1725. Jonathan Wild, the noted thief catcher, hanged at Tyburn. The evening previous he tried to poison himself, but lived to be stoned and hooted by the populace on his way to the gallows.
1744. Roger Gale, an English antiquary, died; esteemed one of the most learned and polite scholars of the age.
1767. Godfrey Sellius, a Prussian historian, died.
1781. The wives, children and dependents of those inhabitants of Charleston, who resided in the rebel colonies, ordered by the British to quit the place by the 1st of August. More than 1,000 persons were thus exiled.
1782. Action between the French and Spanish fleet, 25 sail, and the Newfoundland and Quebec fleets; 18 of the latter, laden chiefly with provisions, were captured.
1784. Judge White, with his family, having ascended the Mohawk river, landed at the mouth of the Sauquoit. Hence the origin of Whitestown. The country then was an unbroken wilderness.
1788. Virginia, the tenth state, adopted the federal constitution, 89 to 79, the least majority of any state except New York.
1794. Charles Barbaroux, a noted French revolutionist, guillotined. He attacked the usurpations of Robespierre and the machinations of the Jacobins, by which he fell.
1794. Charleroi surrendered to the French under Jourdan, seven days after the trenches had been opened. General Reinach and 3,000 Austrians who defended the fortress, were made prisoners of war.
1795. William Smellie, a Scottish naturalist, died. He was a printer by profession, wrote for the Encyclopedia Brittannica, translated Buffon, and conducted the Edinburgh Review and Magazine.