Today is Tuesday, March 17, the 76th day of 2009. There are 289 days left in the year. On this date

March 17, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Tuesday, March 17, the 76th day of 2009. There are 289 days left in the year. On this date 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 likenes 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, D.C. In 1950, scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announce they have created a new radioactive element, “californium.” In 1958, the U.S. Navy launches the Vanguard 1 satellite. In 1959, the Dalai Lama flees Tibet for India in the wake of a failed uprising by Tibetans against Chinese rule. In 1966, a U.S. midget submarine locates a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain. In 1969, Golda Meir becomes prime minister of Israel.

March 17, 1984: Three former Youngstown employees who were fired six years earlier file a political discrimination lawsuit in U.S. District Court against former Mayor J. Phillip Richley and two of his cabinet members.

Dr. Emeral Crosby of Detroit, a member of the National Commission on Excellence on Education, discusses “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform,” a controversial call for change in public education, during a visit to Youngstown State University.

U.S. Rep. Lyle Williams, R-17th, is trying to bring members of a congressional committee to Lake Milton to enlist their support for his proposal to have the federal government repair Milton Dam

March 17, 1969: East High School, perched on a sloping grassy knoll on East High Avenue, is Youngstown’s only public high school that still houses 8th grade students. Principal Burton Honey says the 1,698 students can be accommodated in the school’s 70 classrooms.

Atty. William B. Spagnola, former Youngstown mayor and municipal court judge, dies in South Side Hospital. He was 72.

Trumbull County commissioners Gary Thompson and Lamar Young give 120 unionized county employees an ultimatum: accept the commissioner’s latest wage offer or it will be withdrawn. Commissioner Robert E. Hagan opposes the motion.

Miss Edith I. Schaefer retires from Mahoning County Probate Court after 47 years.

March 17, 1959: St. Patrick’s Eve in downtown Youngstown is the occasion of the spending of the green as shoppers take advantage of a big pre-Easter sale put on by downtown stores.

The Harlem Globetrotters — featuring Wilt (the Stilt) Chamberlain and Meadowlark Lemon — put on a two-game exhibition at the South Field House for a United Veterans Council fund raiser.

Fans start lining up 10 hours before tickets go on sale to get some of the 500 adult tickets that will be available for Salem’s semifinal championship basketball game in Columbus.

March 17, 1934: Members of the Youngstown Junior Chamber of Commerce may follow the lead of the Columbus Junior Chamber of Commerce and put on an intense campaign in Youngstown and Mahoning County to collect delinquent taxes from people who can pay but won’t.

A Youngstown gang is believed to be using a technique long in use in European countries: they are pushing boy thieves through transoms to rob stores.

Steel output in the Youngstown district will drop to about 50 percent of capacity, down from 55 percent, with 45 of the area’s 83 open hearth furnaces active.