Historical Writings

The Interim of Augsburg, a temporary measure pending a church council, becomes imperial law within the Holy Roman Empire. Although it orders Protestants to adopt Roman Catholic forms and doctrine, it concedes the right of Protestant clergy to marry and the laity to receive both bread and wine.

Death of Cesar Baronius in Rome. He had been a leading Roman Catholic historian.

The settlers of Salem, Mass. appointed Samuel Skelton as their pastor, by ballot. Their church covenant, afterward composed by Skelton, established Salem as the first non-separating congregational Puritan Church in New England.

William Prynne, an outspoken and dogmatic Puritan, is pilloried in company with Henry Burton and John Bastwick. Prynne's ears are cropped and he is branded with the letters "S.L.," standing for "Seditious Libeler." On his way back to prison, he writes some Latin verses claiming the S.L. stands for stigmata laudis (a pun meaning either "sign of praise," or "sign of Laud" - Archbishop William Laud is his main persecutor).

After deliberating all night, a jury acquits seven bishops who refused to sign King James II of England's "Declaration for Liberty of Conscience." The seven had been held in the tower of London on a charge of seditious libel for declaring that Parliament, not the king, had power to make such a grant. The names of the seven are Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury; Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph; Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely; Lake of Chichester; White of Peterborough; and Trelawney of Exeter.

Benjamin Randall organized a fellowship of churches known as Free Will Baptists in New Hampshire. It became one of the early branches of the National Association of Free Will Baptists, which was formed in 1935.

Death of Johan Olof Wallin, Archbishop of Uppsala, Sweden's best-known hymn writer of that era. Among his hymns are "We Worship You, O God of Might" and "Christians, While on Earth Abiding."

French president Louis Napoleon sends troops to retake Rome from Italian revolutionaries. Pope Pius IX, who had fled Rome in 1848, will return the following year.

Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and biologist Thomas Huxley engage in a famous exchange regarding evolution. Before the debate, Wilberforce was coached by biologist Richard Owen.

Repose (death) of Bishop Nestor of San Francisco and Alaska. The Orthodox bishop had been active and dedicated to his people, overseeing translation of the Bible into the Eskimo language and making extensive visitations throughout his see. He died falling into the sea from the deck of a ship while returning from one of these strenuous journeys.

Joseph Parker (author of the commentary known as the People's Bible) holds his one thousandth Thursday noon service.

In Rome, the Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a decree interpreting the first 11 chapters of Genesis as history, not myth.

Death of Rosa Jinsey Young, an African American educator from Alabama whose work founding schools for her people was supported by the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.

In Korea, the Far Eastern Broadcasting Co. began transmitting the Gospel from HLAZ, its first radio station in this country. FBEC is active today through radio missions outreach, and focuses its work among the islands of Eastern Asia and the Pacific.

Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr., and a church deacon were slain by a crazed gunman in Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her son, the assassinated civil rights leader, once preached.

Martyrdom of Father Morks Khaliel Fanous, Christian Priest of Mar Boctor at the town of Mosha, Assiut, Egypt.

Luis Bush, a mission strategist who in 1989 had coined the term "10/40 Window," serves as senior consultant to GCOWE '97 (Global Consultation on World Evangelization) which is held in Pretoria, South Africa. The 10/40 Window refers to the region located between 10 degrees and 40 degrees north of the equator, a general area that has a high level of socioeconomic challenges and little access to the Christian gospel.