This day in history

[October 09, 2010]  (AP)  Today is Saturday, Oct. 9, the 282nd day of 2010. There are 83 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Oct. 9, 1910, a coal dust explosion at the Starkville Mine in Colorado left 56 miners dead.

On this date:

In 1701, the Collegiate School of Connecticut -- later Yale University -- was chartered.

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

In 1888, the public was first admitted to the Washington Monument.

In 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.

In 1940, rock and roll legend John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England.

In 1946, the Eugene O'Neill drama "The Iceman Cometh" opened at the Martin Beck Theater 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 1967, Latin American guerrilla leader Che Guevara was executed while attempting to incite revolution in Bolivia.

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 1995, a sabotaged section of track caused an Amtrak train, the Sunset Limited, to derail in Arizona; one person was killed and about 80 were injured (the case remains unsolved). An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 shook the west coast of Mexico, killing about 50 people.

Ten years ago: Arvid Carlsson of Sweden, and Americans Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel won the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Five years ago: Dozens of foreign tourists fled devastated lakeside Mayan towns as Guatemalan officials said they would abandon communities buried by landslides and declare them mass graveyards. A driverless Volkswagen won a $2 million race across the rugged Nevada desert, beating four other robot-guided vehicles that completed a Pentagon-sponsored contest aimed at making warfare safer for humans. Comedian Louis Nye died in Los Angeles at age 92.

One year ago: President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." A suicide car bomb in a busy market area in Peshawar, Pakistan killed 53. A surveillance plane assigned to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti crashed into a mountain, killing all 11 peacekeepers on board. Jacques Rogge (zhahk ROH'-geh) won re-election as president of the International Olympic Committee for a final four-year term.

Today's birthdays: Actor Fyvush Finkel is 88. Former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is 69. Rhythm-and-blues singer Nona Hendryx is 66. Singer Jackson Browne is 62. Actor Gary Frank is 60. Actor Richard Chaves is 59. Actor Robert Wuhl is 59. Actress-TV personality Sharon Osbourne is 58. Actor Tony Shalhoub is 57. Actor Scott Bakula is 56. Musician James Fearnley (The Pogues) is 56. Actor John O'Hurley is 56. Writer-producer-director-actor Linwood Boomer is 55. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Mike Singletary is 52. Actor Michael Pare is 52. Jazz musician Kenny Garrett is 50. Rock singer-musician Kurt Neumann (The BoDeans) is 49. Country singer Gary Bennett is 46. Movie director Guillermo del Toro is 46. British Prime Minister David Cameron is 44. Singer P.J. Harvey is 41. Golfer Annika Sorenstam is 40. Country singer Tommy Shane Steiner is 37. Actor Steve Burns is 37. Sean Lennon is 35. Actor Randy Spelling is 32. Actor Brandon Routh is 31. Actor Zachery Ty Bryan is 29. Actress Spencer Grammer is 27. Actor Tyler James Williams ("Everybody Hates Chris") is 18.

Thought for today: "It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest." -- Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American author and essayist (1879-1958)

[Associated Press]

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