YEARS AGO FOR MARCH 15

Today is Wednesday, March 15, the 74th day of 2017. There are 291 days left in the year.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

44 B.C.: Roman dictator Julius Caesar is assassinated by a group of nobles that includes Brutus and Cassius.

1820: Maine becomes the 23rd state.

1917: Czar Nicholas II abdicates in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, who declines the crown, marking the end of imperial rule in Russia.

1937: America’s first hospital blood bank opens at Cook County Hospital in Illinois.

1964: Actress Elizabeth Taylor marries actor Richard Burton in Montreal; it is her fifth marriage, his second. (They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, then divorced again in 1976.)

1985: The first internet domain name, symbolics.com, is registered by the Symbolics Computer Corp. of Massachusetts.

2011: The Syrian civil war has its beginnings with Arab Spring protests across the region that turned into an armed insurgency and eventually became a full-blown conflict.

2012: Convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich walks into a federal prison in Colorado, where the 55-year-old Democrat begins serving a 14-year sentence for corruption.

2016: Democrat Hillary Clinton triumphs in the Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri presidential primaries; Donald Trump strengthens his hand in the Republican race, winning in Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri, but falling in Ohio to Gov. John Kasich.

VINDICATOR FILES

1992: The Rayen School realizes a yearlong goal, beating Canfield, 62-50, in the Division II District basketball championship at Boardman High School.

General Motors Corp. officials say the company will never regain all its lost market share, which is 36 percent, after being as high as 45.8 percent in 1980.

According to James Petuch, district recycling coordinator, Mahoning County collected more than 9.3 million pounds of recyclables during 1991, making it a model for the rest of the state.

1977: Joseph Pallone, 30, of Youngstown escapes death and serious injury when his Ford LTD plunges 125 feet off the Mahoning Avenue Bridge into Mill Creek Park.

Mahoning County commissioners enact a half-percent piggyback sales tax that will go into effect June 1. The tax is expected to raise between $1.5 million and $2.5 million.

A 17-year-old South High student, Wayne Huff, is fatally shot in the bedroom of his 15-year-old girlfriend’s Cohasset Drive home. The girl’s parents are being questioned by police.

1967: Youngstown police arrest four 9- and 10-year-old North Side boys who are believed responsible for a series of house burglaries and purse snatchings.

Orlando and Ronald Carabbia buy the former Cue and Cushion building at 2719 Midlothian Blvd. for $9,000 from Carl E. Nicolls.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. net income for 1966 was $44 million on sales of $778 million, a drop of $9 million in net and $7 million in sales from a year earlier.

The Monday Musical Club presentation of Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians is sold out.

1942: Junior and senior high school boys in Youngstown schools are working in wood shops after hours to make scale-model planes to Defense Department specifications.

An increase of 18 men on the Youngstown Police Department would cost $34,840 a year, but would save money in the long run by reducing burglary and robbery losses. So says Chief John W. Turnbull in asking voter support of a city tax levy.

Ohio Gov. John Bricker urges motorists to heed President Roosevelt’s call for a voluntary 40 mph speed limit to save oil and gas. State patrolmen will flag down speeders.