1675. Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne, viscomte de Turenne, the renowned French general, killed by a cannon shot at the village of Saltzbach, in Germany. He was preparing for a great battle with the Austrians under Montecuculli.
1694. The charter of the bank of England for 12 years, determinable upon one year's notice, signed by the dynarchs, William and Mary.
1704. Stanislaus Leczinski elected king of Poland.
1706. The legislative union of England and Scotland completed; one of the most important events of the reign of queen Anne.
1712. A disgraceful quarrel between the French and Dutch plenipotentiaries at Utrecht.
1755. A party of Indians prowling about Hinsdale, N. H., ambushed three men, Caleb Howe, Hilkiah Grout and Benjamin Garfield, as they were returning from the field, only one of whom escaped. The Indians went directly to Bridgman's fort, where their families resided, and who had heard the report of guns. By the sounds of feet without, they concluded their friends had returned, and hastily opened the gate, when to their inexpressible surprise they admitted the savages and were all made captives. An interesting account of this affair is familiar to many.
1759. The English under general Amherst took Ticonderoga without firing a gun, the French having abandoned it on the approach of the former.
1759. Pierre-Louis Mareau de Maupertuis died at Basle. He was successful in many trigonometrical surveys, and was instrumental in determining the latitude and longitude of several places with much more accuracy.
1773. Captain C. J. Phipps, lord Mulgrave, reached nearly the 81° north latitude.
1774. Samuel Theophilus Gmelin, a German botanist, died. He was professor of botany at St. Petersburg, and employed on a mission of discovery in the provinces bordering on the Caspian sea; was detained a prisoner by a Tartar chief, in which situation he died.