TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1864, a Colorado militia killed at least 150 peaceful Cheyenne Indians in the Sand Creek Massacre.

In 1910, British explorer Robert F. Scott’s ship Terra Nova set sail from New Zealand, carrying Scott’s expedition on its ultimately futile — as well as fatal — race to reach the South Pole first.

In 1924, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels before he could complete his opera “Turandot.” (It was finished by Franco Alfano.)

In 1929, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June and photographer Ashley McKinney made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.

In 1961, Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.