On this day: On the Waterfront was released

On this day in 1954 On the Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando, who was 30 at the time, was released. Picture: Kobal

National day of Peru.

1586: The first potatoes arrived at Plymouth, brought from Colombia by Sir Thomas Harriot.

1648: The Royalist Marquess of Montrose defeated General Baillie in a skirmish at Dunkeld which was part of the English Civil War.

1683: Queen Anne Stuart married Prince George of Denmark.

1794: Robespierre and 22 other leaders of the French Revolution were guillotined in Paris.

1809: The Battle of Talavera in the Peninsular War ended, with the Duke of Wellington victorious over French Marshal Soult.

1821: Peru declared independence from Spain.

1858: Sir William James Herschel of the Indian civil service used fingerprints for identification purposes for the first time.

1893: In New Zealand, a petition demanding women’s suffrage, signed by 25,000 women, was delivered to parliament.

1900: The hamburger was created by Louis Lassing in Connecticut.

1914: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, signalling start of First World War.

1914: The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, ordered the British fleet to Scapa Flow.

1928: The ninth Olympic Games opened in Amsterdam.

1943: The Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini resigned.

1945: US Army B-25 bomber crashed into Empire State Building in New York City, setting it ablaze and killing 13 people.

1948: In the “Battle of London Airport” the Metropolitan Police flying squad foiled an attempted bullion robbery.

1951: Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland was released.

1956: A US B47 bomber crashed at Lakenheath Air Base, Suffolk, and damaged three atom bombs. It was hushed up for 23 years.

1954: On the Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando, was released.

1959: Postcodes were introduced in Great Britain.

1964: Ranger 7 was launched to the moon – the first US space probe to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It sent back 4,308 pictures.

1965: Edward Heath became leader of the Conservative Party.

1965: US president Johnson sent an additional 50,000 troops to Vietnam, making a total of 250,000.

1967: The steel industry was renationalised.

1976: One of the greatest natural disasters of recent centuries occurred when an earthquake hit Tangshan in China, killing more than 800,000.

1984: The 23rd Olympic Games opened in Los Angeles.

1987: Laura Davis became the first British golfer to win the US Women’s Open.

1988: Paddy Ashdown, a former commando aged 47, was elected as leader of the new Social and Liberal Democrats.

1988: Winnie Mandela’s home in Soweto, South Africa, was destroyed by arson.

1996: Kennewick Man, the remains of a prehistoric man, was discovered near Kennewick, Washington.

2001: Australian Ian Thorpe became the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single World Championships.

2002: Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Pennsylvania, were rescued after 77 hours underground.

2005: The Provisional Irish Republican Army called an end to its 30-year-long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.

2005: A residential area of Birmingham was hit by a tornado which caused £4 million of damage and injured 39 people.

BIRTHDAYS

Ian McCaskill, Scottish television weatherman, 77; Elizabeth Berkley, actress, 43; Alan Brownjohn, poet, novelist and critic, 84; Michael Carrick, footballer, 34; Justin Lee Collins, comedian, 41; Sir Garfield Sobers, cricketer, 79; Shana Swash, actress, 25; Doug Walker, Inverness-born former sprinter, 42; Cher Lloyd, singer, 22; Jim Davis, cartoonist (Garfield), 70; Mathieu Debuchy, French international footballer, 30; George Cummings, guitarist (Dr Hook and the Medicine Show), 77.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1844 Gerard Manley Hopkins, poet and Jesuit priest; 1866 Beatrix Potter, author and illustrators; 1887 Marcel Duchamp, artist; 1901 Rudy Vallée, performer, bandleader; 1904 Lord Selwyn-Lloyd, politician; 1929 Jacqueline Onassis, former US first lady; 1943 Richard Wright, musician (Pink Floyd); 1949 Steve Peregrine Took, musician (T-Rex); 1949 Peter Doyle, singer (The New Seekers); 1954 Hugo Chavez president of Venezuela.

Deaths: 1540 Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex; 1655 Cyrano de Bergerac, novelist and playwright; 1741 Antonio Vivaldi, violinist and composer; 1750 Johann Sebastian Bach, composer; 1865 Doctor Edward Pritchard, poisoner (last public hanging in Scotland); 2004 Francis Crick, British scientist, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.