Reuters historical calendar- April 3

London, Apr 2 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 3 since 1900: 1922 - Josef Stalin was appointed General3 Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

1930 - Ras Tafari was proclaimed Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.

1933 - The first flight over the peak of Mount Everest in the Himalayas was made by four Britons in two Westland biplanes.

1941 - The British evacuated Benghazi in the face of the German advance in World War Two.

1948 - US President Truman signed the Marshall Plan into effect, allocating billion in overseas economic aid.

1949 - Transjordan signed an armistice with the newly founded state of Israel.

1950 - Kurt Weill, German composer, died. He was best known for his "Threepenny Opera" and for his collaboration with actress and singer Lotte Lenya, whom he married in 1926.

1975 - Russia's Anatoly Karpov was proclaimed world chess champion after US holder Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title.

1982 - The UN Security Council voted 10-1 in favour of Resolution 502 demanding the withdrawal of Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands.

1991 - British novelist Graham Greene died in Switzerland, aged 86. Among his best known works were "Brighton Rock" (1938) and "The Third Man" (1950).

1991 - The Security Council approved a Gulf ceasefire resolution stripping Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and impounding part of its oil revenues to pay reparations.

1999 - NATO missiles blasted the centre of Belgrade in the first air attack on the Yugoslav capital since World War Two.

2001 - The Philippine Supreme Court voted unanimously to uphold the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and rejected ex-president Estrada's appeal that he was still the leader.

2002 - The Afghan Army was reborn when the first 600 soldiers trained for six weeks by international peacekeepers graduated in a ceremony attended by interim leader Hamid Karzai.

2003 - The US Congress overwhelmingly voted to approve nearly 80 billion dollars to finance the war in Iraq, reward key allies, bolster anti-terrorism efforts and help struggling airlines.

REUTERS PV HT1138