TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1968

At the conclusion of a nationally broadcast address on Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned listeners by declaring, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1811

German scientist Robert Bunsen, who helped develop the Bunsen burner, was born.

1880

Wabash, Ind., became the first town in the world to be illuminated by electrical lighting.

1931

Notre Dame college football coach Knute Rockne, 43, was killed in the crash of a TWA plane in Bazaar, Kan.

1933

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Conservation Work Act, which created the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1943

“Oklahoma!,” the first musical play by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opened on Broadway.

1975 1976

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Ann Quinlan, a young woman in a persistent vegetative state, could be disconnected from her respirator.

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.

2004

Four American civilian contractors were killed in Fallujah, Iraq; frenzied crowds dragged the burned, mutilated bodies and strung two of them from a bridge.

“Gunsmoke” closed out 20 seasons on CBS with its final first-run episode, “The Sharecroppers.”