Historical Writings

Nero begins the first imperial persecution of Christians.

Birth of Theodore Beza, French-born Swiss theological reformer. Beza became the acknowledged leader of the Swiss Calvinists, following John Calvin's death in 1564.

King Gustavus of Sweden assembled the Diet of Wester's, for the purpose of carrying through the Protestant Reformation in Sweden.

Death at St Asaph on Midsummer Day of Bishop Isaac Barrow (uncle of the better-known Isaac Barrow whose name will be associated with Sir Isaac Newton). He was notable for his charities, which included establishing a home for impoverished widows, providing for the education of young ministers, and for endowing the fund that financed King William’s College.

The Wissahickon Hermits (Pietists) land in Philadelphia.

Two young Lutheran pastors, Andreas Rudman and Erik Bjork, arrive in Maryland to the astonishment of local Swedes and Finns who had no idea they were coming.

Death of Henry Venn, the elder, an evangelical pastor and author of considerable influence in eighteenth-century England, father of John Venn (a leader in the Clapham Sect that did so much to ameliorate social conditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), and grandfather of the notable mission leader Henry Venn, the younger.

Birth of George J. Webb, American church organist. He compiled several collections of sacred music during his lifetime, and also composed the melody to the hymn, 'Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.'

Execution of Chinese convert and Catholic priest Joseph Yuan Zaide in China’s Sichuan Province.

Nikolai, future missionary from Russia to Japan, becomes a monk.

Consecration in New York of Samuel David Ferguson, the first African-American Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

An imperial decree orders the killing of foreigners throughout China. The uprising is not primarily anti-Christian, but missionaries and Chinese converts will be the chief sufferers.

Death of Orville J. Nave (born 1841), U.S. Armed Services chaplain and compiler of the popular 'Nave's Topical Bible.'

Death of James C. Sheafe, a learned African-American pastor, who brought African Americans into the Seventh-day Adventist movement, but also founded independent seventh-day movements because of disagreement with the racial teachings of the main movement. "That man could preach, and pray, and sing like nobody you have ever heard," remarked another Adventist preacher who had heard most of the early Adventists.

The two-day Constitutional Assembly of the Nippon Kirisuto Kyodan opened, during which was formed the United Church of Christ in Japan.

In the tenth year of the Coptic pope Kyrillos VI, relics of St. Mark, stolen by Venetians eleven centuries earlier, are returned to Cairo, Egypt.

Metropolitan Michael of Toledo and Metropolitan Philip of New York sign articles of reunification, forming the united Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.