Today is Monday, March 24, the 84th day of 2008. There are 282 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Monday, March 24, the 84th day of 2008. There are 282 days left in the year. On this date in 1958, rock-and-roll singer Elvis Presley is inducted into the Army in Memphis, Tenn. (After nearly six months of basic training at Fort Hood, Texas, Presley is posted to Friedberg, West Germany; he is honorably discharged in 1960.)

In 1765, Britain enacts the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers. In 1944, in occupied Rome, the Nazis execute more than 300 civilians in reprisal for an attack by Italian partisans the day before that had killed 32 German soldiers. In 1955, the Tennessee Williams play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” opens on Broadway. In 1980, one of El Salvador’s most respected Roman Catholic Church leaders, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, is shot to death by gunmen as he celebrates Mass in San Salvador. In 1989, the nation’s worst oil spill occurs as the supertanker Exxon Valdez runs aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and begins leaking 11 million gallons of crude. In 1999, NATO launches airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that the alliance attacked a sovereign country.

March 24, 1983: Kornel J. Feher is fired from the presidency of Commuter Aircraft Corp. by the six other members of the board of directors.

Warren Mayor Daniel Sferra receives a letter from the mayor of Montgomery, Ala., denying mistreatment of five Warren citizens who were jailed in that city in connection with the beating of two Montgomery policemen.

March 24, 1968: The Canfield Fair Board purchases 11 acres adjacent to the present parking lots for the Canfield Fairgrounds at a cost of $1,000 per acre.

John A. Krukar, 29, who lived in Brookfield and Youngstown and whose bullet-riddled body was found in West Virginia, has been identified by police as the triggerman in the murder of a Morgantown, W.Va., night club owner in January.

Farmers from 12 counties in Southwestern Ohio slaughter and bury 550 hogs in a protest against low livestock prices. The latest market price for hogs is $20.35 per hundredweight; farmers want a minimum of $23.

March 24, 1958: Austintown fire officials are attempting to learn the cause of a $20,000 fire at the Blue Bird Nite Club, 3657 Mahoning Ave.

Bright, warm sunshine draws a crowd estimated at 30,000 to the Geauga County maple festival at Chardon.

Elizabeth Taylor leaves her California home for a flight to Chicago for the funeral of her husband, showman Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash. Accompanying her are her personal physician, close friends and relatives and singer Eddie Fisher, one of Todd’s best friends.

March 24, 1933: Mayor Mark E. Moore asks City Engineer Grant M. Cook to prepare sketches and estimates of a $2 million work program for Youngstown.

All police investigation of the kidnaping of Pete Myers, 15-year-old Masury boy who has been gone for six days, is called off for 24 hours to give the abductors a chance to communicate with the parents or return the boy without fear of interference.

Babe Ruth signs his 1933 contract with the New York Yankees calling for a salary of $52,000.