Reuters historical calendar - November 30

LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on Nov. 30 since 1900: 1900 - The Irish wit and dramatist Oscar Wilde died in poverty in Paris, having earlier served two years in prison in Britain for homosexual offences. His works included the play ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' and the novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray''.

1936 - The Crystal Palace, a huge glass conservatory designed to house Britain's Great Exhibition of 1851, was destroyed by fire in south London.

1939 - Twenty Russian divisions -- almost half a million men -- invaded Finland in the ''Winter War''.

1957 - Beniamino Gigli, the leading Italian operatic tenor after Enrico Caruso, died. He had only stopped performing in 1955 after a career lasting 41 years.

1963 - A TransCanada Airlines jet crashed soon after takeoff from Montreal, killing 118.

1964 - The unmanned Soviet spaceship ''Zond 2'' took off for Mars. Communication with the probe was lost in May 1965.

1966 - Barbados proclaimed full independence from Britain within the Commonwealth.

1967 - The People's Republic of South Yemen, comprising Aden and the former protectorate of South Arabia, was formed. On the same day in 1970 the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.

1975 - Dahomey changed its name to the People's Republic of Benin.

1977 - Terence Rattigan, the British playwright who wrote ''The Winslow Boy'' and ''French without Tears'', died aged 66.

1986 - The British-born U.S. actor Cary Grant died. His films included ''The Philadelphia Story'' and ''Arsenic and Old Lace''.

1995 - Bill Clinton became the first US president to visit Northern Ireland. Given a hero's welcome by Catholics and Protestants alike, he declared: ''The time has come for the peacemakers to triumph in Northern Ireland.'' 1996 - In Sierra Leone, government and rebels signed a peace accord to end nearly six years of civil war.

1996 - At least 100,000 opposition supporters, accusing the Serbian government of election fraud, marched in Belgrade in a campaign to try to oust president Slobodan Milosevic.

1999 - A passenger ship carrying 302 people capsized off the east coast of China. Only 22 survived.

2002 - Turkey lifted a 15-year state of emergency in the southeast, ending an era that saw security forces wield sweeping powers against Kurdish separatists in a conflict in which 30,000 died.

2004 - Pakistan's acting president, Mohammad Mian Soomro, signed a bill allowing military ruler Pervez Musharraf to stay on as army chief despite his pledge to quit the office by the end of 2004.

2004 - The Canadian writer Pierre Berton, whose populist tales of Canadian history made him one of the country's best known writers and media personalities, died aged 84. His books included ''Klondike'', ''The National Dream'' and ''The Last Spike''.

2005 - Ugandan-born John Sentamu, a leading campaigner against racism, was formally inaugurated as Britain's first black archbishop. He was sworn in as the 97th Archbishop of York, the second highest post in the Church of England.

REUTERS AKJ KP1008