This Day In European History
12th January
Events1684: King Louis XIV of France marries Madame de Maintenon in secret.
1712: The Utrecht Peace Congress opens; it produces, over a year later, the Peace of Utrecht ending the War of the Spanish Succession.
1736: The rank 'Field Marshall' is first used by the British army.
1816: France bans the entire Bonaparte family from returning. Ever.
1821: The Congress of Laibach allows Austria to attack and occupy the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and end the Neapolitan Revolution.
1881: The first public power station in the world opens, in London; it supplies light for thirty homes.
Births
1580: Jan Baptista van Helmont, Belgian scientist.
1628: Charles Perrault, French writer, supposedly author of 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'Sleeping Beauty' and other tales.
1729: Edmund Burke, English politician and thinker.
1729: Lazaro Spallanzani, Italian physiologist.
1746: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss advocate of mass education.
1822: Etienne Lenoir, Belgium inventor.
1893: Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.
Deaths
1519: Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I; he increased the lands of his Hapsburg family but died bankrupt.
1564: Macarius, head of Russian Church, Metropolitan of Moscow and importer of first printing press in the country.
1665: Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician.
1674: Giacoma Carissimi, Italian composer.
1834: William Grenville, English politician and anti-slavery campaigner.
1976: Agatha Christie, British crime novelist.
