NOVEMBER 20.
63. Shipwreck of St. Paul. It was a fortnight from the fast, and about the present day, that Paul, by the occular testimony of Luke, was cast upon the shores of Malta, where they wintered three months until the period of navigation in March. Josephus, the Jewish historian, was wrecked in the same sea, and in or very near the same year.
303. Diocletian and Maximian celebrated in a grand triumph their victories and those of the two Cæsars, their associates, in Persia and Britain, on the Rhine, the Danube and the Nile; the last spectacle of the kind that Rome ever beheld.
870. Edmund (the Saint), king of East Anglia, murdered by the Danes, who had him tied to a tree and shot to death with arrows. His kingdom comprised the present counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and part of Cambridgeshire.
1185. Abdurrahman, surnamed Abn Zeyd, died. He was a Moslem divine and poet, and left several valuable works.
1191. Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, died at Acre, in Palestine, whither he had followed the crusaders, whose cause he had exerted himself to promote.
1347. Stephen Colonna defeated and killed at Rome by the tribune Rienzi.
1411. Johannes Cantacuzenus, a Byzantine historian, died. His knowledge in literature and arms was so great that he became the favorite of the court and the people, and was finally persuaded to accept the throne, from which he retired again on the restoration of order.
1481. The Last Siege and conquest of Jerusalem, translated from the French "by me simple person, William Caxton," was printed at London in the Abby; one of the earliest specimens of English typography.
1497. The Portuguese admiral, Vasquez de Gama, doubled the cape of Good Hope, which, until then, had been considered the utmost boundary of navigation, and called the cape of Tempests.
1549. Kett, a tanner, rebelled against Edward, and was taken by Dudley, earl of Warwick, and hung in chains on the top of Norwich castle.
1571. The field of Craibstone stricken by John Master of Forbes, and Adam Gordon, brother to lord Huntley, where the said John lost the field, and was taken, and sundry of his friends slain, to the number on both sides of three score, or thereby, and good Duncan Forbes slain the same day.
1572. The first presbyterian meeting house in England erected at Wandsworth in Surrey.
1591. Christopher Hatton, chancellor of England under Elizabeth, died. He was a man of learning and great integrity, and though placed in so high a situation, had not been bred to the law. It was by his advice that the unfortunate Mary submitted to her fatal trial.
1660. The bishops of England again took their seats in the house of lords, verifying the adage of the king's grandfather, "no bishop no king."
1672. The island of Tobago taken from the Dutch by the English.
1683. A book entitled Julian the Apostate, burnt by the hangman, and its author, Samuel Johnson, a clergyman, fined 500 marks for an alleged libel on the duke of York.
1729. Nicholas Gervais, a French missionary, massacred in Guiana with all his attendants.
1737. Queen Caroline of England died, aged 55. Her favorite study was theology, and she has been accused of scepticism; at her death she refused the sacrament, but joined cordially in the Lord's prayer.
1759. Naval battle off Belleisle; the French fleet under M. de Conflans defeated by the British under admiral Hawke. The French lost several large ships, and abandoned the project of invading Great Britain.
1769. Charles Hugh le Fevre de St. Mark, a French miscellaneous writer, died at Paris.
1773. Charles Jennens died; an
English gentleman of considerable fortune, who compiled the works of some of Handel's oratories, and began an edition of Shakspeare's works, which he did not live to complete.
1780. Battle of Blackstocks; the British under Tarleton attacked the American general Sumpter, but was repulsed with the loss of more than 30 killed or wounded. Sumpter and 4 others were wounded and 3 killed.
1789. Richard Burn, an English vicar, died; author of a work on ecclesiastical law, and on the office of justice of the peace, which have gone through several editions.
1789. North Carolina adopted the federal constitution, ayes 193, noes 75. This was the 12th pillar in the political edifice.
1789. A deputation was admitted to the French national assembly from the city of Issondein, with a patriotic offer of all the silver buckles of the inhabitants, to the value of 115 marks. Whereupon M. Dailly moved that all the members of the assembly should make a similar sacrifice, which was instantly agreed to.
1792. Battle of Cumptich, in which the French under Dumourier, after a long and bloody action, defeated the Austrians under the duke of Saxe Teschen, who exhibited great judgment and intrepidity in conducting his retreat.
1794. Figueras, an extensive and well provided fortress on the frontier of Spain, was taken by the French, when 9000 Spaniards were taken prisoners.
1798. Two French frigates attacked and captured U. S. schooner Retaliation.
1804. Archibald Maclain, an Irish protestant clergyman, died. He translated Mosheim's ecclesiastical history.
1804. The American expedition under Lewis and Clark went into winter quarters at fort Mandan, on the Missouri river, lat. 47° 21´ N.
1812. Bonaparte evacuated Orcha on his retreat from Moscow. He left there 23 cannon, some prisoners, and an immense number of sick and wounded, who fell into the hands of the Cossacks.
1813. John Baptist Bodoni, the celebrated printer of Parma, and probably the most distinguished in his profession during the last century, died.
1815. France ceded to the kingdom of the Netherlands whatever it still retained of the Austrian Netherlands, particularly a rich mineral district situated in the center of the Ardennes, and the fortresses of Marienburg and Philippeville.
1840. A series of extensive hurricanes and storms, which commenced on the 13th and swept over England, Ireland and a part of France, ceased their fury. The destruction of lives and property, on land and at sea, was immense.
1843. Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, aged 74, died at Philadelphia. He was director of the United States coast survey.