Reuters historical calendar - January 18

LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 18 since 1900: 1911 - American Eugene Ely became the first person to land a plane on the deck of a ship. He set down a Curtiss aircraft on a platform on the cruiser Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.

1919 - The Versailles Peace Conference ending World War One opened, chaired by French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau.

1943 - After seven days of heavy fighting, Soviet troops relieved Leningrad after a 16-month German siege.

1974 - After a week of negotiations, Egypt and Israel signed an agreement to disengage their forces along the Suez Canal.

1977 - At least 80 people were killed in Sydney when a locomotive rammed a bridge, bringing it crashing down onto a commuter train. It was Australia's worst rail crash.

1980 - Sir Cecil Beaton, English photographer and stage designer, died.

1991 - Iraq fired at least eight missiles at Israel.

2000 - Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl resigned as honorary chairman of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) after it issued him an ultimatum to clear up a financial scandal.

2001 - President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo was officially pronounced dead two days after he was shot by one of his bodyguards.

2003 - Protesters took to the streets from Tokyo to London to San Francisco in anti-war demonstrations fired up by speculation that a US-led strike on Iraq was drawing near.

2005 - European planemaker Airbus launched the A380, hailed as the largest civil airliner ever built, capable of carrying up to 800 passengers.

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