Reuters historical calendar - May 21

LONDON, May 20 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on May 21 since 1900: 1904 - FIFA, football's international governing body, was established in Paris.

1927 - Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to fly the Atlantic solo, from Long Island, New York, to Paris.

1929 - Lord Rosebery, British Liberal party leader and prime minister (1894-95), died.

1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo, from Newfoundland to Ireland.

1935 - Hugo de Vries, the Dutch geneticist and botanist who introduced the study of organic evolution, died.

1969 - Sirhan B Sirhan was sentenced to death by a US court for the 1968 murder of Robert Kennedy. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

1981 - Francois Mitterrand was installed as French president.

1989 - One million people, a sixth of the population of Hong Kong, demonstrated in support of rebellious students in Beijing after authorities clamped martial law on the capital.

1989 - Egypt resumed its Arab League membership after a 10-year break.

1991 - Rajiv Gandhi, former Indian prime minister, was killed by a bomb hidden in a bouquet of flowers while campaigning for elections in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

1991 - Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ethiopia's military strongman, stepped down and flew into exile after 14 years of brutal rule.

1996 - A Tanzanian ferry capsized on Lake Victoria near the western town of Mwanza. Of the estimated 1,000 on board only 114 survived in east Africa's worst marine disaster.

1998 - Indonesian President Suharto, threatened with effective impeachment, resigned after three decades in power and handed over to Vice President Jusuf Habibie.

2001 - Firestone said it would no longer supply tyres to Ford Motor Co., ending a nearly 100-year relationship that dated back to the founding fathers of the two companies.

2002 - Moderate Kashmiri separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at a public meeting in Srinagar as Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee arrived in Jammu.

2003 - The 192 member countries of WHO adopted the world's first anti-smoking treaty, aimed at breaking a habit that kills nearly five million people every year.

2003 - Chinese climbers broadcast the first live television pictures from the summit of Everest, 50 years after the first ascent of the world's highest mountain.

2003 - An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale struck Algeria in the capital and nearby towns, killing 2,251 and injuring 10,243.

2004 - Russia secured a deal with the EU on terms for its entry into the World Trade Organisation and immediately rewarded the bloc by promising to back the Kyoto environment pact.

REUTERS SW PM1140