Fifty years ago, the news spread rapidly around the world: Che Guevara was dead, again, and this time, it seemed likely to be true.

Still, news organizations were wary. The day after he was shot to death in a village schoolhouse by Bolivian forces, the third sentence of a front-page New York Times article warned, “Mr. Guevara, 39 years old, has been reported killed or captured before.”

That caution was warranted, such was the legend of Guevara, whose symbolism was growing only more powerful. As his image evolved from an emblem of leftist movements to a more general badge of defiance, it was harnessed as a marketing tool. Later, many marveled at how, in death, the communist revolutionary had been put to work for capitalism.