Reuters historical calendar - October 9

London, Oct 8 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on October 9 since 1900.

1934 - King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, who were negotiating an alliance, were assassinated by Vlada Chernozamsky, a Croat, in Marseille.

1958 - Pope Pius XII, head of the Roman Catholic Church during World War Two, died aged 82.

1962 - Uganda became independent after nearly 70 years of British rule.

1963 - The Vaiont Dam in northeast Italy overflowed and flooded four villages, killing over 2,000 people.

1967 - Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara, Argentine-born guerrilla leader and revolutionary, was killed in Bolivia while leading a Cuban-sponsored force.

1970 - Cambodia declared itself the Khmer Republic.

1975 - Andrei Sakharov, Soviet dissident and human rights campaigner, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1983 - Four South Korean cabinet ministers were killed by a bomb in Rangoon.

1990 - Nelson Mandela returned to South Africa's notorious Robben Island and said ''the emotions ran wild'' when he met prisoners in the jail where he spent 20 years of his life.

1997 - Hurricane Pauline killed more than 200 people in the Mexican tourist resort of Acapulco.

2000 - Japan's Chiyoda Mutual Life Insurance Co filed for court protection from creditors in the country's biggest corporate bankruptcy with debts of 26.95 billion dollars.

2002 - Russia held its first post-Soviet census across 11 time zones requiring the mobilisation of 650,000 workers and reinforcement of on-duty police by a third.

2004 - Afghans voted in the country's first ever direct presidential election. Results later confirmed the victory of incumbent Hamid Karzai.

REUTERS LL RK1325