Reuters historical calendar - May 29

London, May 28 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on May 29 since 1900: 1914 - At least 1,012 people were killed when the liner Empress of Ireland collided with a Norwegian freighter on the St Lawrence River in Canada.

1919 - The first pop-up electric toaster was patented by American Charles Strite of Minnesota.

1953 - New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest, the first men to scale the world's highest mountain. The feat was not reported to a waiting world until June 1.

1979 - Mary Pickford, silent movie star, died.

1979 - Bishop Abel Muzorewa was sworn in as first black prime minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, as the country was briefly known prior to independence from Britain.

1985 - Thirty-nine soccer fans, mostly Italian, were crushed to death in rioting involving Liverpool and Juventus supporters at the European Cup Final in Brussels' Heysel stadium.

1994 - Erich Honecker, who ruled communist East Germany for 18 years and oversaw the building of the Berlin Wall, died in exile in Chile. He was 81.

1997 - Laurent Kabila took office as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, promising to hold elections in April 1999 and bury the legacy of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

1999 - Nigeria swore in elected President General Olusegun Obasanjo after 15 years of military rule.

1999 - The U.S. space shuttle Discovery became the first spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.

2001 - A U.S. court convicted four followers of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden over a plot to murder Americans abroad, including 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

2002 - Britain appointed its first black cabinet minister, Paul Boateng, to the number two position in the Treasury.

2002 - Mali's outgoing president, Alpha Oumar Konare, pardoned former dictator Moussa Traore and his wife Mariam, who were imprisoned after Traore was overthrown in 1991.

2003 - Nepal celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest with plans to make Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who ''knocked the bastard off'', an honorary citizen.

2004 - Archibald Cox, the special Watergate prosecutor whose firing by the White House ignited a political furor that eroded support for President Richard Nixon, died. He was 92.

2004 - Samuel Dash, chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee that challenged President Richard Nixon's abuse of executive power in the 1970s, died. He was 79.

2005 - France rejected the European Union's constitution in a referendum, dealing a potentially fatal blow to a charter designed to make the enlarged bloc run smoothly.

Reuters SS GC1209