DECEMBER 8.
1275. Meeting of Stationarii, or booksellers, at London. For a quarter of a century previous to this time, booksellers not unfrequently kept school in their porches. The portal at the north end of the cathedral in Rouen is still called Le Portail des Libraires, the porch of the booksellers.
1315. Battle of Morgarten, or Ægeri, in Switzerland; the Austrian army of 20,000 under the archduke Leopold, defeated by 1,600 mountaineers in the pass between the mountain and the lake.
1437. Sigismund, emperor of Germany, died. He volunteered his assistance to tranquilize the church, and proposed the famous council, which consisted of 14,000 ecclesiastics and 16,000 noblemen. His perfidy in allowing Huss and Jerome of Prague to be burnt, after giving them a passport of safety, armed against him the bravest of his subjects, and led to a civil discord and bloodshed of sixteen years' duration.
1493. Isabella, the first European town in America, founded by Columbus. All his men, provisions and utensils, were landed on a plain near a rock, on the island of Navidad, in the West Indies, and a fort erected. The town was named in honor of the Spanish queen, to whom the great navigator was much indebted.
1612. Great earthquake at Munster.
1643. John Pym died; a celebrated English republican, distinguished for his virulence against Charles I.
1660. First time of the appearance of a female on the public stage; the character was Desdemona.
1661. An order of both houses of parliament was passed for hanging the carcasses of Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw, Henry Ireton and Thomas Pride upon the gallows at Tyburn, and then burying them under the gallows.
1677. Nicholas Pavillon, an eminent French ecclesiastic, made bishop of Alet by Richelieu, and afterwards deposed, died in exile.
1691. Richard Baxter, a celebrated English nonconformist divine, died. He wrote a vast number of books; his practical works were collected in 4 vols. folio.
1695. Bartholomew d'Herbelot, a French orientalist, died. He wrote a Universal Dictionary, "containing whatever relates to the knowledge of the eastern world."
1709. Thomas Corneille, a French dramatist, died. He wrote 42 dramatic pieces, which were received with greater applause than those of his brother Peter, but have been lost and forgotten.
1741. Vitus Behring, a Danish navigator, died. He was a commodore in the Russian service, and was employed in exploring some of the northern coasts of America, where he died, after having made some important discoveries, among which was the strait that bears his name.
1745. John Roque, a French traveler, died at Paris. He published an account of his travels in Arabia Felix, Palestine and Syria.
1746. Charles Ratcliffe, earl of Derwentwater, executed at Towerhill, London. He had resided 30 years in France.
1751. Louisa, youngest daughter of George II, queen of Denmark, died.
1775. A number of American whaleboats under captain Manly captured three British ships with various stores intended for the army.
1776. Washington retreated across the Delaware. The British, on the same day, blocked up commodore Hopkins' squadron and a number of privateers at Providence.
1792. Henry Laurens, a patriot of South Carolina, died. He was distinguished for talent and activity, and succeeded Hancock as president of congress. He was captured by the British on a mission to Holland, and confined a long time in the tower of London. At his death he left a property of about $250,000 to his son, on condition that he should burn his body on the third day after his death.
1803. Hippolytus Theodorovitch Bogdanovitch, a Russian poet, died. His poem of Dushenka procured him the favor of the queen and the whole nation. It is founded on the mythological story of Psyche, but so unlike any thing that had preceded it in that language that he immediately became the favorite of all classes.
1806. Andrew Dalsell, professor of Greek at Edinburgh, died; an amiable and a learned man.
1821. Ebenezer Cobb died at Kingston, Mass., aged 107. He was the cotemporary for ten years of Peregrine White, the first born child of English parents in America. His mode of living was extremely simple, having tasted tea but twice in his life. He shrewdly remarked, a short time before his death, that it was very unusual for persons of his age to die.
1847. The United States brig-of-war Somers thrown on her beam ends by a squall near Vera Cruz, and 2 officers with 39 out of 76 of her crew drowned. The French and Spanish men-of-war lying at Sacrificios rendered much assistance and received the thanks of congress.
1848. The first deposit of California gold made in the United States mint by David Carter.
1851. Battle of Longomilla, between the government troops of Chili under general Bulnes, late president, and the rebels under general Cruz, who was defeated and his troops dispersed.
1854. The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary proclaimed by the pope, in St. Peter's church, Rome, as a dogma of the catholic faith.