1850. A body of Americans under gen. Paredez landed on the island of Cuba, with a view to revolutionize it, and took the town of Cardenas.
1853. The Chinese rebels captured the city of Amoy.
1854. William Hulme Cooper, a lieutenant in the British navy, died, aged 26, from the effects of exposure and privation during four years arctic service in search
of sir John Franklin. He commanded a cutter in an expedition from Icy cape to the Mackenzie; for three days he was lost in a snow storm, and for two winters he and his boat's crew were isolated near the northern shores of America. The hardships he endured caused the pulmonary disease of which he died.
1856. John Keating died at Philadelphia, aged 96. He was a native of France and in early life was an officer in the service of Louis XVI. He came to the United States after the death of that monarch, with about thirty families of the French noblesse and military, and founded the colony of The Asylum, near Towanda, in Pennsylvania.
MAY 20.
526. Earthquake at Antioch, by which 250,000 persons are said to have perished.
1499. Alonzo de Ojeda sailed from Cadiz on a western voyage of discovery, accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci. It is uncertain in what station Amerigo sailed, but he appears to have had a chief share in directing the voyage, and on his return published an amusing account of the country they visited; which having a rapid circulation, he was supposed to be the discoverer, and it came gradually to be called by his name.
1506. Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the new world, died at Valladolid in Spain, aged about 70. He had devoted his whole life to the study and accomplishment of his grand enterprise, and its complete success embittered the remainder of his days by exciting the perfidy and ingratitude of a base and treacherous nation.
1521. Cortez mustered his army in the great market place of Tezcuco, to make a division of it, appoint commanders, assign to each the station where they were to form their camps, in order to invest the city of Mexico. (See [May 30].)