1689. Dover, N. H., attacked by the Indians. The houses were garrisoned, but some squaws got permission to sleep by the fire in two of them, who gave the Indians admission in the night. Several houses were burnt, 23 persons killed, and 29 captivated.
1694. The French under Du Casse, attacked the island of Jamaica, and laid it waste.
1699. Sebastian Joseph de Pontchasteau, a French author, died; remarkable for the singularity of his acts of devotion and charity.
1709. Battle of Pultowa in Russia, between the Russians under Peter the Great and the Swedes under Charles XII, in which the latter were totally defeated, after a desperate conflict of two hours.
1720. The Mississippi bubble burst in France; amount about $450,000,000.
1724. A party of 13 Indians, called French Mohawks, attacked the house of John Hanson, a quaker, in Dover, N. H., killed and scalped two small children, and carried off his wife, three children and the nurse. The quakers could not be persuaded to use any means for their defence though equally exposed with their neighbors to an enemy who made no distinction between them.
1725. Christian Henry Heinecken, an extraordinary German boy, died. He spoke his maternal tongue fluently at ten months; at one year old he knew the principal events of the Pentateuch; in two months more he was master of the entire histories of the Old and New Testament; at two years and a half he answered the principal questions in geography, and in ancient and modern history. He spoke Latin and French, German and Low Dutch, with great facility, before the commencement of his fourth year, 1725, in which he died. His constitution was so delicate that he was not weaned till a few months before his death.
1742. Nathan Bailey, the English lexicographer, died. Besides his well known dictionary, he was the editor of school editions and translations of several of the ancient classic poets and historians.
1774. Nicholas Tindal, an English historian, died; known as the translator of Rapin's history.
1777. William Dodd, an English divine, hanged for forgery.