Reuters historical calendar - December 30

LONDON, Dec 29 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on December 30 since 1900: 1916 - Grigory Rasputin, Siberian peasant, mystic, and favourite of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra, was shot, poisoned and eventually drowned.

1922 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established, grouping Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine and the Transcaucasian Federation.

1968 - Trygve Lie, Norwegian statesman and first secretary-general of the United Nations (1946-52), died.

1979 - US composer Richard Rodgers died; he and Oscar Hammerstein wrote the hit musicals ''Oklahoma!'', ''South Pacific'', ''The King and I'' and ''The Sound of Music''.

1988 - President Ronald Reagan and President-elect George Bush were subpoenaed to testify at the trial of former White House aide Oliver North on criminal charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair.

1993 - Israel and the Vatican recognised each other.

2002 - Mwai Kibaki was sworn in as president of Kenya after he swept to victory with his National Rainbow Coalition in elections, ending 24 years of rule by predecessor Daniel Arap Moi and his KANU party which had ruled for nearly 40 years.

2003 - Former Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan, one of Pol Pot's former henchmen, admitted that mass murders were committed during ''Killing Fields'' regime in the 1970s.

2004 - A blaze in a Buenos Aires nightclub packed with young revelers celebrating the New Year killed 194 people in Argentina's worst disaster in decades.

2004 - Jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw, famed for classic recordings of ''Begin the Beguine'' and ''Oh, Lady Be Good'' as well as turbulent marriages to movie stars Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, died. He was 94.

REUTERS SB PM1007