Reuters historical calendar - April 8

London, Apr 7 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 8 in history: 1904 - Britain and France signed the ''Entente Cordiale'', an agreement settling all disputes between the two.

1913 - China's first parliament opened in Peking.

1939 - One day after invading Albania, Italian troops took the capital Tirana and King Zog fled to Greece.

1946 - The League of Nations opened its final session in Geneva before being replaced by the United Nations.

1950 - Vaslav Nijinsky, legendary Russian ballet dancer, died. He is widely regarded as the 20th century's greatest male dancer.

1953 - In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta and five companions were convicted of ''managing'' the Mau Mau insurrection against British rule and were each sentenced to seven years' hard labour.

1973 - Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor and pioneer of Cubism, died.

1985 - Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch bought 50 per cent of the US Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.

1986 - Film actor Clint Eastwood was elected mayor of Carmel, California.

1990 - King Birendra of Nepal lifted a 30-year ban on political parties.

1992 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat survived a plane crash in the Sahara desert; the three crew were killed.

1994 - Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa resigned over a loans scandal.

1996 - Yugoslavia and its former republic of Macedonia signed a treaty to normalise relations.

2001 - Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was arrested after a stand-off.

2002 - Maria Felix, Mexico's foremost movie star renowned as a femme fatale throughout Latin America, died. She was 88.

2003 - A US tank fired a shell at the Palestine hotel in Baghdad packed with foreign journalists, killing Taras Protsyuk, a cameraman from Reuters and Jose Couso from Spain's Tele 5.

2004 - US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified before the 9/11 commission that four presidents failed to fully mobilise against terrorism.

**2005 - Britain's last major carmaker, MG Rover, collapsed after it failed to secure a government loan or a life-saving alliance with a Chinese partner. The 100-year-old carmaker once produced the iconic Mini and the Land Rover.

REUTERS KD ND1103