Reuters historical calendar - December 18

London, Dec 17 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on December 18 since 1900: 1903 - The US-Panama treaty placed the Canal Zone under US control for an annual rent.

1916 - The Battle of Verdun ended after 10 months, leaving 543,000 French and 434,000 German troops dead.

1940 - Adolf Hitler secretly ordered the German General Staff to prepare the invasion of the Soviet Union under the codename ''Operation Barbarossa''.

1971 - Robert Tyre (Bobby) Jones, US golfer, died. In 1930 he won the ''Grand Slam'' of all four of golf's most important championships, the last player to do so.

1980 - Long-serving former Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin died of heart failure.

1989 - The Soviet Union and the European Community signed a trade and economic cooperation pact they hailed as opening the way to closer pan-European integration.

1993 - Sam Wanamaker, US actor and director who campaigned to rebuild Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the River Thames in London, died at 74.

1995 - The United States airlifted its first combat troops to Bosnia to join NATO's biggest military mission.

2001 - Gilbert Becaud, French popular singer called ''Mr 100,000 Volts'' for his electrifying stage performances, died.

2003 - Egon Krenz, East Germany's last communist leader, was freed from jail after serving almost four years of a six-and-a-half year sentence.

2004 - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said he would stay on as army chief, reneging on a pledge to quit the powerful post by the end of the year.

Reuters AKJ RS1029