historical calendars

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London, Nov 16 (Reuters) Following are some of the major events to have occurred on November 17 since 1900.

''I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.'' -- Auguste Rodin, French sculptor of ''The Thinker'' and ''The Kiss,'' who died on November 17, 1917.

1954 - General Gamal Abdel Nasser became Egyptian head of state following the fall of President Mohamed Naguib.

1972 - Argentine ex-president Juan Peron arrived in Buenos Aires after 17 years of exile.

1974 - The first general election in Greece for over ten years ended with a decisive victory for the New Democracy Party of Constantine Karamanlis.

1986 - In Paris the managing director of the car firm Renault, Georges Besse, was shot dead by ''Action Directe''.

1991 - The eastern Croatian town of Vukovar fell to the Serb-dominated federal army after an 86-day siege.

1993 - Judges from 11 nations were sworn in at the inaugural session of the U N Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal, the first such forum since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials judged World War Two criminals.

1997 - Egyptian Islamic militant group al-Gama'a al-Islamiya killed 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians at Luxor in their bloodiest attack in Egypt to date.

2001 - Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani returned to Kabul, five years after the Taliban drove him out.

2002 - Abba Eban, Israel's quintessential diplomat and one of the world's most eloquent statesmen, died.