1856. Preston S. Brooks, indicted at Washington for an assault upon senator Sumner, was sentenced to pay a fine of $300.
JULY 9.
597 B. C. An eclipse of the sun, foretold by Thales.
518. Anastasius I, the silentiary, died; who from obscure birth became emperor of the East by marrying the widow of the emperor Zeno.
551. The city of Berytus overthrown by an earthquake. It gave birth to Sanconiatho, the Phœnician historian, about the period of the Trojan war, in the time of Hercules.
552. The Armenians commenced their era, Tuesday. The year, like the Noetic, consists of twelve months of thirty days, with an insertion of five, or (in leap year) six days, after the 5th of August, when their ecclesiastical year commences. In their correspondence with Europeans, they usually adopt, as in Russia, the old Julian style, and the months.
1228. Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, died. He was a man of great abilities as a writer and a politician. He was nominated to the office of archbishop by the pope, 1207, which being considered as an usurpation of the rights of the king of England, lead to a quarrel between those dignitaries, which terminated disastrously to the king.
1386. Battle of Sempach, in the canton of Lucerne, which established the independence of Switzerland. Leopold II, duke of Austria, was killed in this battle.
1535. Anthony Duprat, a very eminent French statesman, died. He was president of the parliament of Paris, and a man who, to increase his fortune or enlarge his power, did not hesitate to sacrifice either fame or virtue.
1546. Robert Maxwell died. He was chiefly instrumental in bringing and procuring the passage of an act in the Scottish parliament permitting the reading of the scriptures in the vulgar tongue.