Reuters historical calendar - September 30

London, Sep 29 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on September 30 since 1900: 1938 - After signing the Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler in Germany, Neville Chamberlain returned to Britain and declared that there would be ''peace with honour, peace for our time''.

1949 - The Berlin Airlift, under which the United States kept West Berlin supplied despite a Soviet blockade, came to an end after 277,264 flights.

1955 - James Dean, American actor, died in a car crash in California, aged 24. Although he made only three major films, ''Rebel Without a Cause'', ''East of Eden'' and ''Giant'', he became a major teenage cult figure.

1966 - German war criminals Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach were freed at midnight from Berlin's Spandau prison after serving 20 years.

1980 - Israel took a step back to biblical times with the introduction of the shekel as its currency, replacing the pound.

1985 - Charles Richter, U.S seismologist whose name was given to the scale for measuring earthquakes, died.

1988 - A one-hour meeting of the Soviet Union's top Communists approved the retirement of five senior officials, including President Andrei Gromyko.

1991 - Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was toppled in a bloody coup which first installed a military junta and later a military-backed civilian regime.

1993 - A series of earthquakes measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale devastated 36 villages in southwestern India. Over 10,000 bodies were recovered but it was estimated that as many as 22,000 may have died.

2004 - Russia approved the Kyoto Protocol, clearing the way to bring the climate change treaty into force.

2005 - After 85 days in jail for refusing to name her source, New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified about talks with Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, a top aide to US Vice President Dick Cheney, to a grand jury probing who leaked the name of a CIA operative.

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