Today is Thursday, March 5, the 64th day of 2009. There are 301 days left in the year. On this date

March 5, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Thursday, March 5, the 64th day of 2009. There are 301 days left in the year. On this date in 1959, a fire at the Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville, Ark., claims the lives of 21 teenagers trapped inside a locked dormitory room. (Four dozen other boys manage to escape).

In 1770, the Boston Massacre takes place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists open fire, killing five people. In 1849, Zachary Taylor is inaugurated as the 12th president of the United States. (The swearing-in is delayed by a day because March 4, 1849, fell on a Sunday.) In 1868, the Senate is organized into a Court of Impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson, who is later acquitted. In 1933, in German parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party wins 44 percent of the vote; the Nazis join with a conservative nationalist party to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag.

March 5, 1984: The third floor of The Mansion, a landmark restaurant at 2540 Market St., is heavily damaged by fire. Arson investigators are on the scene.

Mobster Joseph “Little Joey” Naples reports to a Chicago federal prison to begin serving a six-month sentence for violating a federal weapons statute.

March 5, 1969: Robert Pondillo, a senior at Austintown Fitch High School, takes second place in the national finals of the high school broadcast script-writing competition sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and broadcasters associations. He won a $3,500 college scholarship.

Warren Mayor Raymond E. Schryver wins a go-for-broke gamble, threatening to invoke the state’s Ferguson Law that prohibits public employee strikes, when city employees end a 10-day strike and return to the negotiating table.

March 5, 1959: The Youngstown Transit Co. announces drastic cuts in bus service, affecting five city lines.

Mayor Frank X. Kryzan assures City Council that $355,000 needed to repair winter damage to city streets can be provided without curtailing normal city operations.

Dr. Fred Essig, superintendent, says the Paul C. Bunn School, built for $530,000, will open to 450 pupils on March 16.

March 5, 1934: Plans for nine of the 160 houses to be build in the Youngstown industrial area by the Mahoning Homestead Gardens, ranging in size from one to four rooms, are submitted to federal homestead gardens officials by Philip Schaff, manager of the MHG, and W.H. Cook, architect.

With 300 men working three shifts, the Columbiana County Courthouse project is ahead of schedule. The interior of the building has been gutted and work is beginning on the foundation for an addition.