720, B. C. the first eclipse of the moon on record happened on this day.
1355. Pressing for seamen to man the navy commenced.
1668. Sir John Denham, poet, died in London; he was born in Dublin,
1615.
1719. A surprising meteor was seen about eight o’clock in the evening,
from all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. To an observer in St.
Paul’s churchyard, it appeared a ball of fire as large as the moon, of a
pale bluish light, and with little motion, till in a moment it assumed
the shape of a common meteor with a stream of light, double the diameter
of its first appearance, emitting a splendour by which the smallest
print might have been read. Its duration was not above half a minute,
and its greatest light about the tenth part of a minute. At Exeter its
light exceeded that of the sun at noonday, and there it seemed to break
like a skyrocket, into sparks of red fire, which reflected that colour
on the houses, and shortly after a report, loud as cannon, shook the
windows, succeeded at the interval of a minute by about thirty others;
“they sounded just as the tower guns did in Mincing-lane, but shook the
houses and windows much more.” Mr. Whiston calculated the greatest
height of this extraordinary meteor to have been forty-three or
fifty-one statute miles: it gradually descended lower till it came to
Devonshire, where it was about thirty-nine miles high, and broke over
the sea, near the coast of Brittany; its altitude then being about
thirty miles.[32]
* * * * *