Today is Monday, March 17, the 77th day of 2008. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St.

Today is Monday, March 17, the 77th day of 2008. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day. On this date in 1958, the U.S. Navy launches the Vanguard 1 satellite, the second U.S. satellite to be put into earth orbit.

In A.D. 461 (or A.D. 493, according to other authorities), St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, dies in Saul. In 1776, British forces evacuate Boston during the Revolutionary War. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt first likens crusading journalists to a man with “the muckrake in his hand” in a speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington. In 1910, the Camp Fire Girls organization is formed. (It is formally presented to the public on this date two years later.) In 1941, the National Gallery of Art opens in Washington. In 1966, a U.S. midget submarine locates a missing hydrogen bomb that had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain. In 1968, a peaceful anti-Vietnam War protest in London is followed by a riot outside the U.S. Embassy; more than 80 people are reported injured. In 1969, Golda Meir becomes prime minister of Israel. In 1992, 29 people are killed in the truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

March 17, 1983: Gary Goldner, 28, of Cortland is treated at St. Elizabeth Hospital after being overcome by a dark, oily substance that he discovered leaking from a truck at the Hubbard weigh station, where he works. The truck driver drove away when Goldner became faint.

Four Youngstown men and a Cleveland man are arrested by FBI agents, charged with laundering the titles of junk cars and matching them to stolen vehicles.

A purchase order for four dirigibles has reportedly been signed by a Mideast buyer, requiring Youngstown-based American Skyships Industries to deliver the first of the airships by Dec. 1, 1987.

March 17, 1968: Roman Catholic churches throughout the Youngstown Diocese are being draped in black following the death of Bishop Emmet M. Walsh, who died in St. Elizabeth Hospital after an illness of three years.

Springfield Local High School gains a berth in the Ohio Class A. basketball finals by beating Garaway of Tuscarawas County, 70-54, in regional play at Canton.

Lordstown Township’s century-old frame fire station on Carson Salt Springs Road is razed to make way for a new $110,000 facility. The building served as a cheese factory and a school before being converted into a town hall and fire station.

March 17, 1958: L.A. Beeghly, Youngstown industrialist and civic leader, will retire as a director and member of the executive committee of Youngstown Sheet Tube Co.

Mahoning County Medical Society’s Polio Committee turns down a request by D. Roy Mellon,, Youngstown health commissioner, for mass polio shots in city schools. The physicians group says the third booster shot should be given by the family physician, which would encourage other family members, especially preschoolers, to be vaccinated as well.

March 17, 1933: Dr. H. G. Southard, director of health for the state of Ohio, says that if Youngstown sells Lake Milton, which would likely result in less flow in the Mahoning River, the city would be required to build intercepting sewers and a sewage disposal plant to avoid putrefying the river.

In anticipation of an upturn in the steel industry, Youngstown area scrap yards have put about 50 men to work sorting and preparing scrap for use in the district’s open hearths.