Historical Writings

Death of St. Adrian (or Hadrian) of Canterbury, an African. Well-educated, he had made Canterbury a center of learning for the British isles.

Cardinals elect the Dutchman Adrian Dedel to be pope. He takes the name Adrian VI and will be the last non-Italian pope until St. John Paul II in the twentieth-century.

St. Philip of Moscow, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, was murdered by Czar Ivan IV ("Ivan the Terrible").

Samuel Stillman is installed at the First Baptist Church, Boston. He will promote separation of church and state in the United States.

Pioneer American Methodist bishop Francis Asbury wrote in his journal: 'My soul lives constantly as in the presence of God, and enjoys much of His divine favor. His love is better than life!'

The first Roman Catholic college to be founded in the Deep South, Spring Hill College was established in Spring Hill, Arkansas.

Death of obscure hymnwriter Florence Catherine Armstrong. Her first hymn had appeared in the British Herald during February 1865. One of her best-known was "Oh to Be Over Yonder."

Soviets arrest the Orthodox priest Nilus Matveyevich Matveyev in the Tver province, charging him with "counter-revolutionary agitation." Owing to an amnesty he is released, but six years later he is arrested again and exiled for three years.

Death in New York City of Julia Chester Emery, who had served forty years as Secretary of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Board of Missions in the Episcopal Church, continually urging expansion of missions and church education.

Death of British Armenian scholar F. C. Conybeare, 68. His researches did much to relate the Armenian language and culture to the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint).

Japan's Christian Layman's Association is formed under Dr. S. Uzawa, a former president of the Japanese bar association, and Dr. T. Yamamoto, a prominent scientist.

After 140 years of unofficial racial discrimination, the Mormons issued an official statement declaring that blacks were not yet to receive the priesthood "for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully known to man."