in 1862, during the Civil War, the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (formerly Merrimac) clash for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads, Va.

In 1796, the future emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, marries Josephine de Beauharnais. (The couple divorces in 1809.) In 1907, Indiana’s General Assembly passes America’s first involuntary sterilization law, one aimed at “confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists” in state custody. In 1916, Mexican raiders under the command of Pancho Villa attack Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans. In 1932, Eamon de Valera is elected the head of government of the Irish Free State. In 1933, Congress, called into special session by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, begins its “hundred days” of enacting New Deal legislation. In 1954, CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviews Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy’s anti-Communism campaign on “See It Now.” In 1977, about a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invade three buildings in Washington, D.C., killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. (The siege ends two days later.)

March 9, 1983: Seven people, six of them from Hubbard, are arrested in a series of drug buys in Coitsville Township that netted Mahoning County deputies three pounds of marijuana and four vehicles.

Energy Secretary Donald Hodel tells Congress that President Reagan’s plan to lift all price controls on natural gas should drive gas prices down.

Edward J. DeBartolo, chairman of the board of the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp., will receive the Mahoning Valley Businessman of the Year Award from the Mahoning Valley Economic Development Corp.

March 9, 1968: Pennsylvania State Trooper Vernon Bylstone, a native of Youngstown, kills a bank robbery suspect and captures his two companions, although wounded himself near Waynesburg, Pa.

The Ohio Wildlife Division stocks Lake Erie with 12,000 Coho salmon, a hardy, fighting sports fish. The fish are fingerlings, but if all goes well sportsmen should be catching Coho in the 15-pound range by the 1969 season.

Barbara Smith, a junior at St. Elizabeth Hospital’s School of Nursing, is selected Student Nurse of District 3, Eastern Ohio, during a student nurse social evening at the Mahoning Country Club.

March 9, 1958: After an hour’s search, two Youngstown patrolmen discover a false seat in a stool at Tony Greco’s fake Park Dry Cleaning Shop. Inside the compartment they find bug and horse bet slips and $300 in cash, Greco is downtown’s most notorious bookie.

Two Sharon, Pa., area men are among 26 Marines listed as killed or missing after the collision of a jet fighter with a transport plane off Okinawa. Pfc. Walter Whitehead of Sharon is listed as dead and Cpl. Leonard T. Wasley of Sharpsville is reported missing.

Two 10-year-old Salem boys admit tampering with three switches that almost caused a crash between an eastbound passenger train and a westbound freight on the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks near Salem. The boys and their parents are to appear in Juvenile Court.

March 9, 1933: Ohio Gov. George White endorses the Whittemore bill that would forestall foreclosures because of delinquent property taxes by allowing payment of taxes in 10 installments.

Campbell Memorial and Salem High are ousted in the first night of play in the Northeastern Ohio Tournament at Akron. Akron West eliminates Campbell, 22-21 and Massillon defeats Salem, 42-27.

General Fireproofing Co. meets its payroll by paying two thirds of wages due in cash and one third in $1 and $5 promissory notes payable to the bearer within six months. Truscon Steel Co. announces that it, too, will begin issuing its own scrip.