September 8, 1157: Richard I (Lion-Heart) of England, leader of the Third Crusade, is born (see issue 40: The Crusades).
September 8, 1565: Settlers form the first Roman Catholic Parish in America in St. Augustine, Florida.
September 8, 1636: Massachusetts Puritans found Harvard College, America's first higher education institution, a mere six years after arriving from England. Two years after its founding, the college was named after John Harvard, a learned English Protestant minister who had emmigrated to America and who helped to found the institution. On his deathbed Harvard bequeathed half his estate and his entire library (400 volumes!) to the fledgling college.
September 8, 1845: English clergyman John Henry Newman converts to Roman Catholicism. Newman had been a leading member of the Oxford Movement, which aimed to reform the Church of England, but he became convinced that the Anglicans had lost their episcopal moorings and had wrongly severed themselves from apostolic succession.
