Читать книгу The Every Day Book of History and Chronology - Joel Munsell - Страница 10

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1402. Birthday of Joan of Arc.

1540. Henry VIII married Anne, daughter of John, duke of Cleves. This was his fourth wife. He had asked her hand in marriage after having seen a portrait of her by Holbein; and becoming disgusted with her in six months bestowed upon her the epithet of Flanders mare, and sent her home. She retired, not much disconcerted, to her own country, where she died 1557.

1649. Anne of Austria, queen regent of France, obliged to fly from Paris to St. Germain.

1698. Birthday of Metastasio, the celebrated Italian poet.

1711. Christopher Bateman, a noted English bookseller, died. He suffered none to open a book in his shop till it was bought.

1724. The bishop of London preached a sermon against masquerades, which produced a decree that no more than six masquerades, the number already subscribed for, should be held.

1725. Pope Benedict XIII, in great state and measured ceremony, opened with a golden hammer the holy gates of the four great churches which had been shut 25 years, for obtaining indulgences, &c.

1734. John Dennis, an English dramatist and critic, died. He was the son of a saddler, born in London 1657, and liberally educated. His first play appeared in 1697, and was followed by many dramatic pieces and poems which were sufficiently worthless to procure their author an imperishable notoriety in the Dunciad, where Pope has gibbeted him. He squandered a fortune which had been left him by an uncle, and not being able to subsist by his pamphlets and criticisms for the magazines, depended upon his friends for a living; and even those whom he had made his enemies joined in the benefit for him at the Haymarket theatre, after he had become blind and partially insane. One of his plays, which was condemned, is famous for a new kind of thunder introduced in it; a few nights after its representation, the players made use of the contrivance in Macbeth, when the author rose in the pit and with an oath claimed it as his thunder. His thunder is said to be that still used in the theatres.

1738. Jean Baptist Labat, a missionary and traveler, died. He was born at Paris 1663, and became a Dominican priest in Norway, where he taught mathematics and philosophy also. In 1693 he embarked for Martinique as a missionary; and during several voyages in service of the mission, visited all the Antilles. When the English attacked the island of Guadaloupe, he rendered his country important services as an engineer. He afterwards traveled much in Europe, and published his travels. His voyage to the West Indies has been translated into several languages, and is a truly scientific work.

1763. Unsuccessful and very disastrous attack by two English ships on Buenos Ayres. The commodore and nearly 300 of the crew were drowned.

1766. The wild man Peter taken in the Hartz forest and presented to George II, was brought from Cheshunt and shewn to George III and his queen. Like Shakespeare's Caliban, he could bring wood and water but not articulate any language.

1777. The American army, under Gen. Washington, went into winter quarters at Morristown, N. J.

1781. Arnold detached Lieut. Col. Simcoe, from Richmond to Westham, Va., who destroyed the cannon foundry and a quantity of public stores which had been removed from Richmond.

1785. The Halsewell, East Indiaman, Capt. Richard Pearce, wrecked on the island of Purbeck; of 240 persons but 74 were saved.

1794. The duke of Brunswick resigned his command as generalissimo of the coalition against France.

1795. French frigate La Pique, 33 guns, captured off Marigalante by the British frigate Blanche, Capt. Faulkner, who was shot through the heart; also 7 of his crew killed and 21 wounded. La Pique had 76 killed, 113 wounded, and 30 were lost when her mast went overboard.

1810. James Richard Dacres died of a fall from his horse. He was vice-admiral of the Red, and father of the Capt. Dacres captured by Hull.

1813. Alexander issued his ukase at Wilna, directing the foundation stone of a new church to be instantly laid in Moscow, dedicated to Christ our Savior, as a perpetual monument to future generations of the deliverance of Russia from the French, and the devotion of his people.

1816. Francis Norodsky, a Polish gentleman, died at Warsaw, aged 125. The Polish government allowed him a pension of 3000 florins, which the emperor Alexander continued till his death.

1817. General Thomas died, at Milledgeville, Georgia, of cancer in the mouth.

1823. The siege of Missolonghi raised. Mavrocordato, the commander in chief, had thrown himself into the town on the 5th of November with 380 men, and 22 Suliots under Marco Botzaris, and though almost destitute of artillery and ammunition, defended it against the Turkish forces. On the 23d November it was relieved by sea, and the enemy were repulsed in several assaults, when they finally abandoned the walls.

1831. Died at Geneva, Rodolphe Kreutzer, a distinguished violinist and musical composer.

1836. Abraham van Vechten died at Albany, aged 75. He was a highly respected man, an eminent lawyer, and one of the fathers of the New York bar.

1839. A tremendous gale or hurricane in the west of England, which did great damage at Liverpool.

1840. Madame D'Arblay, the well known novelist, Miss Burney, died at Bath. Lord Chancellor Thurlow said her Cecilia was worth all the books in his library.

1841. Great freshet in the Hudson river and tributaries.

1849. George Sinnet, a native of Germany, the last survivor of Gen. Wolfe's army, died at Brighton, Nova Scotia, aged 120.

1854. Russians defeated at Citale, near Kalafat, with a loss of 2500 men.