Historical Writings

Death of St. Colman of Lindisfarne. Involved in the controversy between the Roman church and the Irish as to when to date Easter, he had left England and established a monastery in Ireland.

Death in Rome of Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro), an Italian monk and painter. He is said to have painted all of his works prayerfully.

Death in Eisleben of German reformer Martin Luther.

Death in Rome of sculptor Michelangelo. At the end, he asks his friends only to remember the death of Christ.

A group of Spanish Jesuits in the Chesapeake Bay area, led by Fray Batista Segura, were murdered by the Indians they had come six months earlier to convert. The massacre led ultimately to the withdrawal of all Jesuits living in Florida as well.

John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" was first published, in England. Bunyan was frequently imprisoned for preaching without a license. During these sequestered times, between 1660-72, Bunyan collected the ideas enabling him to pen this masterpiece of Christian literature.

At a monthly meeting in Germantown, PA, a group of Quakers and Mennonites became the first white body in English America to register a formal protest against slavery. The historic "Germantown Protest" denounced both slavery and the slave trade.

Birth of Henry Martyn, Anglican missionary to Persia. Martyn first sailed for the East in 1805. His great linguistic gifts led him to translate the New Testament both into Hindustani and Arabic, before his premature death at 31.

Sultan Abdel Medjid-Khan of the Ottoman Empire decrees that governmental authorization at the highest level is required for a permit to build or even to repair a church. The law will remain in effect more than a century and a half later in Egypt. Consequently it can take years for Christians to receive permission to repair even a leaking toilet.

Five Catholics are executed in Guizhou Province, China, for refusing to renounce their faith. They include missionary Jean-Pierre Néel; Lucy Yi Zhenmei, a virgin; Martin Wu Xueshang; John Zhang Tianshen; and John Chen Xianheng.

The Augusta Institute was founded in Georgia. Established as an institution of higher learning for black students, it moved to Atlanta in 1879, and in 1913 changed its name to Morehouse College.

Evangelical or "low church" Episcopalians sign the "Chicago Protest," against "unprotestantizing" tendencies in the Protestant Episcopal denomination. Suspended by mainline Episcopalians, some will band together to found the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1873.

Death in London of William Sandys, English lawyer and the composer of “The First Noel.” He had done a good deal to popularize Christmas carols.

The Cambridge Seven (star college athletes who have dedicated themselves to Christian mission work) reach China.

A mob assaults the Presbyterian mission at Yeung Kong, China, breaking into the homes of the Rev. Andrew Beattie and Dr. D. A. Beattie, where they threaten and rough up the mission families (each man has a wife and child) as they smash and loot.

Death in Hampstead, England, of Christopher Newman Hall, an English Congregationalist minister, who edited the Christ Church Hymnal of 1876, to which he contributed eighty-two original hymns and wrote a famous tract titled, “Come to Jesus,” that will be translated into dozens of languages. His best-known hymn will be “Friend of Sinners, Lord of Glory.”

Pope Pius XII makes American Roman Catholic Archbishop Francis Joseph Spellman a cardinal.

Father Butrus Sowmy of St. Mark's Syrian Orthodox Monastery in Jerusalem phones John Trever, asking that he examine an old manuscript. It will turn out to be the first discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Death in London of D.C.K. Watson, an Anglican priest, evangelist, and charismatic. He had been instrumental in greatly expanding attendance at the churches over which he presided and was an active promoter of world missions.

Muslims burn down Victory Baptist Church, Alamuderi, Maiduguri, Nigeria.