1938 The Euthanasia Society of America, precursor of Choice in Dying, is founded.

1950 Dr. Herman Sander is acquitted of killing a terminally ill cancer patient with an injection of air, even though he admitted having done it.

1968 Dr. Walter Sackett proposes to the Florida legislature the nation's first living-will bill, which, had it passed, would have empowered people to put in writing their wishes for end-of-life medical treatment if they became unable to communicate.

1973 The American Medical Association opposes living wills, supporting instead private discussions among patients, family and doctors.

1973 The American Hospital Association proposes a 12-point Patient's Bill of Rights, which includes the right to refuse treatment.

March 31, 1976 The New Jersey Supreme Court orders doctors to remove a respirator from Karen Ann Quinlan, a young woman in a coma, though not brain-dead. Sustained by a feeding tube, she lives 10 more years.

Oct. 1, 1976 California's Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. signs the nation's first living-will law.

1977 The National Conference of Catholic Bishops distributes 'Resource Paper on Death and Dying,' opposing living-will laws.

1980 Pope John Paul II issues a 'Declaration of Euthanasia,' opposing mercy killing but permitting the increased use of painkillers and a patient's refusal of extraordinary means of sustaining life.

1982 The American Medical Association endorses the withdrawal of treatment in hopeless cases, including permanent coma.

1984 The National Conference of Catholic Bishops issues legislative guidelines for living wills, but does not endorse them.

1985 The New Jersey Supreme Court is the nation's first court to permit withdrawal of all forms of medical treatment, including feeding and hydration.

June 1986 Rhode Island adopts a durable-power-of-attorney law, enabling people to designate someone to make medical decisions for them if they become incapacitated.

June 1986 The American Medical Association endorses the withdrawal of all medical treatment, including feeding and hydration, from dying patients who request it and those in a permanent coma.

Jan. 11, 1988 Roman Catholic Bishop Louis E. Gelineau, of Providence, says that removing the feeding tube from Marcia Gray, a comatose Rhode Island woman, would not violate Catholic teachings.

Oct. 17, 1988 Chief U.S. District Judge Francis J. Boyle, of Providence, becomes the first federal judge to affirm the right of patients to refuse medical treatment. He orders a state hospital to stop feeding Marcia Gray, of South Kingstown, who has been comatose since January 1986.

Nov. 16, 1988 The Missouri Supreme Court denies the right to withdraw a feeding tube from Nancy Cruzan, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1983.

Nov. 30, 1988 Marcia Gray dies in her husband's arms at the age of 49, two weeks after a doctor at South County Hospital has removed her feeding tube. She was transferred to South County after the state General Hospital and six private hospitals refused to remove the tube.

June 5, 1990 Dr. Jack Kevorkian, of Michigan, announces that he used a 'suicide machine' to enable Janet Adkins, a woman in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, to kill herself.

June 25, 1990 Ruling in the Nancy Cruzan case, the U.S. Supreme Court establishes a patient's right to refuse medical treatment, including feeding and hydration, but says that states may require 'clear and convincing' evidence of the patient's wishes.

Dec. 3, 1990 Dr. Kevorkian is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Janet Adkins, but 10 days later a judge dismisses the charge, saying that Adkins caused her own death.

Dec. 26, 1990 Nancy Cruzan dies in Missouri. Her feeding tube was removed after new evidence convinced a state judge that she would have wanted the withdrawal of medical treatment.

March 7, 1991 Dr. Timothy E. Quill, of Rochester, N.Y., writes in The New England Journal of Medicine that he gave a terminal-cancer patient a prescription for barbiturates that he knew she would use to kill herself.

June 1991 Rhode Island becomes the 43rd state to adopt a living-will law.

July 26, 1991 A Rochester, N.Y., grand jury declines to indict Dr. Quill for having helped his patient commit suicide.

Aug. 18, 1991 Final Exit, a book instructing people in how to commit suicide, reaches the top of the New York Times best-seller list in the hardcover-advice category.

Nov. 6, 1991 Washington-state voters reject an initiative to allow physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

Dec. 1, 1991 Federal law takes effect requiring hospitals and nursing homes to ask patients upon admission whether they have a living will, and if not, whether they want one.

Nov. 4, 1992 California voters reject a proposal to allow doctors to help terminally patients kill themselves.

March 8, 1993 The Canadian Court of Appeals rules that Sue Rodriguez, a woman with Lou Gehrig's disease, does not have a legal right to assisted suicide.

Aug. 17, 1993 After helping a 30-year-old man with Lou Gehrig's disease kill himself, Dr. Kevorkian becomes the first person charged under a new Michigan law that makes assisted suicide a crime.

Dec. 13, 1993 A judge strikes down the Michigan law banning assisted suicide, although the ban remains in effect.

Feb. 14, 1994 Sue Rodriguez, the Canadian with Lou Gehrig's disease, dies in an alleged doctor-assisted suicide.

