1829. Gregorio Funes, a patriot of La Plata, died at Buenos Ayres. He was actively engaged in the South American revolution from its commencement. He was also an author.
1839. Alexander Coffin, the last survivor of the original proprietors who settled the city of Hudson in 1784, died, aged 99. He was highly respected for his talents, integrity and usefulness.
1839. Earthquake at Martinique, which did great damage, particularly at Fort Royal, where only 18 houses were left standing, of 1700, and 900 hundred sufferers were dug out of the ruins.
1843. Francis S. Key, district attorney of the United States and author of the national song, the Star Spangled Banner, died in Baltimore.
1853. Russia, Austria and Prussia, after considerable delay, finally acknowledge Napoleon III as emperor of France.
1853. The caloric ship Ericsson made her trial trip from New York to the Potomac.
JANUARY 12.
400. B. C. Xenophon, with the 10,000, forced a passage through the defiles of Armenia.
1519. Maximilian I, emperor of Germany, died. He was elected king of the Romans 1486, and ascended the imperial throne 1493. Under him the Turks were checked in their enterprises against Germany, and repelled from his hereditary territories.
1598. The Marquis De la Roche received from Henry IV a commission to conquer Canada. He sailed from France with a colony of convicts from the prisons. He landed them on the Isle of Sable, and sailed for Acadie, from whence he returned to France. The survivors of the colony, twelve in number, were taken off seven years afterwards, and presented to the king in their sealskin clothes and long beards. He gave them fifty crowns each and pardoned their offences.