1856. N. S. Prime, a New York divine, died, aged 70; known as the author of a history of Long Island.
1857. Charles III, duke of Parma, aged 31, died at Turin of a wound given by an assassin in the streets the night previous.
MARCH 28.
168 B. C. The Roman senate assembled at eight o'clock in the morning, a few days after Paulus Emilius had assumed the immortal consulate. The English house of commons usually sat at the same hour five centuries ago.
193. Publius Helvius Pertinax, emperor of Rome, assassinated. He was of obscure origin, and was elected on the death of Commodus. His virtues were too great for the time in which he lived, and he was destroyed by the same hands which had raised him up; and the imperial diadem was offered at public auction.
1134. Stephen Harding, an Englishman, and one of the founders of the Cistercians, died. In the year 1098, he retired with twenty companions to Citeaux, a marshy wilderness in France, where they founded a monastery. A valuable manuscript copy of the Bible in four volumes, still preserved, attests the assiduity of the monk.
1318. The town and castle of Berwick taken by the generals of Bruce.
1380. Gunpowder is said to have been first used in Europe on this day, by the Venetians against the Genoese. The discovery of the power of powder is attributed to Berthold Schwartz, a monk of Mayence, about 1300, though it is said to have been known in India very early, and obtained from them by the Arabians, who employed it in a battle near Mecca in 690. The use of gunpowder at the battles of Cressy and Poitiers in 1346 is questioned. Rabelais says that the art of printing was invented about the same time by divine inspiration, as a match for the devil's suggestion of artillery.
1480. William Caxton, the first English printer, finished the Cordial in folio. The fact is thus set forth in his own words: "The Book named Cordyale: or Memorare Novissima: which treateth of The foure last Thinges. Began on the morn after the Purification of our blessid Lady (2d Feb. 1478), &c. And finisshed on the even of thannciacion of our said blessid Lady, fallying on the Wednesdaye the xxiiij daye of Marche In the xix yere of Kyng Edwarde the fourthe."
1520. Sanzio Raphael, an illustrious Italian painter and architect, died. He is by general consent called the prince of modern painters, and was probably the best painter the world ever produced.