Reuters historical calendar - July 30

London, July, 29 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on July 30 since 1900.

1912 - Japanese Emperor Meiji died and was succeeded by Yoshihito. During Meiji's reign Japan was transformed into one of the modern world's great powers.

1945 - The US cruiser Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine killing over 800.

1949 - The British warship Amethyst made its escape down the Yangtze River, having been refused a safe passage by Chinese Communists after a three-month standoff.

1966 - England beat Germany 4-2 at Wembley to win the soccer World Cup.

1971 - Apollo 15 crew members David Scott and James Irwin landed on the moon.

1971 - A Japanese Boeing 727 collided with a jet fighter over Shizukuishi, killing 162 people.

1975 - A summit conference on European security opened in Helsinki attended by leaders of 35 nations including US President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

1980 - The Franco-British South Pacific condominium of New Hebrides achieved independence as the Republic of Vanuatu.

1989 - General Wojciech Jaruzelski stepped down after eight years as Polish Communist Party leader. He was succeeded by his friend and protege, Mieczyslaw Rakowski.

1990 - Ian Gow, British Conservative member of Parliament and a close aide of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was killed by a car bomb planted by Irish republican guerrillas.

1993 - Bosnia's Muslims, Serbs and Croats agreed at Geneva peace talks to create a new ''union'' of three ethnic republics.

1996 - Claudette Colbert, queen of 1930's Hollywood comedies, died at 92.

1997 - Two Arab suicide bombers killed 18 people in a crowded Jerusalem market. At least 170 people were injured.

1998 - Myanmar's military forcibly ended a six-day car sit-in by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a protest begun when she was prevented from travelling to see her supporters.

1999 - The US military officially closed its Panama operations, leaving its headquarters on the banks of the Panama Canal after a presence of nearly a century.

2001 - Canada became the first country in the world to allow terminally ill patients to grow and smoke their own marijuana, overriding protests from doctors.

2002 - The presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace pact aimed at ending Africa's biggest war and years of atrocities in the turbulent Great Lakes region.

2005 - John Garang, Sudan's First Vice President and former rebel leader, who signed a deal in January to end Africa's longest civil war, died in a helicopter crash.

REUTERS SP RAI1000