Historical Writings

Election of Julian Rovere to be pope. He takes the name Julius II.

German Augustinian monk Martin Luther, 31, nailed to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg a list of 95 theological points he wished to debate ... and touched off the Protestant Reformation!

Catholic archbishop Leopold von Firmian of Salzburg, Austria, issues an edict expelling all Lutherans from his territory. About twenty thousand people have to leave. Many have nowhere to go and freeze to death in the coming winter.

Provost Acrelius writes to the Consistory of Upsala, requesting the suspension of Rev. John Lidenius from the Swedish ministerial office because he preaches in English.

Thomas and Samuel Green of New Haven publish "A Sermon" by Indian preacher Samson Occum which he had given the month before at the hanging of an Indian man for murder. The sermon becomes wildly successful, going through ten editions in eight years.

Robert Moffat sails for South Africa where he will establish a mission work. Mission leaders had been reluctant to send him, believing he was unqualified. He will become a world-famed mission leader.

American Episcopal scholar George Washington Doane, 33, was consecrated as second Bishop of the Diocese of NJ. Doane is better remembered today as author of the hymn, "Softly Now the Light of Day."

Swiss moral philosopher Henry F. Amiel wrote in his journal: 'Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.'

Birth of Hugh Ross Mackintosh, Scottish theologian. Teaching systematics at Edinburgh 1904-35, Mackintosh had a firm grasp of the German theological writers of his day and sought to make their teachings known in Britain, for which he was unfairly judged a liberal.

Samuel Schereschewsky is consecrated Anglican Bishop of Shanghai. Developing Parkinson's disease, he will resign his position, and spend the rest of his life completing a translation of the Bible into Wenli (a Chinese dialect), typing hundreds of pages with the one finger that he could still move.

Death of Jacob Abbott, American Congregationalist author. He wrote many groundbreaking works of children's fiction, including the instructional Rollo series and the warm Franconia novels.

Baptism of Spetume Florence Njangali in Saint Peter's Cathedral, Hoima, Uganda. She will become a leader in the effort to obtain theological education for women and their ordination as deaconesses in the Anglican church of Uganda.

Pope John Paul II admits indirectly that the church erred three hundred and sixty years earlier when it condemned Italian astronomer Galileo.

Bishop Shenouda is chosen by lot to be the 117th Patriarch of the See of St. Mark.

Catholics and Lutherans issue a joint statement on justification in Augsburg, Germany, showing that "a consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification exists between Lutherans and Catholics."

Al Qaida terrorists besiege Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Baghdad, massacring most of the 120 worshipers inside, including a three year old boy who pleads with them to stop killing.