1000 B. C. It is usual to fix the finishing of the temple of _Hercules_
at _Tyre_ on this day, and the death of _Anchises_, 183 years earlier.
1574. Birthday of BEN JONSON.
1578. Battle of Gemblours, in the Netherlands, by which the Spanish
recovered their superiority in the Walloon provinces which were
zealously catholic.
1606. GUIDO FAWKES executed. He was an officer in the Spanish service,
concerned in the gunpowder plot, and discovered in the vault below the
House of Lords, prepared to fire the train which was to involve the
enemies of the catholic religion in one common ruin.
1616. JACOB LE MAIRE, a Dutchman, discovered cape Horn, the southern
extremity of the American continent.
1686. In Norway, Courland and Pomerania, there fell a great quantity of
a membraneous substance, friable, and blackish, somewhat like burnt
paper. Baron Grotthus analyzed a portion of this substance, which has
been preserved in a cabinet of natural history, and it is found to
consist of silex, iron, lime, carbon, magnesia, a trace of chrome and
sulphur, but not a particle of nickel.
1692. Massacre of Glencoe, Scotland. King William, whose chief virtue
was not humanity, signed and countersigned the warrant, which was
transmitted to the secretary for Scotland, who particularly charged the
ministers of destruction to take no prisoners. The population was
barbarously massacred, and the spot disemboweled of every social
appearance.
1718. ASHTON LEVER died at Manchester, England. He was a collector of
specimens in natural history, and possessed one of the finest museums in
the world.
1750. The _Student_, a paper of much merit, issued at Oxford, England,
appeared this day.
1754. The 1st number of the _Connoisseur_ appeared, conducted by
Coleman, Bonnell Thornton, Chesterfield and others.
1775. Capt. COOKE discovered Southern Thule, soon after Sandwich land
which from the vast quantities of ice seen he conjectured might be a
continent.
1737. The attorney general stated to the Irish parliament that an
insurrection existed in the county of Kerry, the people having taken an
oath to obey the laws of _Captain Right_ (a fictitious name), and to
starve the clergy.
1788. CHARLES STUART, the pretender to the throne of England, died at
Rome. He was the grandson of James II, born at Rome 1720. In 1745 he
landed in Scotland, with only seven companions, and marched south
gaining strength and carrying every thing before him till he arrived
within 100 miles of London. Here his career was arrested, and the battle
of Culloden decided his fate. He wandered about the wilds of Scotland
five months, often without food, and the price of £30,000 set upon his
head. He finally escaped in a French vessel, and ended his days in
dissipation.
1795. The assembly of the states of Holland passed at the Hague the
first public instrument in the shape of a declaration of rights.
1801. Sale of fine wheaten bread prohibited in London and that of brown
substituted.
1813. SAMUEL M'KEEHAN, surgeon's mate in the Ohio militia, ordered by
General Harrison, with a flag of truce, and money for supplies, for the
wounded prisoners taken January 22d, put up for the night in a cave at
the foot of the Miami, leaving his horse and cabriole at the entrance,
and the flag stuck up; about midnight a party of Indians fired on them,
wounded the doctor in the foot, killed and scalped his companion, Mr.
Lamont, and stripped him, they took the money, horse, blankets, &c., and
compelled the doctor to travel 20 miles that night on foot.
1826. FRANÇOIS D'ETIENNE LANTIER, a dramatic writer of no small
celebrity in France, died at Marseilles.
1828. ALEXANDER YPSILANTI, a Greek patriot, died at Vienna, aged 36. He
attempted the liberty of his country, but was discountenanced by the
emperors of Russia and Austria, and imprisoned by the latter seven
years. His early death is attributed to his incarceration.
1833. OTHO, prince of Bavaria, arrived at Napoli di Romania as the first
king of restored Greece; at which time he had not attained his 18th
year.
1838. OSCEOLA, the celebrated Seminole chief, died at Charleston, S. C.,
aged 35. From a vagabond child he became the master-spirit of a long and
desperate war. He was a subtil and sagacious savage, who established
gradually and surely a resistless ascendancy over his adopted tribe, by
the daring of his deeds, the constancy of his hostility to the whites,
and the profound craft of his policy.
1839. JAMES BYLES died at Oyster bay, N. Y., aged 118. He was a native
of France, came to this country while a boy, was a soldier under Wolfe,
and in the battle of Quebec.
1843. Was living at Caraccas, South America, MARIA DE LA CRUZ CARVALLO,
aged 144. Her hair, which had been white with age, returned to black at
the age of 133; and her sight, which was entirely lost at the age of
118, returned, at the age of 138, so that she could thread a needle.
1854. The rail road track at Erie, Pa., torn up the second time by a
mob.
1855. The western rail roads blocked with snow, and travel almost wholly
obstructed for several days. No communication was had between St. Louis
and Chicago for eleven days. Seventeen locomotives were frozen in or
buried by the snow on the Chicago and Mississippi rail road.