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March 4, 1583: Bernard Gilpin, the English clergyman whose ministry in neglected sections of Northumberland and Yorkshire earned him the title "Apostle of the North," dies at age 66.
March 4, 1866: Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ and the Church of Christ, dies. He sought desperately to get back to a "simple evangelical Christianity" founded on the Bible alone. Only this—not creeds or confessions or liturgy—could bring unity to Christians: "The testimony of the Apostles is the only and all-sufficient means of uniting Christians" (see issue 45: Camp Meetings and Circuit Riders).
March 5, 1179: Alexander III convokes the Third Lateran Council. Attended by 300 bishops, it gave the college of cardinals the exclusive right to elect the pope (by a two-thirds majority) and enacted measures against the Waldensians and Albigensians.
March 5, 1409: The college of cardinals convokes the Council of Pisa to end the Great Schism, which had divided Western Christendom in 1378 by the election of rival popes. Unfortunately, all the Council of Pisa did was to produce another candidate for the papacy (see issue 68: Jan Hus).
March 5, 1743: The Christian History, America's first religious magazine, is published in Boston in the midst of the Great Awakening. The weekly publication, "containing accounts of the propagation and revival of religion," is not to be confused with our magazine—though we're proud to carry on the name.
March 5, 1797: The three-masted ship Duff arrives in Tahiti's Matavai Bay, completing a 207-day voyage from London. The ship, commanded by Captain John Wilson, had aboard 37 artisans and pastors of the London Missionary Society (L.M.S.) and their families, who were to be resettled in the South Pacific on the islands of Tahiti, Tonga and the Marquesas.
March 5, 1899: Alcoholic-turned-evangelist Sam Jones begins a crusade in Toledo, Ohio, where the mayor was also named Sam Jones. Mayor Jones at first welcomed the publicity, but he worried when evangelist Jones decried the city's immorality (if the Devil were mayor of Toledo, the preacher said, he wouldn't change a thing). Nonetheless, the mayor was reelected the next month by a huge margin.
March 6, 1475: Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti, famous for his paintings (the Sistine Chapel), sculpture ("David"), and architecture (the rebuilding of St. Peter's Cathedral), is born in Caprese.
March 6, 1984: Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, a founder of Germany's Confessing Church and a prisoner for his opposition to the Nazis, dies. Because of his advocacy for complete neutrality between East and West Germany (which was perceived as compromise with communism), he spent his later years in obscurity (see issue 32: Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
March 7, 203: Perpetua, a Christian about 22 years old, her slave, Felicitas, and several others are martyred at the arena in Carthage. They were flogged, attacked by hungry leopards, and finally beheaded. Perpetua remains one of early Christianity's most famous martyrs (see issue 27: Persecution in the Early Church).
March 7, 1274: Thomas Aquinas, one of the most significant theologians of all time, dies at age 48. Known for his adaptation of Aristotle's writings to Christianity, he became famous for his massive Summa Theologiae (or "A summation of theological knowledge"). In its early pages, he stated, "In sacred theology, all things are treated from the standpoint of God." Thomas proceeded to distinguish between philosophy and theology and between reason and revelation, though he emphasized that these did not contradict each other. Both are fountains of knowledge; both come from God (see issue 73: Thomas Aquinas).
March 7, 1530: Pope Clement VII rejects Henry VIII's request to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Henry eventually responded by declaring himself supreme head of England's church (see issue 48: Thomas Cranoner).
March 7, 1964: At a Roman parish church, Pope Paul VI celebrates mass in Italian instead of Latin, implementing one of the most significant changes of the Second Vatican Council—worship in the vernacular (see issue 28: The 100 Most Important Events in Church History).
March 8, 1698: British missionary Thomas Bray and four laymen found the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (S.P.C.K.) "to advance the honor of God and the good of mankind by promoting Christian knowledge both at home and in the other parts of the world by the best methods that should offer.
March 8, 1715: France's Louis XIV announces he has finally put an end to all Protestant practices in his country (see issue 71: Huguenots and the Wars of Religion).
March 8, 1782: Ninety-six Native Americans, who had converted to Christianity and were living peacefully in the Moravian Brethren town of Gnadenhutten (near New Philadelphia), Ohio, are killed by militiamen in "retaliation" for Indian raids made elsewhere in the Ohio territory.
March 8, 1887: Congregational minister Henry Ward Beecher, an impassioned abolitionist and the most famous American preacher of his day, dies at age 73 (see issue 33: Christianity and the Civil War).
March 8, 1915: The U.S. Supreme Court finds religious education in the public schools in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
March 9, 320 (traditional date): Roman soldiers leave Christian soldiers naked on the ice of a frozen pond in Sebaste, Armenia.They placed baths of hot water around them to tempt them to renounce their faith. When one did so, a pagan guard—inspired by the fortitude of the remaining Christians—converted and joined the freezing Christians. They were all killed and made famous by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa (see issue 27: Persecution in the Early Church).
March 9, 395 (traditional date): Gregory of Nyssa, Cappadocian father and bishop, dies. An outstanding thinker, theologian, orator, and ascetical author, he was very influential in developing the theology of the Trinity.
March 9, 1831: Evangelist Charles Finney concludes a six-month series of meetings in Rochester, New York. The meetings, which have been called "the world's greatest single revival campaign," led to the closing of the town's theater and taverns, a two-thirds drop in crime, and a reported 100,000 conversions (see issue 20: Charles Finney).
March 10, 1302: Pope Boniface VIII sentences Italian poet and politician Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy, to be burned to death for political reasons. He avoided the fate by living in exile, but he never saw his wife again (see issue 70: Dante Alighieri).
March 10, 1528: Balthasar Hubmaier, called by his enemies "head and most important of the Anabaptists," is burned at the stake in Vienna after being deemed a heretic by a Roman Catholic court. In addition to his writings against Lutherans and Zwinglians, he penned one of the earliest arguments for religious toleration. Though other Anabaptist leaders rejected his pleas for a tolerant Christian government and judicious use of the sword, they adopted his arguments for adult baptism, tolerance, and free will (see issue 5: Anabaptists).
March 10, 1681: Charles II makes English Quaker William Penn sole proprietor of the colonial American territory known today as the state of Pennsylvania. Penn gave legal rights not only to Native Americans but also to persecuted Christians like the Mennonites.
March 10, 1748: John Newton, the captain of a slave ship, converts to Christianity during a huge storm at sea. He had been reading Thomas a Kempis's The Imitation of Christ, and was struck by a line about the "uncertain continuance of life." He eventually became an Anglican clergyman, the author of the famous hymn "Amazing Grace," and a zealous abolitionist (see issue 31: The Golden Age of Hymns).
March 10, 1880: Commissioner George S. Railton and seven women arrive in New York City to establish the Salvation Army in the United States (see issue 26: William and Catherine Booth).
March 10, 1898: George Mueller, English philanthropist and evangelist, dies. He, in his 93 years helped more than 10,000 English orphans.
March 10, 1913: Harriet Tubman, known as "Grandma Moses" for her work rescuing slaves and guiding them to the north on what was dubbed "the Underground Railroad," dies. Her 19 rescues (of about 300 slaves) were successful, she said, because God showed her the way. "'Twant me, 'twas the Lord," said the diminutive woman who herself escaped slavery. "I always told him, 'I trust to you. I don't know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,' and he always did" (see issue 62: Bound for Canaan).
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