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London, Apr 13 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 14 since 1900: 1900 - French President Emile Loubet opened the Paris International Exhibition. Covering 221 hectares (547 acres), it was the biggest exhibition of its kind in Europe so far.

1931 - Spain was declared a republic after King Alfonso abdicated and fled the country.

1932 - In New Zealand, civil service pay cuts caused the country's worst riots, with hundreds injured.

1951 - Ernest Bevin, British foreign minister from 1945 to 1951 and minister of labour during World War Two, died.

1956 - The first video tape recorder for sound and vision, manufactured by the Ampex Corporation, was demonstrated in the United States.

1981 - The American space shuttle Columbia made a perfect landing at Edwards Air Force Base after its maiden flight.

1986 - Simone de Beauvoir, the French writer whose ''The Second Sex'' was an early inspiration to the feminist movement, died.

1994 - Dissident soldiers shot dead Lesotho's deputy prime minister and seized four cabinet ministers in a mutiny over a planned government probe into the army.

1995 - Burl Ives, an Oscar-winning actor and singer whose gentle voice helped popularise American folk music, died. His films included ''The Big Country'', for which he won an Oscar.

1999 - Pakistan successfully test-fired a 2,000-km (1,200-mile) range ballistic missile to match one developed by its by arch-rival India.

1999 - NATO missiles struck a convoy of Albanian refugees in Kosovo. Yugoslavia said 70 people were killed.

2000 - Russia's Duma (lower house of parliament) ratified the START-2 nuclear arms reduction treaty. The upper house followed suit on April 19.

2002 - Hugo Chavez returned in triumph to his presidential palace two days after resigning when the interim government set up after an attempted military coup collapsed.

2003 - Thirty-four men filed sexual abuse lawsuits totalling $1.85 billion against the Roman Catholic diocese on New York's Long Island, claiming they were abused by priests and their complaints about that abuse ignored by church officials.

2003 - American special forces captured veteran Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Abbas, mastermind of the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, in a raid near southern Baghdad.

2004 - In Pakistan, the upper house of parliament approved the creation of a National Security Council a move opposition leaders said would cement the military's role in politics.

REUTERS SY SP1210