Reuters historical calendar - May 2

London, May 1 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on May 2 in history: 1933 - Germany's Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler banned trade unions.

1936 - Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and his family fled Addis Ababa, three days before its capture by the Italians.

1945 - Berlin surrendered to the Soviet troops and Hamburg opened negotiations for the surrender of the city.

1951 - The Shah of Iran signed decrees approving the nationalisation of its oil industry.

1952 - The first scheduled jet airliner passenger service began with a British Comet, which flew from London to Johannesburg carrying 36 passengers.

1953 - In Jordan, King Hussein succeeded his father King Talal, who was deposed. In Iraq, King Faisal assumed power.

1957 - Senator Joe McCarthy, U.S. politician and Republican senator famous for his anti-communist witch-hunts, died.

1965 - The first communications satellite for relaying television pictures went into operation; the ''Early Bird'' transmitted to 24 countries.

1972 - John Edgar Hoover, founder and director of the U.S.

Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1924, died in Washington.

1982 - In the Falklands war, the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by the British submarine Conqueror; over 350 men were killed.

1994 - South African President F.W. de Klerk conceded victory to Nelson Mandela in the country's historic all-race elections.

2001 - Former Ku Klux Klan member Thomas Blanton was jailed for life for the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four black girls.

2002 - Russia lowered its flag at Cam Ranh Bay naval and air base in southern Vietnam, its last overseas base left over from the Cold War.

2003 - A Sicilian appeals court upheld the decision of a lower court that former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti was innocent of charges of complicity with the Mafia.

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