HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. 



247 



FRANCIS DE SALES, Saint, 1567-1622, FT. 

 Jesuit writer and orator ; bishop of Geneva. 



FRANCIS OF Assist, Saint, 1182-1220, It. 

 founder of the Franciscan order, whose labors 

 gave new life and power to the Church of 

 Rome. 



FRANCIS, Sir Philip, 1740-1818, Br. states- 

 man and writer; supposed author of "Let- 

 ters of Junius." 



FRANKLIN, Benjamin, 1706-90, Am. states- 

 man and philosopher ; born in Boston ; the 

 youngest of a family of seventeen children; 

 his father was a tallow chandler ; learned the 

 trade of a printer and studied diligently, re- 

 moved to Philadelphia, where he established 

 the Pennsylvania Gazette ; began the publica- 

 tion of Poor Richard's Almanac in 1735 ; dis- 

 covered the identity of lightning and elec- 

 tricity in 1752, by means of a kite ; Franklin 

 occupied many positions of public trust and 

 was the recipient of many honors. 



FRANKLIN, Sir John, 1786-1847, Eng. Arc- 

 tic explorer. 



FREDERICK I. (Barbarossa), 1121-90, em- 

 peror of Germany ; crowned by Pope Adrian 

 IV. ; reduced Milan in 1158, but was defeated 

 by the Lombards near Legnano ; joined the 

 third crusade in 1189 with 150,000 men, and 

 defeated the Turks at Iconium ; died in the 

 Holy Land; II., 1194-1250, opposed by the 

 Guelphs and the pope in his project to unite 

 Italy and Germany in one empire ; began a 

 crusade against the Moslems in 1227, but 

 turned back, and was excommunicated by Pope 

 Gregory IX. ; resumed the crusade in 1228, 

 captured Jerusalem and made peace with the 

 pope ; defeated the Guelphs at Cortenuova, 

 1237, and renewed war with the pope. 



FREDERICK WILLIAM (the Great Elector), 

 1620-68, elector of Brandenburg ; founder of 

 the Prussian monarchy. 



FREDERICK I., 1657-1713, first king of Prus- 

 sia ; II. (Frederick the Great), 1712-88, sub- 

 jected to inhuman treatment in youth by his 

 father, he gave but little promise of his future 

 greatness ; ascended the Prussian throne in 

 1740, and invaded Silesia, which was ceded to 

 him by Maria Theresa in 1742 ; an alliance 

 having been formed against him by Austria, 

 Russia, and France, he began the Seven Years' 

 War in 1756 by invading Saxony ; gained a 

 great victory at Prague in 1757 ; but was de- 

 feated at Kolin soon afterward ; in the same 

 year he defeated a French army twice as large 

 as his own at Rossbach, and won a brilliant 

 and decisive victory over the Austrians at 

 Leuthen ; in 1759 he was defeated at Kunners- 

 dorf, and Berlin was captured by the allies, 

 but in 1760 he gained the victories of Liegnitz 

 And Torgau, and peace was made in 1763, 



Prussian Poland being added to Frederick's 

 dominions. Frederick was a voluminous writer, 

 and a friend of Voitaire, who spent several 

 years at his court. 



FREILIGRATH, Ferdinand, 1810-76, Ger. 

 lyric poet". 



FREMONT, John Charles, 1830-90, Am. pol- 

 itician, explorer, and general ; Republican 

 candidate for the presidency, 1856. 



FROEBEL, Frederick, 1782-1852, Ger. edu- 

 cator ; founder of the " kindergarten. " 



FROISSART, Jean, 1337-1410 V, Fr. histo- 

 rian ; ' ' Chronicles. ' ' 



FROUDE, James Anthony, 1818-1895, Eng. 

 historian. 



FULLER, Sarah Margaret, Countess d'Os- 

 soli, 1810-50, Am. authoress. 



FULTON, Robert, 1765-1815, Am. engineer 

 and inventor, born in Pennsylvania ; after 

 spending some years in London as an artist, 

 he turned his attention to civil engineering and 

 inland navigation ; went to Paris, and there 

 he invented a submarine torpedo ; returned to 

 New York, 1801, and, with the assistance of 

 Robert Livingston, discovered steam naviga- 

 tion ; in 1806 he built the steamer Clermont, 

 which made regular trips between Albany and 

 New York at a speed of five miles an hour ; 

 although he spent a large amount of money on 

 his invention, the patent did not prove of pe- 

 cuniary value to him. 



FUSELI, John H., 1742-1825, Swiss histor- 

 ical painter. 



GADSDEN, Christopher, 1724-1805, Am. 

 statesman. 



GADSDEN, James, 1788-1858, Am. statesman. 



GAINSBOROUGH, Thomas, 1727-88, Eng. 

 painter. 



GALBA, Servius Sulpicius, B. C. 4 ?-A. D. 

 69, Rom. emperor. 



GALEN, 131-205 ?, Gr. physician, medical 

 writer and philosopher, living at Rome ; his 

 works remained authority until the fifteenth 

 century. 



GALILEI, Galileo (Galileo), 1564-1642, It. 

 astronomer; discovered, about 1584, theisoch- 

 ronism of the vibrations of a pendulum, and 

 the law by which the velocity of falling bodies 

 is accelerated ; adopted in astronomy the sys- 

 tem of Copernicus ; constructed his wonder- 

 ful telescope, 1609 ; through it he discovered 

 the satellites of Jupiter, and was enabled to ex- 

 plore the surface of the moon and view the 

 phases of Venus ; he also ascertained that the 

 ' Milky Way ' ' was composed of myriads of 

 stars ; in 1632 he produced his " Dialogues on 

 the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems," but 

 was compelled by the Inquisition to abjure the 

 theory of the motion of the earth ; he was 



