1656. Spain declared war against England.
1736. Owing to an unprecedented tide, the council at Westminster hall, London, were carried out in boats to their coaches.
1741. George Raphael Donner, an Austrian sculptor, died. His works, to be seen in many Austrian churches and palaces, are masterpieces.
1749. Great riot at the Hay Market, London, occasioned by the failure of a conjurer to leap, as he promised, into a quart bottle.
1754. Richard Mead died, aged 81. He studied at the German universities at the same time its Bœrhaave, with whom he was intimate, and distinguished himself as a practitioner on his return to England. He introduced inoculation for small pox about the year 1720; his preliminary experiments were made upon condemned criminals. He did not live to see the great improvement by vaccination, introduced by Jenner.
1760. The Cherokees under Ocunnastota attacked Fort Prince George in Virginia, garrisoned by the British and Americans. The Indians were repulsed, and 20 hostages residing in the fort, and who attempted to rise on the garrison, were put to death.
1770. Bruce, the traveler, entered Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, and was introduced into the palace of the emperor.
1784. Peter Macquer, a physician and chemist of great reputation, died at Paris.
1791. Herkimer and Otsego counties, N. Y., erected.
1792. Muley Yezid, emperor of Morocco, died of wounds received in battle on the 12th; when an end was put to a scene of slaughter which had continued since the 6th, such as the city had seldom known. It was computed that 20,000 of every age and sex, were destroyed.