1854. John Speed Smith, a highly intelligent and cultivated Kentucky gentleman, died. He was repeatedly a member of the Kentucky legislature, and served two years in congress.
1855. The bombardment of Sebastopol was reopened with 157 guns and mortars on the part of the British, and above 300 on the part of the French.
JUNE 7.
218. Marcus Opilius Severus Macrinus, emperor of Rome, beheaded by his soldiers. He was an African, and rose from the obscurest situation to the throne on the death of Caracalla.
632. Mahomet (or Mohammed), founder of the Islam religion, died, aged 62. His followers are now computed at one hundred millions.
1099. The army of Christians comprising the first crusade, encamped before Jerusalem. The first army led on by Peter the Hermit, numbered at the outset 300,000; another of 600,000 followed, burning with zeal to rescue the holy land from the Moslem dominion. Battle, desertion and disease had thinned their ranks so that now there remained scarce 22,000 fit for the field, of all that vast host that had marshaled in Europe.
1329. Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, died. He succeeded by repeated and arduous efforts in freeing his country from the English yoke, and when he had accomplished his purpose, he devoted himself to advance the prosperity of his subjects.
1520. Famous interview between Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France, upon "the field of the cloth of gold," on English ground. It continued eighteen days.
1546. Archbishop Cranmer and the queen accused of heresy, but protected by Henry.
1565. Sir Thomas Gresham, laid the foundation of the Royal Exchange, London, on the model of the Mart at Antwerp, then the centre of commerce.