On this day: Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies

Soldiers celebrate with their sweethearts in 1945 as Japan surrendered to the Allies, ending the Second World War. Picture: Getty

1040: King Duncan I was slain by his cousin, Macbeth, who succeeded him, in battle at Bothnagowan, near Elgin.

1561: Mary, Queen of Scots, set sail from Calais for Scotland.

1592: Falkland Islands were discovered by Captain John Davis, washed ashore amid storms in his ship, The Desire.

1893: France became the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration plates.

1900: Capture of Peking after the landing of 2,000 United States Marines brought the end of the Boxer Uprising.

1901: Seventy people died when the steamer Islander struck an iceberg and sank off Alaska. She was carrying $3 million in gold.

1908: The first international beauty contest in Britain was held, at the Pier Hippodrome in Folkestone, Kent.

1915: German submarine sank the British transport ship Royal Edward in the Aegean Sea, with the loss of 1,000 lives.

1920: Seventh Olympic Games opened in Antwerp.

1932: Rin Tin Tin, the famous Hollywood star dog, died.

1944: The ballpoint was invented by Laslo Biro, a Hungarian refugee in Argentina.

1945: Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, ending Second World War. VJ Day was officially celebrated on the following day, 15 August. The formal surrender took place aboard USS Missouri on 2 September.

1948: Don Bradman played his last innings at The Oval. After a standing ovation, he was bowled for a duck by Eric Hollies.

1962: Mont Blanc tunnel link was completed as workmen digging from French and Italian sides made contact.

1964: University of Strathclyde was constituted. It was formerly the Royal College of Science and Technology, created by the bequest by John Anderson in 1796 of the Technical Institution he had founded in Glasgow.

1967: Radio London, the pirate station, went off the air. The Marine Broadcasting Act came into force next day outlawing pirate stations.

1979: The longest lasting rainbow on record shone over North Wales from the coast of Gwynedd to Clywd, remaining for more than three hours.

1989: A soft-plumaged petrel was seen in Britain for the first time by bird watchers at Penzance, Cornwall. It had been blown in by strong winds.

1989: Some 50 detectives from West Midlands CID in England were transferred or suspended after repeated allegations that the force had been guilty of fabricating confessions.

1990: The world’s first car-carrying catamaran, Hoverspeed Great Britain, made its maiden commercial voyage crossing the Channel from Portsmouth to Cherbourg. The journey took two-and-a-half hours, half the normal car ferry sailing time.

1991: Frank Dunlop, the Edinburgh Festival’s director, attacked Fringe events as “a third-rate circus”.

1993: More than 100 people died when the Royal Plaza Hotel, north of Bangkok, collapsed.

1994: 400,000 music fans attended Woodstock, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the famous festival.

2008: The last surviving female veteran of the First World War died. Gladys Powers, from Lewisham, south London, who served with the Women’s Auxiliary Corps and later the Women’s RAF, died aged 109 in British Columbia, Canada.

BIRTHDAYS

Halle Berry, actress, 49; Sarah Brightman, performer, 55; Paul Broadhurst, golfer, 50; Darren Clarke OBE, golfer, 47; David Crosby, singer (The Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash), 74; Jennifer Flavin, actress, 47; Liz Fraser, actress, 85; Buddy Greco, singer, composer and jazz pianist, 89; Marcia Gay Harden, Academy Award-winning American actress, 56; Susan Saint James, actress, 69; Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers basketball star, 56; Mila Kunis, actress, 32; Gary Larson, cartoonist, 65; Adrian Lester OBE, actor, 47; Steve Martin, actor and comedian, 70; Maddy Prior MBE, folk singer, 68;Danielle Steel, romantic novelist, 68; Gillian Taylforth, actress, 60.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1861 Bion Joseph Arnold, electrical engineer and inventor; 1911 Gerald Micklem, golfer; 1915 Sydney Wooderson, world record-breaking track athlete; 1913 Fred Davis, world snooker champion; 1983 Elena Baltacha, tennis player.

Deaths: 1040 King Duncan I (slain by Macbeth in battle at Bothnagowan, near Elgin); 1887 Richard Jefferies, naturalist and essayist; 1922 Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, newspaper and magazine publisher; 1937 Cyril McNeile (“Sapper”), novelist and creator of Bulldog Drummond; 1951 William Randolph Hearst, newspaper tycoon; 1956 Bertolt Brecht, playwright; 1984 JB Priestley, playwright, novelist; 1988 Enzo Ferrari, car builder.