May 2, 1994 A Michigan jury acquits Dr. Kevorkian of violating the state ban on assisted suicide.

May 25, 1994 The New York State Task Force on Life and the Law recommends against legalizing physician-assisted suicide, citing fears of abuse.

Nov. 8, 1994 Oregon voters approve a measure allowing doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients who request them. But before the law takes effect, it is struck down by a judge, and it remains under court review.

Feb. 2, 1995 Dr. Gregory Messenger, of Michigan, is acquitted of manslaughter for unhooking his premature infant son from a respirator. Had he survived, the infant would probably have suffered brain damage.

March 30, 1995 Pope John Paul II issues 'The Gospel of Life,' condemning euthanasia but allowing a patient's refusal of extraordinary medical treatment.

April 21, 1995 A Massachusetts court rules that hospitals and doctors need not provide care that they deem futile, even if the patient requests it.

May 25, 1995 The Northern Territory of Australia becomes the first jurisdiction in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of terminally ill patients who request help dying. The law will take effect in 1996.

Oct. 19, 1995 Actress Mary Tyler Moore reveals in USA Today that in 1992 she and her husband, a cardiologist, unsuccessfully tried to help her terminally ill brother take his life. He died of kidney cancer three months later.

Nov. 22, 1995 The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation publishes a study showing that doctors continue to ignore patients' requests to die in peace and dignity; the study finds that many patients, despite specific directives to end care, spend their last days hooked to machinery and in pain.

Feb. 6, 1996 State Sen. John M. Roney introduces a bill in the Rhode Island General Assembly that would legalize and regulate assisted suicide. Bills that would criminalize it are also introduced, in both the House and the Senate.

March 7, 1996 A federal appeals court in San Francisco strikes down a Washington-state ban on doctor-assisted suicide.

March 27, 1996 The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes a survey of Washington-state doctors that found that 12 percent had received explicit requests for a lethal-drug prescription; a third of them honored the requests.

April 2, 1996 A federal appeals court in New York overturns two state laws banning doctor-assisted suicide.

May 14, 1996 For the third time, Dr. Kevorkian is acquitted of violating Michigan's ban on assisted suicide.

May 16, 1996 The Rhode Island Medical Society votes to take a neutral position on doctor-assisted suicide, becoming the third state medical society to break with the American Medical Association's opposition to the practice.

May 23, 1996 Nöel David Earley, a Lincoln, R.I., man dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, urges a state legislative committee to legalize assisted suicide. Instead, the committee approves a bill to make assisting suicide a felony, which the General Assembly later overwhelmingly passes.

June 25, 1996 The American Medical Association's governing body votes overwhelmingly to affirm the AMA's opposition to doctor-assisted suicide.

Aug. 5, 1996 Gov. Lincoln Almond signs the bill criminalizing assisted suicide, making Rhode Island the 35th state to ban the practice.

Aug. 6, 1996 Dr. Kevorkian alarms even those who support assisted suicide when he helps Judith Curren, of Pembroke, Mass., with a lethal injection. Curren had a painful but non-terminal muscle disease, and she may have been an abused wife suffering from depression.

Sept. 22, 1996 Robert Dent, a 66-year-old Australian with prostate cancer, uses a computer-activated syringe to inject himself with a lethal dose of barbiturates, becoming the first terminally ill person to choose death under the Northern Territory's euthanasia law, which went into effect in July.

Sept. 26, 1996 Nöel Earley announces that he will defy the new Rhode Island law by killing himself with a doctor's help, on Dec. 4.

Oct. 1, 1996 The U.S. Supreme Court decides to tackle the question of assisted suicide, agreeing to review the two appeals-court rulings.

Oct. 27, 1996 Canada's Liberal Party approves a resolution favoring assisted suicide.

Nov. 12, 1996 The Clinton administration urges the U.S. Supreme Court not to allow assisted suicide.

Dec. 2, 1996 Nöel Earley announces that he will postpone his suicide until he loses his voice. He provides details of his plan: to inject himself with a mixture of Demerol and morphine.

Jan. 8, 1997 The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on physician-assisted suicide; the justices' questions suggest that they are disinclined to declare it a constitutional right.

Jan. 15, 1997 A researcher who re-analyzed data from the 1995 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study on death and dying concludes that the patients actually wanted the relentless treatment they received, and suggests that people die amid high-technology care and in pain because they cling to hope.

Jan. 15, 1997 Nöel David Earley dies peacefully at home, apparently of natural causes.

Feb. 6, 1997 The New England Journal of Medicine publishes a survey of San Francisco-area doctors who specialize in AIDS, showing that 53 percent have helped their patients commit suicide.

Feb. 6, 1997 Charles Hall, a Florida man with AIDS, becomes the only American with the legal right to physician-assisted suicide when a Florida judge lifts the stay on a previous court ruling affirming his right to obtain such assistance from his doctor.