1492. Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani, of which he had seen the first twinkling on the previous night; thus in the space of 36 days completing a voyage which he had been 20 years in projecting, which opened to Europeans a new world, which enlarged the empire of Spain, and stamped with immortality the name of Columbus.
1573. Great naval victory of the Dutch over the Spaniards.
1576. Maximilian II died. He was elected king of the Romans 1562, and afterwards succeeded his father as king of Hungary and Bohemia, and emperor of Germany.
1621. Peter Matthieu, a French historian, died. He was historiographer to the king, and wrote the history of France, and of several of the French kings.
1646. Francis Bassompierre, marshal of France, died; a distinguished statesman, whom Richelieu confined 10 years in the Bastile, during which he wrote his own memoirs.
1649. The fall and massacre of Wexford under Oliver Cromwell.
1653. Humphrey Chetham, a great patron of learning and libraries, died, aged 73, at Manchester, England, endowing the city with munificent bequests.
1711. King Charles III, of Spain, elected emperor of Germany at Frankfort, by the name of Charles IV.
1716. Ludolf Kuster, a learned German critic, died.
1753. Sir Danvers Osborne, who had arrived at New York on the 7th to succeed Clinton as governor of the province, was found in the morning suspended by the neck in the garden, and dead.