1594. A skirmish at Edinburgh between the earl of Bothwell and the cavalry of King James.
1640. Matthias Sarbieuski Cassimir, a Polish Jesuit, died. He was so excellent a Latin poet that his poems have been thought to be equal to some of the best Latin authors, not excepting Horace and Virgil. He had begun an epic in the style of Virgil, called The Lesciades, but died before it was completed. Many editions of his poems have been published.
1640. Paul Flemming, one of the best German poets of the 17th century, died.
1683. William Penn gave his colonists in Pennsylvania a new charter.
1696. There fell in many parts of Ireland a thick dew, which the country people called butter, from the consistency and color of it, being soft, clammy, and of a dark yellow. This phenomenon had for some time been of frequent occurrence; it fell always in the night, and chiefly in moorish low grounds, on the top of the grass, and on the thatch of the cabins. It frequently lay a fortnight without changing its color, and had a bad odor, like that of church yards or graves.
1698. The earl of Bellemont arrived at New York to succeed Fletcher as governor.
1736. Jacob Tonson the elder, a noted English bookseller, died.
1743. Birthday of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States.
1747. John James Dillenius, a German botanist, died in England. He is considered as the father of cryptogamic botany. His works were illustrated with plates, admirably drawn and engraved by himself.
1754. Thomas Carte, an English historian, died. He was engaged several years in writing a history of England, which was published in four vols. folio, and esteemed a work of great merit.