Person report

★14 Mar 1757
British Royal Navy Admiral John Byng was executed by firing squad for failing to "do his utmost" during the Battle of Minorca at the start of the Seven Years' War.

★20 Mar 1760
A fire of unknown cause broke out in Boston, Massachusetts, destroying 349 buildings and leaving over a thousand people homeless.

★29 Dec 1779
American Revolutionary War: British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell captured Savannah, Georgia.

★23 Sep 1780
American Revolutionary War: British officer John André was captured by Patriot forces, thereby revealing a plot by Continental Army General Benedict Arnold to hand over West Point, New York.

★05 Feb 1783
The first of five strong earthquakes hit the region of Calabria on the Italian Peninsula killing more than 32,000 people over a period of nearly two months.

★07 Apr 1788
American pioneers established the town of Marietta, the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory.

★14 Jul 1789
French Revolution: Parisians stormed the Bastille, freeing its inmates and taking the prison's large quantities of arms and ammunition.

★06 May 1801
French Revolutionary Wars: The outmanned and outgunned HMS Speedy captured the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo.

★01 Sep 1804
German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovered one of the largest main belt asteroids, naming it Juno after the Roman goddess.

★29 Mar 1807
German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers discovered 4 Vesta, the brightest asteroid and the second-most massive body in the asteroid belt.

Historical data by Wikipedia Contributors CC BY-SA 3.0.