Reuters historical calendar July 15

London, July 14 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on July 15 since 1900: 1904 - Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, author of ''The Cherry Orchard'', died.

1953 - John Christie, murderer of at least six women at Ten Rillington Place, London, was hanged.

1964 - Anastas Mikoyan succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as president of the Soviet Union.

1968 - The first direct air services between the United States and the Soviet Union began between New York and Moscow, operated by Aeroflot and Pan American.

1974 - President Makarios of Cyprus was overthrown in a coup.

Nikos Sampson was appointed president.

1983 - Armenians bombed a Turkish Airlines desk at Orly Airport in Paris, killing six people and injuring 48.

1997 - Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer, was shot and killed outside his Miami Beach mansion.

2000 - Zimbabwe launched the resettlement of black peasants on farms seized from whites in all its eight provinces.

2004 - Former Rwandan finance minister Emmanuel Ndindabahizi was convicted and jailed for life for his role in the country's 1994 genocide.

2005 - American Herbert Brown, a 105-year-old survivor of the Nazis' Dachau concentration camp, and Magda, his 100-year-old wife, earned The Guinness Book of World Records title of the world's oldest married couple.

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