Читать книгу The Every Day Book of History and Chronology - Joel Munsell - Страница 39

Table of Contents

1141. Battle of Lincoln, and defeat of Stephen, king of England, by the earl of Gloucester. The king, whose valor deserved a better fortune, was taken prisoner, loaded with irons, and Matilda proclaimed queen.

1421. Henry V entered London from the complete conquest of France, which had been accomplished in about five years, and was received by the people amidst such pageants and popular rejoicings as that capital had never witnessed.

1461. Battle of Mortimer's Cross near Ludlow, where the king's forces were defeated, Owen Tudor taken and beheaded.

1529. Balthazar Castiglione, an Italian nobleman and poet, died. He was also so well skilled in painting, sculpture and architecture, that it is said Raphael and Michael Angelo, though incomparable artists, never thought their works perfect unless they had his approbation.

1626. Charles I of England crowned at Westminster. He wore the white rather than the purple robe, and to prevent the increase of the plague omitted the usual ceremony of riding in state.

1643. Prince Rupert took Cirencester for Charles, by storm; 200 slain.

1653. New York city incorporated.

1682. John Pautre died; an eminent French designer and engraver. His works were published in 3 vols. folio, and contained more than 1000 engravings.

1688. Abraham du Quesne died. He was a native of Normandie in France, and distinguished himself in the navy by a series of valorous and successful engagements.

1705. A new eruption of the peak of Teneriffe, forming the third volcanic mouth.

1723. Richard Sare, an eminent printer, died. A sermon preached at his death was well received and went through many editions.

1745. A conspiracy of 900 negroes to murder their masters in Jamaica was discovered by a negress to her mistress, because the plotters would not save a child she had nursed.

1752. The contributors to the Pennsylvania hospital, having rented a house, admitted their first patients.

1768. Arthur Onslow died. He was 33 years speaker in the English house of commons and the third of his family that had been nominated to that office.

1771. John Lockman, an English dramatic writer, died.

1787. Gen. Arthur St. Clair elected president of the American congress.

1788. James Stuart died; sometimes called Athenian Stuart, a very celebrated traveler and delineator of Athenian architecture.

1794. The French convention decreed it treason for any officer to surrender his ship to a force less than double his own!

1797. Mantua surrendered to the French, who now became entire masters of the pope's dominions; whereupon Napoleon dictates to his holiness those pious terms of pacification signed ten days after.

1798. The Federal street theatre, in Boston, entirely destroyed by fire.

1799. Thomas Paine, often called the Literary Merchant, died. Few mercantile men become literary men.

1799. Elizabeth Woodcock, an English woman, returning home from market in one of the most stormy nights ever known in England, was overwhelmed in a snow drift, where she remained eight days without sustenance. When discovered her mental faculties were unimpaired, but she had lost the use of her feet, and died some months after.

1801. The first imperial parliament of Great Britain assembled in London.

1804. George Walton died, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was a native of Virginia, served an apprenticeship to a carpenter, removed to Georgia and studied law. He was foremost among the patriots of that state who assembled to devise measures of resistance to the acts of parliament in relation to American taxations.

1806. Miranda sailed from New York on his expedition to revolutionize South-America.

1806. Thomas Banks died. He was bred a wood carver, to which he served an apprenticeship. But having taken several premiums for models of sculpture he turned his attention to that art, and was sent to Rome to study at the academy's expense. From Italy he repaired to Russia, where he stayed two years; but not meeting with any adequate encouragement, he returned to his own country. A colossal statue of Achilles mourning the loss of Briseis is his masterpiece. He closed a life of arduous exertion, at the age of 70; and there are monuments, both in Russia and England that will long attest his skill.

1807. Battle of Bergfried near the lower Vistula. Bonaparte defeated the Russians after a severe and sanguinary contest, in which Soult, Augereau, &c., distinguished themselves very highly. The French took four pieces of cannon and 1700 prisoners. Same day, the French general Guyot captured the whole of the Russian magazines at Guttstadt.

1808. The French subverted the papal government at Rome.

1814. Bonaparte defeated at Brienne with the loss of 173 cannons and 4000 men.

1817. The Scottish regalia, which had been deposited in a chest in 1707, (see March 26) was examined by a deputation. The doors were removed, and the floor was found covered with 6 inches of dust. No keys being found, the oaken chest was forced open, and found to contain the ancient crown, scepter and sword of state, as they had been deposited 111 years previous.

1820. Benjamin Trumbull died, aged 92, author of a History of Connecticut.

1831. A. Bonpland, the celebrated traveler, permitted to leave Paraguay, where he had been detained about nine years, by the dictator Francia.

1834. Richard Lander, the enterprising traveler and discoverer of the course of the Niger, died at Fernando Po, in Africa, of wounds received from the natives. All his papers were lost. The British government allowed his wife and daughter a pension of £150.

1834. Lorenzo Dow died, aged 57; an eccentric traveling preacher. He was born in Connecticut and had a good elementary education; but in his youth acquired vicious habits which however he overcame at about the age of 14. At an early age he believed himself called to preach, and in obeying the impulse he commenced a career which has probably never been equaled; and in spite of acute bodily disease performed an amount of labor in traveling and preaching never before known. Before he had completed his twenty-fifth year, he once rode 1500 miles and held 184 meetings in ten weeks and two days; and about a year afterwards, traveled 4000 miles in the southern states, constantly preaching, in seven months, and finished his tour without stockings, shoes, or outer garment, and almost without a horse. For several years after he traveled from seven to ten thousand miles and held six or seven hundred meetings annually. It is thought that during the thirty-eight years of his public life he must have traveled two hundred thousand miles, including three voyages to England and Ireland. During these flying journeys he constantly refused donations and contributions, except for immediate want; and his traveling expenses exceeded his receipts more than one half, the first eighteen years. Afterwards, however, his books became a source of profit to him, and finally he became the maker and vender of a family medicine! which was a matter of speculation purely. He was twice married; his second wife survived him. He was familiar to every body throughout the United States, for there were few places however obscure which he had not visited.

1839. Deborah Logan died at Stanton, Pa. She was a member of the Pennsylvania historical society, and more intimately acquainted with the early history of that state, than any other person living.

1840. Olinthus Gregori, an English mathematician, died, aged 67. He was more than thirty years professor of mathematics in the royal military academy at Woolwich, and had the whole of the general superintendence of the almanacs published by the stationers' company, which had been for a long period conducted by Dr. Hutton. He published mathematics, biography and religion.

1841. William Bartlett, an eminent and wealthy merchant of Newburyport, and a munificent benefactor to the theological seminary at Andover, died, aged 93.

1851. Joanna Baillie, a Scottish dramatic authoress, died, aged 85.

1852. A priest, aged 63, attacked the queen of Spain with a dagger, as she was returning from church; for which he was executed.

1855. G. Fletcher, an English Wesleyan preacher, died, aged 108. Until within six months of his decease he preserved an astonishing activity of mind and body, often preaching without fatigue three times a day.

1856. The house of representatives at Washington elected a speaker after a contest of nine weeks.