Reuters historical calendar - May 7

London, May 6 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on May 7 since 1900: 1915 - The British passenger liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine, contributing to the United States' entry into World War One; 1,198 passengers and crew perished.

1928 - The age at which women could vote in Britain was lowered from 30 to 21.

1937 - The first recorded coast-to-coast radio broadcast took place in the United States, when Herbert Morrison described the explosion on the airship Hindenburg the day before.

1942 - The Austrian conductor and composer Felix Weingartner died; he was best known for interpretations of Wagner and Beethoven.

1945 - The instruments of the surrender of German forces in World War Two were signed by General Alfred Jodl, the German chief of staff, at U.S. General Eisenhower's headquarters in Rheims, France.

1954 - In North Vietnam, the Vietminh siege of French forces at Dien Bien Phu ended with the surrender of the French.

1960 - Kliment Voroshilov was replaced as president of the Soviet Union by Leonid Brezhnev.

1980 - Paul Geidel, convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, was released from prison in Beacon, New York, after serving 68 years and 245 days -- the longest sentence ever served.

2000 - Douglas Fairbanks Jr, the American film actor notable for his roles in ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937) and ''Sinbad the Sailor'' (1947), died.

2001 - U.N. sanctions against Liberia went into force, to punish it for helping to fuel a civil war in Sierra Leone in return for diamonds.

2001 - Ronnie Biggs, who took part in Britain's ''Great Train Robbery'' in 1963, voluntarily ended 35 years on the run by returning to Britain from Brazil.

2002 - A China Northern Airlines McDonnell-Douglas MD-82 plane crashed in the sea near the northeastern city of Dalian, killing all 112 passengers and crew aboard.

2002 - A suicide bomber killed 15 other people and wounded 60 others in an Israeli billiards club at the town of Rishon Letzion near Tel Aviv.

2003 - The United States added the Spanish Basque nationalist party Batasuna and its predecessors to a list of ''terrorist'' groups.

2005 - Democratic Congressman Peter Rodino, who led the impeachment investigation of U.S. President Richard Nixon, died aged 95.

2005 - Nobel laureate David Trimble, an architect of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace deal, stepped down as leader of the moderate Protestant Ulster Unionist Party after he lost his seat and his party did poorly in Britain's general election.

2006 - South African Public Works Minister Stella Sigcau, a prominent figure during apartheid in the Transkei region, died after a lengthy illness. She was 69.

REUTERS RJ ND1124