Historical Writings

Pius II led a brief 'crusade' into Italy, against the Turks. However, he soon became ill and died, before the rest of his allies arrived. Soon after, the three-centuries-old 'crusades mentality' among European Christians came to an end.

Judges under King Henry VIII sentence Anne Askew to be taken to Smithfield and burned for her views on transubstantiation. The sentence will be carried out the following month.

Death at Guben, Germany, of Johann Franck, a leading German hymnwriter whose verses were more mystical and individualistic than hymns of preceding centuries.

The first Baptist church established in Kentucky was organized at Elizabethtown. (Kentucky was first visited by Baptist missionaries in 1772 when Squire Boone, brother of explorer Daniel Boone, began exploring the eastern Kentucky regions.)

Birth of Samuel Longfellow, an American clergyman who composed the words to the hymn, 'Father, Give Thy Benediction.'

The first Lutheran prison ministry in Germany opens under the leadership of Theodore Fliedner.

Birth of Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, an orphaned Scottish poet who penned two of the most haunting hymns in the English language: 'Beneath the Cross of Jesus' and 'The Ninety and Nine.'

(or the 19th) Death of William B. Tappan, a clock maker, pastor, Sunday school leader, and hymnwriter. His most famous hymn is “’Tis Midnight and on Olive’s Brow.” He will be buried in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.

Bernard Mizeki, an African evangelist, is speared to death in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Threatened, he had refused to flee, saying he worked for Christ. His wife and a helper leave to get blankets for him and report that, from a distance, they see a blinding light on the hillside where he has been lying, and hear a rushing sound, as though of many wings. When they return to the spot, his body has disappeared.

Birth of Gordon Lindsay, missions pioneer. In 1948 Lindsay and he wife Freda founded Christ for the Nations, an interdenominational foreign missions support agency.

Divine services, Bible studies, and celebration of Communion in East Germany are forbidden by the Communist government.