NOVEMBER 28.
411. Flavius Julius Constantine put to death by order of Constantius. He was a private Roman soldier, who invested himself with the imperial purple in Britain, and added Gaul and Spain to his dominions.
741. Gregory III, pope, died. He was a charitable but magnificent pontiff, who added great splendor to the holy see.
1285. Peter III, king of Arragon, died. He is notorious for the massacre of the French in the island of Sicily, called the Sicilian Vespers, by which he became master of the kingdom.
1443. Revolt of Scanderbeg from the Turkish power, holding the standard of his native mountains.
1499. Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick, beheaded.
1523. Election of Clement VII (Julius de Medici), to the disappointment and deep resentment of cardinal Wolsey; an event which had its weight in the establishment of the English reformation.
1631. Edmund Richer, an eminent French theological writer, died. He possessed great powers of mind, and a lively imagination; but his writings became obnoxious to the pope's legate, and drew on him persecution.
1655. Peace between England and France proclaimed.
1680. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini died; an Italian famous for his skill in painting, sculpture, architecture and mechanics. He left a large fortune and was buried with great magnificence.
1708. Anthony Vandale died; an eminent Dutch physician and critic.
1776. Washington retreated across the Passaic before Cornwallis. The diminution of the American army by the departure of those whose terms of service had expired, encouraged the British to pursue the remaining force with the prospect of annihilating it. The pursuit was urged with so much rapidity, that the rear of the army, pulling down bridges, was often within sight and shot of the van of the other, building them up.
1778. Edward Rowe Mores, an able English antiquary, died.
1782. Edict of the emperor Joseph II, absolving religious orders in the Low Countries from all foreign dependence whatever.
1785. William Whipple, one of the signers, died. He was a native of New Hampshire, and employed several years in commercial voyages. In 1775 he was a representative from Portsmouth, and in 1777 was placed at the head of a brigade raised to oppose Burgoyne, which he commanded at the battle of Saratoga.
1789. The iron, lead and woodwork of the Bastile were sold at Paris by auction.
1794. Frederick William Augustus, baron Steuben, died at Steubenville, N. Y., aged 61. He came to America from France in 1777, and joined the revolutionary army. His sound judgment and experience, attained in the army of Frederick the Great, was of incalculable advantage to the Americans in establishing discipline and a uniform system of manoeuvres.
1799. Kien Long, emperor of China, died, aged 90. He received addresses from Voltaire and Peter Pindar.
1800. Matthew Young, an Irish bishop and mathematician, died.
1801. Deodat Guy Silvain Tancrede de Dolomieu, an eminent French geologist, died, of a disease taken during an imprisonment. He was indefatigable in the pursuit of his favorite science.
1806. The French under Murat entered Warsaw, the capital of ancient Poland, which had been overawed by the Russian soldiery, kept there for the purpose.
1812. Logan, the Mingo chief, died; so well known by his misfortunes.
1812. Battle of Tchatchovo; the Russians again defeated the French on the left bank of the Berezina. This was the last battle of consequence in Russia. Bonaparte fled the field, and was no more seen in any conflict during this campaign. His army was reduced to a wretched band of the shadows of men.
1818. Ann Dawson died at Harrowgate, England, aged 161.
1825. Maximilian Sebastian Foy, a distinguished French officer and orator, died. His funeral was attended by thousands of his countrymen, and a monument erected to his memory.
1828. Miller Ritchie, justly considered the father of fine English printing, died.
1840. London enveloped in dense fog, which arrested business in the city and on the river. Serious accidents and loss of life occurred. Such an event had not occurred before in 20 years; it was impossible to find the way along the streets without lighted flambeaux.
1849. Thomas H. Blake, an early settler at Terre Haute, Ind., and a distinguished American statesman, died.