DECEMBER 7.
424 B. C. The accession of Darius II (Nothus). This is also the date of the battles of Delium and Amphipolis, where Xenophon and Thucydides were present, and of the occupation of Cytheria by the Athenians.
43 B. C. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the celebrated Roman orator, statesman and philosopher, assassinated at his villa, by Popilius, at the instigation of Antony.
983. Otho II (the Bloody), emperor of Germany, poisoned.
1154. Landing of Henry II in England from France.
1229. The boy bishop said vespers before Edward I at Heton near New Castle upon Tyne. On Childermas the scholars of St. Paul's and other schools were enjoined to hear the "Chylde Bishop's sermon."
1542. Mary Stuart, sole daughter and heir to king James V, born.
1626. John Davies, an eminent English lawyer and poet, died. His works on legal subjects are numerous and valuable.
1641. Ralph Brownrig, bishop of Exeter, died. He had the hardihood boldly to advise Cromwell to restore Charles II to his throne.
1657. Cromwell sent an agent to the duke of Savoy to negotiate respecting his protestant subjects.
1666. Ten of the Scottish covenanters executed at Edinburgh.
1672. Richard Bellingham, governor of Massachusetts, died. He had exercised the offices of governor or deputy for 23 years.
1683. Algernon Sidney, an English patriot and political writer, beheaded at the age of 66.
1721. Bernard Albinus, a celebrated German physician, died. He was professor at Frankfort and Leyden.
1741. Revolution in Russia.
1776. British under Cornwallis marched to Princeton.
1787. The deputies of the Delaware state convention signed the constitution of the United States, which they had agreed by vote to adopt the day previous. She was the first state that ratified the instrument.
1796. Washington met both houses of congress for the last time as president of the United States.
1799. Battle of Sediman, in Egypt; the French under Dessaix defeated 3,000 Mamelukes and 10,000 Arabs under Murad Bey.
1805. Action off cape St. Mary between the British ship Polyphemus, 64 guns, and Spanish ships Santa Gertruyda, with twelve hundred thousand dollars on board, and El Felix, valued at nearly one million, both of which were captured.
1812. Bonaparte in disguise with Caulincourt arrived at Wilna in a sledge.
1815. Michael Ney, a French marshal, shot. His career under Bonaparte was distinguished during ten years, by great military skill and daring bravery. On the second restoration of the Bourbons he was condemned to death.
1822. John Aikin, an English surgeon, died; better known as a writer of great erudition. He edited the first twenty volumes of the Monthly Magazine, the Athenæum, various editions of the poets, and was one of the writers of the General Biographical Dictionary in 10 vols. quarto.
1832. Victor Jacquemont, a distinguished French naturalist, died at Bombay, aged 32.
1835. The rail road from Nuremberg to Furth, the first rail road in Germany, opened, and the journey made in 15 minutes. The monumental stone has the inscription: "Germany's first iron rail road, with steam power, 1835."
1842. Thomas Hamilton, the author of Cyril Thornton, a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, &c., died at Pisa, in Italy.
1853. A statue inaugurated to marshal Ney at Paris, on the place where he was shot on this day of the month, in 1815.