Today’s highlight:
On March 31, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson shocked the country by announcing at the conclusion of a broadcast address on Vietnam that he would not seek re-election.
On this date:
In 1811, German scientist Robert Bunsen, who helped develop the Bunsen burner, was born.
In 1889, French engineer Gustave Eiffel unfurled the French tricolor from atop the Eiffel Tower, officially marking its completion.
In 1917, the United States took possession of the Virgin Islands from Denmark.
In 1933, Congress approved, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed, the Emergency Conservation Work Act, which created the Civilian Conservation Corps.
In 1943, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma!” opened on Broadway.
In 1949, Newfoundland (now called Newfoundland and Labrador) entered confederation as Canada’s tenth province.
In 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, who was in a persistent vegetative state, could be disconnected from her respirator. (Quinlan, who remained unconscious, died in 1985.)
In 1991, the Warsaw Pact spent the last day of its existence as a military alliance.
In 1995, Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 23, was shot to death in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the founder of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
In 2005, Terri Schiavo, 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a wrenching right-to-die dispute.
Associated Press
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