“So often we rob tomorrow’s memories by today’s economies.”

“So often we rob tomorrow’s memories by today’s economies.”

John Mason Brown

American critic and lecturer (1900-1969)

Today is Tuesday, March 31, the 90th day of 2009. There are 275 days left in the year. On this date in 1968, at the conclusion of a nationally broadcast address, President Lyndon B. Johnson shocks his listeners by announcing he would not seek another term of office.

In 1809, English poet Edward FitzGerald, best known for his translation of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” is born in Suffolk. In 1880, Wabash, Ind., becomes the first town in the world to be illuminated by electrical lighting. In 1889, French engineer Gustave Eiffel unfurls the French tricolor from atop the Eiffel Tower, officially marking its completion. In 1917, the United States takes possession of the Virgin Islands from Denmark. In 1933, Congress approves, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs, the Emergency Conservation Work Act, which created the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1943, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma!” opens on Broadway. In 1945, the Tennessee Williams play “The Glass Menagerie” opens on Broadway. In 1949, Newfoundland (now called Newfoundland and Labrador) enters confederation as Canada’s 10th province. In 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court rules that Karen Ann Quinlan, who was in a persistent vegetative state, could be disconnected from her respirator. (Quinlan, who remained unconscious, dies in 1985.) In 2005, Terri Schiavo, 41, dies at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a wrenching right-to-die dispute.