1578. Battle of Gemblours, in the Netherlands, by which the Spanish recovered their superiority in the Walloon provinces which were zealously catholic.
1606. Guido Fawkes executed. He was an officer in the Spanish service, concerned in the gunpowder plot, and discovered in the vault below the House of Lords, prepared to fire the train which was to involve the enemies of the catholic religion in one common ruin.
1616. Jacob Le Maire, a Dutchman, discovered cape Horn, the southern extremity of the American continent.
1686. In Norway, Courland and Pomerania, there fell a great quantity of a membraneous substance, friable, and blackish, somewhat like burnt paper. Baron Grotthus analyzed a portion of this substance, which has been preserved in a cabinet of natural history, and it is found to consist of silex, iron, lime, carbon, magnesia, a trace of chrome and sulphur, but not a particle of nickel.
1692. Massacre of Glencoe, Scotland. King William, whose chief virtue was not humanity, signed and countersigned the warrant, which was transmitted to the secretary for Scotland, who particularly charged the ministers of destruction to take no prisoners. The population was barbarously massacred, and the spot disemboweled of every social appearance.
1718. Ashton Lever died at Manchester, England. He was a collector of specimens in natural history, and possessed one of the finest museums in the world.
1750. The Student, a paper of much merit, issued at Oxford, England, appeared this day.
1754. The 1st number of the Connoisseur appeared, conducted by Coleman, Bonnell Thornton, Chesterfield and others.
1775. Capt. Cooke discovered Southern Thule, soon after Sandwich land which from the vast quantities of ice seen he conjectured might be a continent.
1737. The attorney general stated to the Irish parliament that an insurrection existed in the county of Kerry, the people having taken an oath to obey the laws of Captain Right (a fictitious name), and to starve the clergy.