Historical Writings

Death of Pope Leo I, who negotiated peace with invaders of Italy and rebuilt Rome after it was laid in ruins by Vandals. Future generations will consider him the founder of the medieval papacy.

Caliph Ja'far al Mutawakkil executes Constantine, King of Georgia, because he refuses to embrace Islam. The Turks hang his body from a high pillar to intimidate other Christian believers.

In New Brunswick, New Jersey, Queen's College was chartered under the Dutch Reformed Church, to provide education "...especially in divinity, preparing [youth] for the ministry and other good offices." The present name of the school, Rutgers University, was adopted in 1924.

French philosopher Fran-'--ois Voltaire, 75, uttered his famous remark: 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.'

Following seven months of searching, foreign correspondent to the "New York Herald" Henry M. Stanley succeeded at last in locating Scottish missionary David Livingstone in Ujiji, Central Africa. Stanley prefaced his encounter with these words: 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume.'

Mok Lai Chi, interpreter to a Pentecostal missionary, is baptized in the Holy Spirit. He will be a founder of China’s first independent Pentecostal church and of its first Pentecostal newspaper, Pentecostal Truths, as well as an active leader in work to ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy.

The Gideons place their first Bible ten years after Samuel Hill and John Nicholson began the organization.

Death of hymnwriter James Rowe, whose songs include "I Would Be Like Jesus" and "I Was Sinking Deep in Sin."

English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'I believe that, in the present divided state of Christendom, those who are at the heart of each division are all closer to one another than those who are at the fringes.'

It was announced that Pope Paul VI had ended the automatic excommunication imposed on divorced American Catholics who remarried. (The excommunication was first imposed by the Plenary Council of American Bishops in 1884.)