Today in history

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 9, the 282nd day of 2019. There are 83 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 9, 1967, Marxist revolutionary guerrilla leader Che Guevara, 39, was summarily executed by the Bolivian army a day after his capture.

On this date:

In 1776, a group of Spanish missionaries settled in present-day San Francisco.

In 1910, a coal dust explosion at the Starkville Mine in Colorado left 56 miners dead.

In 1914, the Belgian city of Antwerp fell to German forces during World War I.

In 1930, Laura Ingalls became the first woman to fly across the United States as she completed a ninestop journey from Roosevelt Field, N.Y., to Glendale, Calif.

In 1936, the first generator at Boulder (later Hoover) Dam began transmitting electricity to Los Angeles.

In 1940, rock-and-roll legend John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England. (On this date in 1975, his son, Sean, was born in New York.)

In 1958, Pope Pius XII died at age 82, ending a 19-year papacy. (He was succeeded by Pope John XXIII.)

In 1974, businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving about 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, died in Frankfurt, West Germany (at his request, he was buried in Jerusalem).

In 1985, the hijackers of the Achille Lauro (ah-KEE’leh LOW’-roh) cruise liner surrendered two days after seizing the vessel in the Mediterranean. (Passenger Leon Klinghoffer was killed by the hijackers during the standoff.)

In 2001, in the first daylight raids since the start of U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan, jets bombed the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Letters postmarked in Trenton, N.J., were sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy; the letters later tested positive for anthrax.

In 2006, North Korea faced a barrage of condemnation and calls for retaliation after it announced that it had set off a small atomic weapon underground.