Reuters historical calendar - February 17

London, Feb 16 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on February 17 since 1900: 1909 - Geronimo, last Apache chief to surrender to the US government, died.

1919 - Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canadian Liberal prime minister from 1896-1911, died. He was the first French Canadian to be prime minister of Canada.

1945 - A Soviet offensive forced German rocket expert Wernher von Braun and other scientists to evacuate the V2 rocket site at Peenemunde, eastern Germany.

1972 - Britain's House of Commons voted to join the European Community.

1979 - China invaded Vietnam, citing Vietnamese ''aggression'' over the previous six months.

1982 - Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe sacked Joshua Nkomo from the government for allegedly plotting against the ruling ZANU-PF Party.

1990 - Czechoslovakia's Communist Party expelled former President Gustav Husak, ex-Prime Minister Lubomir Strougal and 20 other hardliners who had come to power after Soviet tanks crushed the 1968 Prague Spring reform era.

1997 - Pakistani President Farooq Leghari, who had sacked Benazir Bhutto's government, swore in Nawaz Sharif as new prime minister.

1999 - Poland's parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve membership of NATO.

2000 - The widow of Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, Princess Ifat al-Thanyan, died aged 84. King Faisal was assassinated by a nephew in 1975.

2002 - France bid an unemotional farewell to its 641-year-old currency as the franc lived its last day as legal tender after a swift changeover to the euro.

2004 - Former Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo, famous for swearing to defend the peso ''like a dog'' shortly before devaluing, died. He was 83.

2005 - The UN Commission on Population and Development said in a report that half the world's population would live in cities in two years, a huge jump from the 30 per cent residing in urban areas in 1950.

2006 - American Ray Barretto, the Latin conga drummer best known for his 1960s hit ''El Watusi,'' died aged 76.

2006 - Mudslides triggered by heavy rains entombed nearly 1,000 people in the Philippine province of Southern Leyte.

REUTERS PB DS1056