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January 28, 814: Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, dies. He was, in his day, not only one of the greatest political rulers of all time, he was, in his day, more influential in church matters than the pope. He saw his task as secular ruler "to defend with our arms the holy Church of Christ against attacks by the heathen from any side and against devastation by the infidels.
January 28, 1547: England's Henry VIII, who split the church of England from Rome and presided over the founding of the Anglican church, dies (see issue 48: Thomas Cranmer).
January 28, 1769: Thomas Middleton, first Anglican bishop of Calcutta, is born in England. While he oversaw a vast diocese covering all the territories of the East India Company, the church made some great advances, including the establishment of Bishop's College in Calcutta(a training college for missionaries in Asia).
January 29, 993: Ulric (890-973), bishop ofAugsburg from 923, is formally canonized by Pope John XV, the first recorded canonization by a pope.
January 29, 1499: Katherine von Bora, a German nun who married Martin Luther in 1525, is born. At their wedding, she was 26 and he was 41 (see issue 39: Luther's Later Years).
January 29, 1523: Before an audience of more than 600 people gathered at the first Zurich Disputation, Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli successfully defends his 67 theses. He appealed only to Scripture and rejected the authority of the pope, the sacrifice of the Mass, the invocation of saints, times and seasons of fasting, and clerical celibacy. But the city council nevertheless declared "that Master Ulrich Zwingli (may) continue to preach the Holy Gospel and the true divine Scripture as he has done until now for as long a time and to such an extent until he be instructed differently" (see issue 4: Ulrich Zwingli).
 January 29, 1535: The French royal family, church officials, and many other dignitaries join in an immense torch-lit procession from the Louvre to Notre Dame—an attempt to purge Paris from the defilement caused by overzealous Protestants and their placards (a man named Feret had nailed one of the most inflammatory placards to the king's bedroom door months before). The day ended with six Protestants being hung from ropes and roasted (see issue 12: John Calvin and issue 71: Huguenots).
January 30, 1536: Catholic priest Menno Simons leaves the Roman Catholic church over his doubts about transubstantiation and converts to the Anabaptist movement, which he would soon lead (see issue 5: Anabaptists).
January 30, 1877: Responding to Henry Stanley's plea for "some pious, practical missionary" to follow up David Livingstone's missionary foray into Uganda, three members of Alexander Mackay's Church Missionary Society team arrive at King Mutesa's court. Though missions saw few immediate results, the Ugandan church quickly strengthened and grew after the missionaries' deaths (see issue 56: David Livingstone).
January 30, 1912: Evangelical missionary, philosopher, author, and lecturer Francis Schaeffer is born in Philadelphia. A leading figure in the resurgence of evangelicalism during the 1960s and 1970s, he blamed the rise of relativism for the decline of Western culture.
January 31, 1561: Anabaptist leader Menno Simons, for whom Mennonites are named, dies in Wustenfeld, Germany (see issue 5: Anabaptists).
January 31, 1686: King Louis XIV of France, having already revoked the Protestant-tolerating Edict of Nantes, orders all Waldensian churches burned. The Waldensians, members of a pre-Reformation tradition that stressed love of Christ and his word and a life of poverty, were soon devastated: 2,000 killed, 2,000 "converted" to Catholicism, and 8,000 imprisoned (see issue 22: Waldensians).
January 31, 1737: Jacob Duche, Episcopal clergyman and chaplain to the Continental Congress, is born in Philadelphia. He later had a change of heart about the war and asked George Washington to have Congress recall the Declaration of Independence (see issue 50: The American Revolution).
January 31, 1892: Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the greatest public speakers of his day, dies at Mentone, France (see issue 29: Charles Spurgeon).
February 1, 524 (traditional date): Brigit, founder of a monastery at Kildare and considered the "second patron saint of Ireland," dies (see issue 60: How the Irish were saved).
February 1, 1516: Desiderius Erasmus dedicates his "amendment" of Jerome's Latin (Vulgate) translation of the Bible to Pope Leo X. Perhaps because his work was so politically risky, he assured the pontiff, "We do not intend to tear up the old and commonly accepted edition [the Vulgate], but amend it where it is corrupt, and make it clear where it is obscure." Luther, Tyndale and other Protestants based their vernacular versions on the translations and hailed Erasmus's calls for reform (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).
February 1, 1650: French philosopher Rene Descartes dies. Though more famous for his saying, "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am), he followed that statement with a logical argument for the existence of God. In essence, he argued that the idea of God, a perfect being, could only be caused by that perfect God. Though fellow philosopher-mathematician-scientist Blaise Pascal (an avid Christian) considered Descartes a mere Deist, "letting [God] give a tap to set the world in motion," Descartes repeatedly wrote about his devotion to Roman Catholicism.
February 1, 1763: Thomas Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ (which flourished under the leadership of his son, Alexander), is born. A popular itinerant preacher, he sought to unite Christians under a common, simple confession of Christ as Lord and immersion baptism (see issue 45: Camp Meetings and Circuit Riders).
February 1, 1810: Charles Lenox Remond, a black abolitionist preacher who supported slave uprisings and the use of violence to end slavery, is born in Salem, Massachusetts (issue 62: Black Christianity before the Civil War).
February 1, 1834: African Methodist Episcopal bishop Henry McNeal Turner is born a free African-American at Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina. One of the denomination's leaders during Reconstruction, he is considered a precursor of later black theology for his statement, "God is a Negro." He was also the first black chaplain in the U.S. Army.
February 1, 1862: Ardent abolitionist Julia Ward Howe publishes "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in The Atlantic Monthly (see issue 33: Christianity and the Civil War).
February 2, 767: Alcuin, the academic who would later play a large role in establishing schools under Charlemagne, becomes headmaster of York Cathedral School, where he once studied. Alcuin's curriculum was built on the seven liberal arts: the elementary Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) and the more advanced Quadrivium (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy).
February 2, 1594: Giovanni F. da Palestrina, the most gifted composer of Renaissance church music, dies.
February 2, 1745: Popular British poet and dramatist Hannah More is born. She renounced the social life and concentrated on religious efforts, such as setting up Sunday schools. For her work with the Clapham Sect of British social reformers, she was once derisively called "a bishop in petticoats" (see issue 53: William Wilberforce).
February 3, 865 (traditional date): Anskar, the first archbishop of Hamburg and called the "Apostle of the North," dies. Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, he converted many, including the King of Jutland (see issue 63: Conversion of the Vikings).
February 3, 1468: Johann Gutenberg, who developed a printing press with movable type that helped the Protestant Reformation (by allowing the easy dissemination of reformers' writings), dies at age 67 (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).
February 3, 1809: German composer Felix Mendelssohn, a very devout Lutheran, is born in Hamburg. His "Elijah" oratorio is considered second only to Handel's "Messiah," and he is responsible for rediscovering Bach, whose music had been forgotten for 80 years.
February 3, 1864: The Christian Union, composed of Protestant congregations opposed to "political preaching" during the Civil War, is formed in Columbus, Ohio.
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