Each way took about three days.
In 1967, Argentinean-born Communist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, an important figure in the 1959 Cuban revolution, was killed while leading a guerrilla war in Bolivia.
In 1990, at least 17 Muslims were killed by Israeli police in rioting on the Temple Mount, the third holiest site in Islam.
In 1991, a U.S. federal judge in Anchorage, Alaska, approved a $1 billion settlement against Exxon for the Valdez oil spill.
In 1992, former West German chancellor Willy Brandt died of intestinal cancer in his house outside Bonn. He was 78.
In 1993, the U.S. Justice Department, in its report on the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, concluded the cult had caused the fire that destroyed the compound, killing at least 75 people.
In 1997, three years after the death of longtime North Korean ruler Kim Il Sung, his son, Kim Jong Il, officially inherited his father's title of general-secretary of the Communist Party.
In 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 258-176 to begin impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.
In 2001, U.S. transport planes dropped 37,000 meals into areas of Afghanistan where mass starvation was feared imminent.
Also in 2001, the United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 2003, some $19 billion in peach-colored, redesigned $20 bills made their official debut across the United States.
Also in 2003, researchers found the remains of a synagogue dating from the fifth or sixth century in the Albanian coastal city of Saranda.
In 2004, for the first time the Nobel Peace Prize went to an African woman, Dr. Wangari Maathai, an environmental activist from Kenya.
In 2005, a death toll close to 40,000 was reported in India and Pakistan after a powerful earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale struck the area. The quake brought down buildings and triggered mudslides that buried houses.
Also in 2005, Tropical Storm Stan killed more than 500 people in Guatemala before losing its strength over mountainous Mexico.
In 2006, an Israeli official said Jerusalem had no "hostile intentions" toward Syria despite Syrian President Bashar Assad's assertion he expected an Israeli attack at any time.
Also in 2006, Russia's prosecutor general took over the investigation into the shooting death of a Moscow journalist known for criticizing Russian actions in Chechnya.
In 2007, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that half of the 5,000 British troops stationed in Iraq would be removed by the end of 2008.
Also in 2007, a second U.N. observer mission was sent into a town in Sudan's troubled Darfur region that was burned and looted while under government control. Sudan's Justice and Equality Movement accused the government of having a hand in it.
A thought for the day: French actress Sarah Bernhardt said, "Permanent success cannot be achieved except by incessant intellectual labor, always inspired by the ideal."
This is Thursday, Oct. 9, the 283rd day of 2008 with 83 to follow.
The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Saturn and Mercury. The evening stars are Mars, Venus, Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include French composer Camille Saint-Saens in 1835; Charles Rudolph Walgreen, drug store chain founder, in 1873; American evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in 1890; Civil War historian Bruce Catton in 1899; convicted Watergate burglar, novelist and lecturer E. Howard Hunt Jr. in 1918; Beatles star John Lennon in 1940; singer-songwriter Jackson Browne in 1948 (age 60); writer/actor Robert Wuhl in 1951 (age 57); and actors Scott Bakula in 1954 (age 54) and Zachery Ty Bryan ("Home Improvement") in 1981 (age 27).
On this date in history:
In 1934, King Alexander of Yugoslavia was assassinated by a Croatian terrorist during a state visit to France.
In 1974, Oskar Schindler, the German businessman credited with saving 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, died at the age of 66.
In 1975, Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, became the first Soviet citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1983, James Watt, facing U.S. Senate condemnation for a racially insensitive remark, resigned as U.S. President Ronald Reagan's Interior secretary.
In 1986, the U.S. Senate convicted imprisoned U.S. District Judge Harry Claiborne of tax cheating, making him the fifth U.S. judge to be impeached and removed from office.
In 1989, the Soviet news agency Tass, under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of increasing openness in society, reported a flying saucer visit to the Soviet Union.
In 1992, NASA announced that the unmanned Pioneer spacecraft was apparently lost after orbiting Venus for 14 years.
In 1995, an Amtrak passenger train derailed in a remote area of Arizona southwest of Phoenix, killing one person and injuring about 100 others in apparent track sabotage.
In 1997, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned after Communist members of Parliament withdrew their support for his coalition government.
In 2001, the Pentagon reported the destruction of seven terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and, claiming control of the skies over Afghanistan, launched heavy airstrikes against Taliban garrisons and troop encampments.
In 2002, the Washington-area sniper claimed a seventh victim with the slaying of a man at a gas station near Manassas, Va.
Also in 2002, as stock prices continued to fluctuate wildly, the Dow Jones industrials closed at 7,286.27, a five-year low.
In 2004, the death toll in the double bombings in the central Pakistani city of Multan reached 40 with 100 others injured. The explosions caught a crowd of Sunni Muslims leaving an anniversary gathering.
Also in 2004, John Howard, Australia's prime minister, won a fourth term as his nation's leader. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan's first democratic presidential election, nearly all the candidates, concerned over reported irregularities, boycotted the process even as voters went to the polls.
In 2005, as the 7.6-magnitude earthquake death toll soared near the reported 40,000 mark in Pakistan, a massive relief effort was under way in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. India reported 650 dead and Afghanistan four.
In 2006, North Korea announced it had successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, prompting a flurry of diplomatic reaction in Washington and around the world.
Also in 2006, the U.N. Security Council approved South Korean Foreign Secretary Ban Ki-moon as the next secretary-general to succeed Kofi Annan at the end of the year.
In 2007, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high of 14,164.53 points.
A thought for the day: in "The Taming of the Shrew," William Shakespeare wrote, "Do as adversaries do in law. Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."
Today is Friday, Oct. 10, the 284th day of 2006 with 82 to follow.
The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Saturn and Mercury. The evening stars are Mars, Venus, Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include English chemist-physicist Henry Cavendish, discoverer of hydrogen, in 1731; composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1813; actress Helen Hayes in 1900; playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter in 1930 (age 78); entertainer Ben Vereen in 1946 (age 62); actress Jessica Harper in 1949 (age 59); rocker David Lee Roth in 1954 (age 54); country singer Tanya Tucker in 1958 (age 50); and pro football star Brett Favre in 1969 (age 39).
On this date in history:
In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was formally opened at Fort Severn, Annapolis, Md., with 50 midshipmen in the first class.
In 1886, Griswold Lorillard of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., fashioned the first tuxedo for men.
In 1963, a dam burst in northern Italy, drowning an estimated 3,000 people.
In 1973, Spiro Agnew became the first U.S. vice president to resign in disgrace after pleading no contest to income tax evasion.
In 1985, movie legend Orson Welles, whose remarkably innovative "Citizen Kane" of 1941 was still regarded by many as the best American-made picture of all time more than half a century later, died of a heart attack at the age of 70.
In 1993, Greek voters returned to power former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and his Pan-Hellenic socialist movement.
In 1994, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, commander in chief of the Haitian armed forces, resigned to make way for the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In 1995, Israel freed some 900 Palestinian prisoners and pulled its troops out of four towns as the second phase of the peace plan was implemented on the West Bank.
In 1997, the major tobacco companies agreed to a settlement in the class-action suit brought against them by 60,000 present and former flight attendants. They had claimed second-hand smoke in airplanes had caused them to get cancer and other diseases.
Also in 1997, it was announced that the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its coordinator, Jody Williams of Putney, Vt.
In 2001, representatives of 56 Islamic nations, in an emergency meeting on Qatar, condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
In 2002, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize.
