1688
Glorious Revolution
William of Orange landed at Torbay in Devon with fifteen thousand Dutch troops and a Protestant wind at his back. James II's army and nobility deserted him. Within weeks the king fled to France, dropping the Great Seal of England into the Thames. The revolution was, for England, almost bloodless.
Siamese Revolution Expels the French
A palace coup in Ayutthaya overthrew the pro-French courtier Constantine Phaulkon and expelled French troops and missionaries from Siam. King Narai lay dying as his general Phetracha seized power and shut the kingdom's doors to European influence. Thailand's centuries-long independence from colonial rule was preserved by a single night of bloodshed.
Germantown Petition Against Slavery
Four Quaker settlers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, drafted the first formal protest against slavery in the American colonies, arguing that the traffic in human beings violated the Golden Rule and disgraced the Christian faith. The petition was tabled and forgotten for two centuries, but its logic was unanswerable and its moral clarity centuries ahead of its time.
Invitation to William of Orange
Seven prominent English nobles and clerics sent a secret letter to William III of Orange urging him to invade England with an army and rescue English Protestantism from James II. William, who had been preparing the expedition for months, wrote back gratefully and began loading his ships. The letter gave a veneer of legitimacy to what was, in truth, a meticulously planned invasion.
Bunyan Dies
John Bunyan, the tinker-preacher whose Pilgrim's Progress had become second only to the Bible in English Protestant homes, died in London at fifty-nine after riding through a rainstorm to reconcile a father and son. Twenty-two of his books remained in print. Plainspoken Puritan literature lost its greatest voice, and the allegory he had written in a Bedford jail endured as a masterpiece.