Otis, James

1725 – He was born on the 5th day of February this year in Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States.

1743 – He graduated from Harvard and rose meteorically to the top of the Boston legal profession.

1760 – He received a prestigious appointment as Advocate General of the Admiralty Court.

1761 - He argued so brilliantly against the writs of assistance in a nearly five-hour oration before a packed audience in the Old State House.

1768 - He exceeded Adams in rousing passions and exhorting people to action. According to some accounts, at a town meeting. He even called his compatriots to arms.

1769 - He was elected by an overwhelming margin to the House of Representatives a month later and got injured in the head by British tax collector John Robinson's cudgel at the British Coffee House and suffered from increasingly erratic behavior (probably not caused by the injury; early signs of his mental illness had already been in evidence )

1775 – He was a volunteer at the Battle of Bunker Hill, during the American Revolution.

1783 – He died suddenly at the age of 58 when, as he stood in the doorway of a friend's Andover house, a bolt of lightning struck him.