Oct 5 (Reuters) - Tuesday, Oct. 9 marks the 40th anniversary of the death in Bolivia of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine-born guerrilla leader who became an icon for leftists after helping lead the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Following are landmarks in the history of the left in Latin America since then:

1959 - Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba, leading to half a century of communist rule and inspiring leftist guerrilla groups in Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala and elsewhere.

1967 - Che Guevara is captured and killed by U.S.-backed troops while trying to foment revolution in Bolivia.

1970 - In Chile, Salvador Allende is elected and takes office as Latin America's first democratically-elected Marxist president.

1973 - Allende is overthrown in a military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, ushering in a period of right-wing dictatorships across much of the region.

1979 - Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinistas take power in an uprising against a U.S.-backed dictator; a guerrilla war starts in El Salvador; the United States finances and trains a rebel army to battle the Sandinistas for the next decade, and props up a series of right-wing governments in El Salvador.

1980 - Maoist rebel group Shining Path launches a rebellion in Peru and becomes the bloodiest guerrilla group in Latin American history.

1990 - Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega is voted out of office in Nicaragua; Marxist rebellions fade in El Salvador and Guatemala, later leading to peace deals.

1992 - Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman is captured in Peru and the group's rebellion quickly wanes.

1994 - Zapatista rebels based in the poor southern Mexican state of Chiapas launch a brief armed rebellion; they quickly turn away from armed struggle but set up independent zones that they still control in Chiapas.

1998 - Leftist military officer Hugo Chavez is elected president in Venezuela, setting his country on a socialist path.

2002 - Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva is elected president in Brazil. Investors are initially worried by Lula's past record as a Marxist union leader, but he moderates his policies and wins praise from Wall Street.

2005 - Evo Morales is elected in Bolivia, becoming its first indigenous president. An ally of Venezuela's Chavez, he nationalizes Bolivia's huge natural gas reserves.

2006 - Rafael Correa is elected president in Ecuador, describing himself as a 21st Century socialist; in Nicaragua, Ortega wins a return to power almost three decades after he led the Sandinista revolution -- this time, though, he wins through the ballot box; both election victories boost the Chavez-led bloc of Latin American leftists.

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