TODAY is Friday, March 31, the 90th day of 2006. There are 275 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE:

In 1880, Wabash, Indiana, became the first town in the world to be illuminated by electrical lighting.

In 1889, French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel unfurled the French tricolour from atop the Eiffel Tower, officially marking its completion.

In 1945, the Tennessee Williams play “The Glass Menagerie” opened on Broadway.

IIn 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that coma patient Karen Anne Quinlan could be disconnected from her respirator. (Quinlan, who remained comatose, died in 1985.)

In 1986, 167 people died when a Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727 crashed in a remote mountainous region of Mexico.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

“What is it to be a gentleman? The first to thank and the last to complain.” — Serbian proverb.