Historical Writings

Athanasius of Alexandria goes into hiding after escaping five thousand soldiers who burst into his church.

Defeat and captivity of King Louis IX of France, “St. Louis,” in a crusade in which he had attacked Egypt.

Revolution breaks out in Basel, Switzerland when a Protestant mob surrounds the town hall, plants cannon, and forces the council to expel the twelve Catholic members, meanwhile destroying church pictures and statues. "We raged against the idols, and the mass died of sorrow," wrote Reformer Oecolampadius.

Puritan parliamentarian Peter Wentworth is sent to the Tower of London for making a rousing defense of freedom of speech.

Beheading of the Catholic prisoner Mary, Queen of Scots, on the orders of the Protestant queen, Elizabeth I of England. Mary was accused of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth.

The College of William and Mary was founded in Williamsburg, Virginia for the purpose of educating Anglican clergyman. After Harvard, it is the second oldest institution of higher learning in America.

Colonial missionary to the American Indians, David Brainerd wrote in his journal: 'I find that both mind and body are quickly tired with intenseness and fervor in the things of God. Oh that I could be as incessant as angels in devotion and spiritual fervor.'

Philip Quaque, an Anglican priest serving on the Gold Coast, writes an account of an uprising of slaves on a Dutch ship, and commiserates his fellow Africans on their cruel treatment by slavers.

Ordination of hymnwriter Joseph Swain to pastor a church in London. His most famous hymn was "O Thou in Whose Presence."

Death of Alexander Haldane, 83. In 1797 he founded the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home, after discovering that the Church of Scotland was as little interested in home missions as it was in foreign missions.

Birth of Lewis E. Jones, American YMCA director. Jones was also a writer of hymns, and his most enduring contribution (which he both wrote and composed) was "Power in the Blood."

Death of hymnwriter Mary Stanley Dana Shindler. Her best-known hymn began with the words "Flee as a bird to your mountain, thou who art weary of sin."

Confirmation in the Anglican Church of Hamu Lujonza Kaddu Mukasa. After Muslims take control of Uganda, he will lead a strong military counter-attack and win political control of the nation for Christians. As a trustee of the national church, he will advocate a policy of self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation.

American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'Sin in a Christian makes God seem distant, deaf. In the body, sin saps animation, as cancer. In the soul, sin stifles the affections; as corrosion in the spirit, sin solidifies the attitudes, as a callous.'

Death in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, of Harold John Ockenga, neo-evangelical leader.

Death of Rousas John Rushdoony, a Presbyterian clergyman and theologian known as the "Father of Christian Reconstruction" who had advocated strict implementation of biblical moral law in America.