Reuters historical calendar - April 29

LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 29 since 1900: 1913 - An improved version of the zipper was patented by Swedish engineer Gideon Sundback as a ''separable fastener''.

1930 - Irish actress Peggy O'Neil became the first person to be interviewed on television when she spoke on camera at the Ideal Home exhibition in Southampton in England.

1942 - The Japanese army captured the town of Lashio, cutting off the Burma Road between China and India.

1945 - The terms of surrender of the German armies in Italy were signed; Venice and Mestre were captured by the Allies; in Berlin Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun, but also made his will naming Admiral Doenitz as his successor. American forces liberated the Dachau concentration camp.

1972 - In Burundi, the deposed King Ntare V was killed in an abortive coup.

1975 - In the closing hours of the Vietnam War, the last U.S.

troops were evacuated from Saigon. In chaotic scenes at the American embassy, thousands of Vietnamese were ferried out as well.

1980 - Sir Alfred Hitchcock, British-born film director best known for his suspense thrillers, notably ''Psycho'', died.

1998 - North Korea published an open letter by leader Kim Jong-il calling for unification with the South in one of the most important documents of his four-year rule.

2000 - Pham Van Dong, who served as prime minister in Hanoi for more than three decades until 1987, died. An intellectual, Dong was considered close to Vietnam's late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.

2002 - The world's biggest genetic database, built on DNA samples from 500,000 Britons, was given the go-ahead with a pledge of 45 million pounds in initial funding.

2002 - Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi was greeted by East Timorese schoolchildren as he became first head of state to visit the world's newest nation.

2003 - The United States said it was ending military operations in Saudi Arabia and removing virtually all its forces from the kingdom following the Iraq war.

2004 - Google Inc., the world's No. 1 Web search provider, filed with US regulators to become a publicly listed company and sell as much as 2.7 billion dollars in stock.

2005 - Taiwan's opposition leader Lien Chan met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing and closed the book on decades of hostility between the China's Communist Party and its civil war foe, the Kuomintang.

REUTERS SY PM1136