TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT Oct. 9, 1967

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

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1776

A group of Spanish missionaries settled in present-day San Francisco.

1910

A coal dust explosion at the Starkville Mine in Colorado left 56 miners dead.

1914

The Belgian city of Antwerp fell to German forces during World War I.

1930

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

1936

The first generator at Boulder Dam began transmitting electricity to Los Angeles.

1940

Rock-and-roll legend John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England.

1958

Pope Pius XII died at age 82, ending a 19-year papacy.

1974

Businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving about 1,200Jews during the Holocaust, died in Frankfurt, West Germany.

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.

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; President Bush said, “The international community will respond.” Google Inc. announced it was snapping up YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion in a stock deal.