1805. Battle of Derne, in Barbary, which was attacked by the Tripolitan army, and defended by the American general Eaton, who repulsed the assailants with great slaughter.
1807. John Douglas, bishop of Salisbury, died. He was one of the first literary characters of the age, and the last surviving member but one of the beef steak club, celebrated by Goldsmith in his poem of Retaliation.
1821. Timothy Bigelow, an eminent lawyer of Massachusetts, died. He was 11 years speaker of the assembly, and during a practice of thirty-two years, argued 15,000 causes.
1822. Iturbide declared emperor of Mexico by the army under the title of Augustin I.
1832. Cassimir Perrier, prime minister of France, died. He left the army in 1800 to become a banker, in which capacity he acquired an immense fortune, with the advantages of which he combined great mental capacity, talent for business and habits of public speaking. He was one of the few victims of cholera in the higher ranks of life.
1843. Charles Bagot, governor-general of the British North American provinces, died at Kingston, in Canada.
1848. Commander Henry Pinckney, of the United States navy, was drowned by the swamping of a boat.
1850. Great fire at the village of Corning, Chemung county, New York.
1855. John C. Spencer, an American statesman, died at Albany, aged 67. He was a man of intellect and energy, and was in public life from an early age. He achieved his highest fame from his connection with the revision of the statutes of New York.