Today in History: Spain transitions to democracy with new constitution after nearly 40 years of Franco’s rule

Following are some of the major events to have occurred on December 29:

1911 – Sun Yat Sen became the first president of the Chinese Republic.

1940 – German aircraft dropped thousands of incendiary bombs on London’s city centre, causing the most damaging blaze since the Great Fire of 1666.

1978 – Spain’s new democratic constitution, providing for a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary government, takes effect.

1986 – Harold Macmillan, British prime minister from 1957 to 1963, died.

1992 – President Daniel arap Moi won Kenya’s first multi-party polls in 26 years.

1996 – Guatemala’s government and leftist rebels signed a peace accord ending 36 years of war that cost at least 140,000 lives.

2000 – Diego Turbay, president of the peace commission of Colombia’s Congress, and five other people were killed in an attack in an area controlled by the rebel group FARC.

2000 – Australian cricket team increase world record of successive test wins to 14 with victory over West Indies.

2004 – Jerry Orbach, acclaimed as a quintessential New York actor for his work on Broadway, in films and as the star of television’s “Law & Order,” died. He was 69.

2017 – Boy playing with stove starts deadly fire in Bronx, New York.

(Reuters)