OCTOBER 26.
1656 A. M. Noah entered the ark on the 10th day of 2d month, answering to this day of our month. The ark was 525 feet long, 87 broad, and 52 deep; requiring about 245,000 cubic feet of timber; its capacity two millions cubic feet of space; was commenced about 1556 and completed 1656, having been 100 years in building.
1331. Ismael Abulfeda, prince of Hamath, in Syria, died. Before he began his reign he distinguished himself by his researches in geography, and published in Arabic an account of the regions beyond the Oxus.
1455. The charter of the beautiful town of Kirkcudbright in Scotland was given. This town was much frequented in time of persecution.
1522. Donna Maria Pacheco, the widow of Padilla, retired into the citadel of Toledo, which she defended four months against the royalists.
1594. William Allen, usually called the great English cardinal, died, and was buried at Rome.
1645. Bloody battle of Routon Heath, in which king Charles was defeated and many of his officers slain.
1701. Birth day of Helen and Judith, the united twin sisters, at Tzoni, in Hungary. They possessed a musical genius, were exhibited in England in 1708, and died 1723.
1703. Great storm in England, by which large tracts of country were overflowed, trees torn up by the roots, immense numbers of cattle perished, and 8000 human lives were lost on the Thames, Severn and coast of Holland alone.
1723. Godfrey Kneller, an eminent German painter, died in England, where he was greatly honored for his skill in portraits.
1724. Hilkiah Bedford, who was tried and fined for publishing a work entitled the hereditary right of the crown of England, died at London.
1727. Lewis de Sacy died; an eloquent avocat of the parliament of Paris, and a learned member of the French academy.
1728. A dispatch was received in England that more than two thirds of the city of Copenhagen in Denmark was burned down. The fire commenced on the 20th and continued three days.
1751. Philip Doddridge, an eminent English dissenting minister, died; author of the Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, a standard work.
1773. Conspiracy of Palermo.
1774. The first congress of North America, having finished their deliberations, adjourned.
1788. Thomas Reed died at Bordentown, N. J.; a captain in the navy of the revolution.
1794. Suwarrow, having defeated the Polish van guard, invested Praga, the suburb of Warsaw.
1795. The French national assembly dissolved itself, after three years' duration.
1796. Moreau crossed the Rhine.
1798. A violent insurrection was raised against the French at Cairo in Egypt.
1800. Earthquake at Constantinople, destroyed the royal palace and many other buildings.
1803. Edmund Pendleton, a distinguished Virginia statesman, died. He was a member of the first congress.
1803. John Penn, one of the signers of the declaration of American independence from Virginia, died.
1807. Treaty of Fontainbleau, between Bonaparte and Spain, for the conquest of Portugal.
1807. Russia declared war against Great Britain.
1811. Saguntum surrendered by the Spanish to the French under Suchet. Same day the Spaniards defeated the
French at Puycezda, and pursued them into the French territories, where they levied heavy contributions.
1816. Doctorow, the Russian general, died at Moscow.
1822. It was ordered in the Netherlands that the national language alone, the Dutch or Flemish, should be used in schools.
1825. Canal celebration at Albany.
1831. Cholera first appeared in England at Sunderland.
1836. George Coleman (the Younger) died in London, aged 74. He was the author of numerous comedies which were eminently successful, but failed to procure him a decent livelihood, so that many of the last years of his life were spent in great poverty.
1836. Charles Day, a wealthy blacking manufacturer, of the firm of Day & Martin, died in London. He had been totally blind for many years. He left an estate valued at about two millions of dollars, and directed about half a million to be devoted to establish a charity, to be called The Poor Blind Man's Friend.
1837. Harlem, N. Y., rail road completed.
1841. Thomas Cadwallader died at Philadelphia, aged 61. He was a lawyer by profession, and a brigadier general in the last war with Great Britain. He was distinguished for his military talents, and greatly respected for his private virtues and public usefulness.
1842. David Trimble, distinguished as a statesman and patriot, died at Trimble Furnace, Kentucky. Few had been more useful than he in developing the resources of that important state.
1843. Alden Bradford, a New England historian, died at Boston, aged 78. He was secretary of the commonwealth from 1812 to 1824.
1845. Disturbances and civil war in Hayti; the Dominicans surprised the Haytien garrison at Laxaron, the chief frontier town on the cape side of the island, and after killing 128 men, took the fort, which they soon after evacuated.
1850. John McDonough died at New Orleans, aged 72, who by untiring industry and the narrowest economy amassed immense wealth, which was principally divided between the cities of New Orleans and Baltimore.
1850. The northwest passage discovered by captain McClure, of the Investigator.
1851. Richard Cowling Taylor, an English naturalist and antiquary, died at Philadelphia, aged about 60.
1852. A violent storm at Athens; one of the columns of the temple of Jupiter Olympus overthrown.