1812. Mrs. BUMBY died at Ekring, England, aged 80; remarkable for a horn growing from her forehead in a spiral form to the length of nearly six inches. 1814. About 200 British marines and sailors landed at Saybrook, in Connecticut, spiked the cannon and destroyed several vessels, and escaped in the night to their shipping. 1817. The county of Tompkins in the state of New York erected. 1835. JAMES BROWN, an American statesman, died. He rose to a high rank at the bar, and was several years minister to France. 1836. WILLIAM GODWIN, an English novelist, and political and miscellaneous writer, died, aged 81. He commenced his career as a dissenting minister, which station he relinquished to gain a subsistence by literature. His works are numerous, and acquired him much celebrity, though tinctured more or less with skepticism. 1844. MORGAN LEWIS, a distinguished American military officer and statesman, died at New York, aged 90. He served with fidelity under the colonial government, and with honor and gallantry in the war of the revolution, and in the war of 1812. He held various important civil offices from 1791 to 1810. 1849. IRVINE SHUBRICK, an American naval officer, died. He had been thirty-five years in the service, and fought under Decatur and Downes. He commanded the expedition against the island of Sumatra in 1832, which captured Qualla Battoo, and broke up a horde of pirates who molested vessels there. 1850. JAMES EMOTT, a distinguished member of the New York bar, died at Poughkeepsie, aged 80. 1854. All English and French vessels were ordered out of the port of Odessa. 1856. The steamship Adriatic, the largest vessel of the kind that had ever been built, was launched at New York. APRIL 8. 431 B. C. A body of 300 Thebans surprised the town of Platæa, in Greece, in the dead of night, and were all destroyed or captured by the inhabitants. 46. Battle of Thassus, in Africa; Scipio and Juba defeated by Julius Cæsar. 217. CARACALLA, the Roman emperor, assassinated at Edessa. 1341. PETRARCH crowned with laurels at Rome, with great pomp. This distinction was awarded him on the appearance of his Latin poem entitled _Africa_, in which he celebrates Scipio, his favorite hero. This poem he considered his best, yet it was never finished. His reputation now rests as a poet, on his Italian poems. 1364. JOHN I, king of France, died. He was taken by Edward III at the battle of Poictiers, and conducted to England, where he was retained in captivity four years. He returned from France in 1363, which he had visited on parole, and died at his palace in London, aged 45, after a reign of 14 years, which had been extremely calamitous to France.