1855. The pope declared the laws which had been enacted in Piedmont, to the detriment of religion and the power and liberty of the church, to be void and of no effect; and that all who supported them incurred the greater excommunication; also that the recent laws in Spain concerning the church property to be null and void.
1856. The boiler of the steam boat Empire State, exploded on the passage from Fall river to New York, killing and wounding several passengers.
JULY 27.
1139. The country of Portugal erected into a monarchy.
1276. James I (the Warrior), of Arragon, died. He conquered several Moorish kingdoms, and added them to his dominions, and supported himself against the encroachments of the papal power.
1586. Sir Francis Drake arrived in England from a western expedition, accompanied by Lane, the commander of Raleigh's Virginian colony, who now first brought from his settlement, tobacco into England: that which sir John Hawkins brought home in 1565 was considered a medicinal drug merely, and as Stow observes, all men wondered what it meant.
1597. Jacob Huyck, translator of the first authorized version of the catholic Bible, printed in Cracow, died there, aged 57.
1627. Thomas Goff, an English divine, died. He wrote among various other things, four tragedies.
1661. Schenectady purchased from the Indians.
1663. A bill for the better observation of the Sabbath, was stolen from the clerk's table in the English house of commons, ere it had received the assent of the king.