Reuters historical calendar - February 11

London, Feb 10 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on February 11 since 1900: 1919 - Friedrich Ebert was elected first president of the German republic. He helped set up the Weimar constitution that tried to unite Germany after World War One.

1929 - The Lateran Treaty was signed establishing an independent Vatican state in Rome.

1945 - The Yalta Conference ended. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and US President Franklin Roosevelt agreed on the founding of the United Nations and plans to defeat Germany in World War Two.

1971 - Forty nations signed a treaty banning atomic weapons from the sea bed.

1975 - Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to head a British political party when she was elected leader of the Conservatives.

1975 - President Richard Ratsimandrava of the Malagasy Republic, now Madagascar, was assassinated after only six days in office.

1979 - Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar resigned after two days of fighting in the streets of Tehran.

1990 - Nelson Mandela, black nationalist leader in South Africa, was released from prison after serving 27 years.

1994 - Five astronauts and a cosmonaut returned to Earth aboard Discovery after the first joint US-Russian space shuttle mission.

2000 - Britain suspended Northern Ireland's power-sharing government because of lack of progress by the Irish Republican Army on disarmament.

2002 - The Vatican formalised its presence in Russia by creating four fully-fledged Catholic dioceses, shrugging off criticism from the Russian Orthodox Church that it is trying to steal converts.

2002 - Robbers escaped with .5 million in foreign currency after raiding a British Airways security van at London's Heathrow Airport.

2006 - Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett broke the record for long-distance flight without refuelling, flying 42,450 km in his specially designed GlobalFlyer plane. The previous record of 42,431 km was set by Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager in 1986.

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