Reuters historical calendar - August 16

LONDON, Aug 15 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 16 since 1900: 1948 - American baseball player George Herman (Babe) Ruth died in New York City.

1949 - Margaret Mitchell, US journalist-author, died. She wrote only one novel - ''Gone with the Wind''.

1960 - Cyprus became an independent republic, with Archbishop Makarios as its first president.

1972 - Morocco's King Hassan II escaped unhurt when Moroccan Air Force pilots fired on an airliner carrying him to Rabat.

1974 - A ceasefire between Turkish and Greek Cypriot forces took effect, leaving about one-third of Cyprus in Turkish hands.

1977 - Elvis Presley died aged 42 from heart failure brought on by abuse of prescribed drugs.

1979 - John George Diefenbaker, Canadian prime minister (1957-63), died aged 83.

1989 - A UN-brokered ceasefire between Lebanese Christian army leader Michel Aoun, and Syrian forces and their allies, came into force.

1996 - Leonel Fernandez, a 42-year-old lawyer who grew up in New York City, became the 100th president of the Dominican Republic.

1999 - A new US consulate opened in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, nearly 25 years after a dramatic airlift from the old US embassy marked the end of the Vietnam War.

2002 - Abu Nidal, the world's most prolific and hotly pursued guerrilla mastermind, died aged 65. Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Bana, headed a group called Fatah-The Revolutionary Council.

2003 - Idi Amin died. Amin, a one-time army boxing champion who became one of Africa's bloodiest despots, ruled Uganda from 1971 for eight years.

2004 - The United States said it would withdraw about 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in a major restructuring of military forces prompted by the end of the Cold War.

2005 - Brother Roger, one of the 20th century's leading ecumenical figures, was stabbed to death by a woman during a service at the Taize community he founded in eastern France.

REUTERS MS RN1048