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June 3, 1098: After a seven-month siege, the armies of the First Crusade recapture Antioch (now in Turkey) from the Muslims (see issue 40: The Crusades).
June 3, 1162: Thomas a Becket is consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Nominated by his friend, King Henry II (Becket had previously served as his chancellor), Becket underwent a radical change as archbishop. He became pious and devoted to the church, which Henry found annoying. When knights heard the king grumbling, they killed Becket as he prayed.
June 3, 1647: The Puritan British Parliament bans Christmas and other holidays.
June 3, 1905: Hudson Taylor, English missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, dies. "China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women," he once said. "The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary" (see issue 52: Hudson Taylor).
June 3, 1963: Pope John XXIII, convener of the Second Vatican Council, dies. Expected to be merely a "caretaker pope," he ushered in some of the Roman Catholic Church's most momentous changes in its history (see issue 65: The Ten Most Influential Christians of the Twentieth Century).
June 3, 1980: Catholic and Eastern Orthodox representatives meet officially for the first time since the Great Schism of 1054 (see issue 54: Eastern Orthodoxy).
June 4, 1873: Charles F. Parham, founder of the Apostolic Faith movement and one of the founders of the modern Pentecostal movement, is born in Muscatine, Iowa. In 1900 he founded the Bethel Bible School, where speaking in tongues broke out—launching the Pentecostal movement (see issue 58: Pentecostalism).
June 4, 1948: The Far East Broadcasting Company, based in the Philippines and broadcasting across Asia, goes on-air with the staff singing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name.
June 5, 754: English monk Boniface, missionary to Germany, dies with 50 other Christians in an attack by angry pagans. The missionary, famous for smashing pagan idols, also established a monastery at Fulda that is still the center of Roman Catholicism in Germany.
June 5, 988 (traditional date): Rus's Grand Prince Vladimir orders his people to be baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith. He personally oversaw the baptism of the majority of the population of Kiev, the capital of his realm (see issue 18: Russian Christianity).
June 5, 1191: England's Richard I (the Lion-hearted) of England sets sail for Muslim-controlled Acre in the Third Crusade. After helping Philip II, king of France, capture the city, Richard took Jaffa and negotiated Christian access to Jerusalem, also Muslim-controlled (see issue 40: The Crusades).
June 5, 1305: Bertrand de Got, who as Pope Clement V (1305-1314) moved the seat of papal power to Avignon, France, is born in Villandraut, France.
June 5, 1414: Bohemian reformer Jan Hus appears before the Council of Constance. Instead of allowing him to state his beliefs, the council only permitted him to answer trumped-up charges of heresy. Hus was condemned and burned the following July (see issue 68: Jan Hus)
June 5, 1661: English mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton is admitted as a student to Trinity College, Cambridge. But the "greatest scientific genius the world has ever known" actually spent less of his life studying science than theology, writing 1.3 million words on biblical subjects (see our special section on Newton in issue 30: Women in the Medieval Church).
June 6, 1654: Christina, Queen of Sweden, abdicates her throne and joins the Roman Catholic church. She spent the rest of her life engaged in religious thought (though she twice attempted to resume the crown).
June 6, 1844: English merchant George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) out of his London meetings for prayer and Bible reading.
June 7, 1099: The First Crusade reaches Jerusalem (see issue 40: The Crusades).
June 7, 1502: Ugo Buoncompagni is born in Bologna. As Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585), he issued the Gregorian calendar, supported the Inquisition, promoted the Counter-Reformation, and encouraged missions.
June 7, 1891: English Baptist Charles H. Spurgeon, who preached to (on average) 6,000 people at each of his services, delivers his last sermon at London's Metropolitan Tabernacle (see issue 29: C.H. Spurgeon).
June 8, 793 (traditional date): Vikings attack the monastery at Lindisfarne, Scotland. The date is often considered the first event of the "Viking Age" (see issue 63: Conversion of the Vikings).
June 8, 1536: Following Henry VIII's Declaration of Supremacy, English clergy draw up the Ten Articles of Religion, the first articles of the Anglican Church since its break from Roman Catholicism (see issue 48: Thomas Cranmer).
June 8, 1794: French revolutionaries replace Christianity with a deistic religion honoring a trinity of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." They renamed churches "Temples of Reason," and a new calendar announced a 10-day week and holidays commemorating events of the revolution. The "reign of terror" followed, with some 1,400 people losing their heads. Napolean recognized the church again in 1804, then proceeded to imprison Pope Pius VII.
June 9, 68: Nero Claudius Caesar, the ruler to whom the Apostle Paul appealed for justice (Acts 25:10) and who ordered the first imperial persecution of Christians, commits suicide (see issue 47: Paul and His Times).
June 9, 597: Columba, Irish missionary to Scotland and founder of a monastery on the island of Iona, dies at age 76. Though more monk than missionary, he established churches that went on, in time, to evangelize the Picts and the English (see issue 60: How the Irish Were Saved).
June 9, 1549: England's Act of Uniformity, passed by Parliament in January, takes effect. The act ordered that religious services be consistent throughout the country, using Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer (see issue 48: Thomas Cranmer).
June 9, 1784: Pope Pius VI names John Carroll, the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States, as superior of the American mission.
June 9, 1834: William Carey, often called "the father of modern Protestant missions" dies, having spent 41 years in India without a furlough. His mission could count only about 700 converts, but he had laid a foundation of Bible translations, education, and social reform. He also inspired the missionary movement of the nineteenth century, especially with his cry, "Expect great things; attempt great things" (see issue 36: William Carey).
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