October 9, Che Guevara executed

Today is Thursday, Oct. 9, the 282nd day of 2025. There are 83 days left in the year.

Today in history:

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

Also on this date:

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

In 1962, Uganda won independence from British rule.

In 1963, a mega-tsunami triggered by a landside at Vajont Dam in northern Italy destroyed villages and caused approximately 2,000 deaths.

In 1985, Strawberry Fields in New York’s Central Park, a memorial to former Beatle John Lennon, was dedicated.

In 1992, the highly visible Peekskill Meteorite streaked through Earth’s atmosphere for hundreds of miles over the U.S. Northeast before a small chunk of it crashed into the trunk of a parked car in Peekskill, New York. The car, a bright red 1980 Chevrolet Malibu, later went on exhibition at several museums worldwide.

In 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

In 2010, a drill broke through into an underground chamber where 33 Chilean miners had been trapped for more than two months.

In 2012, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was sentenced in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, to 30 to 60 years in prison following his conviction on 45 counts of sexual abuse of boys.