DECEMBER 11.
361. Julian, the new emperor, made his triumphal entry into the eastern capital, having traversed with victory the whole continent of Europe, from the Atlantic.
1282. Michael VIII (Palæologus), emperor of Rome, died. He was regent of the eastern empire, and took advantage of his situation to assume the supreme power. He retook Constantinople, which had been 58 years under the power of the French, and labored to reconcile the eastern and western churches.
1595. Philippe de Croi, duke of Aarschot, died; a Flemish nobleman and general, who, in an attempt to free his country of Spanish dictation, was unsuccessful, and exiled.
1620. The Plymouth adventurers, having sounded the harbor, and found it fit for shipping, went ashore and explored the adjacent land, where they saw cornfields and brooks; and judging the situation to be convenient for a settlement, they returned with the welcome intelligence to the ship.
1652. Dionysius Petavius died; a French Jesuit of great erudition, and an author.
1657. Writs issued by Cromwell to sixty individuals, to meet at Westminister, and compose a house of lords.
1697. Joachim Kuhnius, a learned Pomeranian, died. He was principal of the college of Octigen, and acquired great celebrity by his publications.
1699. The king of Sweden defeated the Muscovites at Narva.
1704. Roger L'Estrange, an English gentleman and scholar, died. He was unsuccessful in his enterprises in favor of Charles I; but on the restoration he returned to England, and printed the first regular English newspaper, 1663, under the title of the Public Intelligencer. He was the author of some political tracts, and translations from different languages.
1714. George I, and his cabinet, issued an order forbidding the clergy to meddle in their sermons with the affairs of state.
1718. Charles XII, of Sweden, killed; supposed to have been struck by a cannon ball in the trenches, at Frederickshall; a fortress which he was then besieging near the bay of Denmark.
1747. Edmund Curl died; one of the characters mentioned in Pope's Dunciad. His character for morality was not without blemish, and he was highly injurious to the literary world, in his profession of book maker and seller, by his piracies and forgeries. He lost his ears in the pillory, by sentence of the law, for issuing obscene publications.
1753. The dey of Algiers assassinated by a soldier, as he was distributing pay to about 300 in the court yard of his palace. The assassin seated himself in the chair of state, and was taking measures to secure his power, when he was shot with a carbine.
1756. Theodore Newhoff, king of Corsica, died in England, where he had been long confined in prison for debt.
1758. The old castle of the Douglasses, so famed in Scottish history, was accidentally burned to the ground.
1794. Assault on the works of Nijmegen, a strong city of Holland; general Bushe, of the allies, was killed by an 8lb. cannon ball.
1794. Battle of Roussilon; the Spaniards and Portuguese defeated the French, killed 800, took 600 prisoners, and 50 cannon.
1806. Saxony erected into a kingdom, under Frederick Augustus, by the treaty of Posen, between Bonaparte and the elector.
1807. The Dutch fleet burnt at Greisse, in Java, by the British squadron, under sir Edward Pellew.
1812. Wilna entered by the Russians, where they found vast magazines, 30 cannon, upwards of 5,000 in the hospitals, including some distinguished officers, and took about 10,000 prisoners.
1813. The French, under Soult, again repulsed in an attempt to force the British under lord Wellington to repass the Nieve.
1816. Indiana admitted as a new state into the Union of the United States.
1828. Beranger was sentenced by the French court of correctional police, to pay 10,000 francs ($1,800) fine, and to undergo nine months' imprisonment, for having attacked the dignity of the church, and of the king, in his poems.