Reuters historical calendar February 27

London, Feb 20 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on February 26 since 1900: 1933 - Fire destroyed Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag.

1939 - Britain and France recognised General Francisco Franco's rebel government in Spain after the civil war.

1952 - The United Nations held its first meetings in its new permanent headquarters in New York.

1973 - Native Americans began an occupation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, scene of a massacre in 1890.

1974 - Sweden approved a new constitution that reduced the status of the king to a figurehead.

1975 - West German Baader-Meinhof guerillas kidnapped the politician Peter Lorenz. He was freed on March 4.

1990 - Nelson Mandela arrived in Zambia on his first foreign trip since his release after 27 years in South African jails.

1991 - Kuwaiti troops entered Kuwait City after Iraqi forces were expelled by a US-led coalition. US President George Bush announced a Gulf War ceasefire for the next day.

1995 - Italian Mafia boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina and 47 other suspected Mafia members went on trial on charges of complicity in 48 murders in Sicily.

1996 - The United Nations suspended sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs after the end of the Bosnian war.

1999 - Nigerians voted in presidential elections to end 15 years of military rule. General Olusegun Obasanjo, a military leader 20 years earlier, won power through the ballot box.

2002 - Spike Milligan, the zany genius behind the British radio comedy series the Goon Show, died aged 83.

2003 - Rowan Williams was enthroned as the 104th archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans.

2003 - The UN war crimes court at The Hague sentenced former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic to 11 years in jail.

2004 - Shoko Asahara, who led the Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth Sect), was sentenced to hang for masterminding a sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 that killed 12.

2005 - President Hosni Mubarak opened the door to multi-candidate presidential polls in Egypt.

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