Reuters historical calendar - April 7

London, Apr 6 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 7 since 1900: 1927 - The first successful long-distance demonstration of television took place in the United States. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover made a speech in Washington which was seen and heard in New York.

1939 - Italian troops invaded Albania.

1943 - The drug LSD was first produced at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, by Albert Hofman.

1943 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg.

1945 - U.S. aircraft sank Japan's biggest battleship, the Yamato.

1947 - Henry Ford, U.S. motor manufacturer who pioneered assembly line mass production, died.

1953 - Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden was elected Secretary General of the United Nations.

1956 - Morocco and Spain signed a declaration recognising Morocco's independence.

1963 - The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established with Marshal Tito as its president for life.

1976 - Deng Xiaoping was removed as a Chinese deputy prime minister after unprecedented riots in Beijing and Hua Guofeng was promoted to full premier.

1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter broke off diplomatic relations with Iran Because of the detention of U.S. embassy hostages in Tehran.

1981 - Voters approved a new constitution in the Philippines, giving President Ferdinand Marcos sweeping powers.

1990 - The Scandinavian Star, a Bahamas-registered ferry operated by the Da No Line, caught fire while on a journey between Norway and Denmark; 158 people were killed.

1994 - Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana was killed as troops, presidential guards, police and gangs of youths rampaged through the capital Kigali.

2001 - NASA launched the Mars Odyssey from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on a 297 million dollars mission to search for water on Mars.

2003 - Cecile de Brunhoff, French pianist, teacher and creator of children's Babar the Elephant, died. She was 99.

2004 - Robert Sangster, one of the world's top racehorse owners whose green and blue colours won 27 European Classics and more than 100 Group One races, died. He was 67.

**2005 - India and Pakistan launched a bus service to link the disputed and divided region of Kashmir for the first time in almost 60 years.

**2005 - Singer Grigoris Bithikotsis, the man widely regarded as the national voice of Greece, died aged 83.

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