Dwight L. Moody
1837: Born February 5 at Northfield, Mass.
1854: Leaves home for Boston; begins work in S.S. Holton shoe store; joins, YMCA
1855: Converted April 21 through Sunday school teacher; denied membership at Mt. Vernorn Congregational Church
1856: Accepted as member of Mt. Vernon Church; moves to Chicago; employed by C.E. Wiswall as shoe salesman
1858: Meets Emma C. Revell; organizes North Market Hall sabbath School
1860: John V. Farwell elected superintendent of the North Market Mission; Abraham Lincoln visits
1861: Gives up business
1862: Marries Emma C. Revell on August 28; as delegate of U.S. Christian Commission, works with Civil War soldiers
1863: Appointed missionary of YMCA of Chicago
1864: Helps form Illinois Street Independent Church
1865: Enrolls as student in Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicago
1866: Elected president of Chicago YMCA
1867: First visit to Great Britain; meets Earl of Shaftesburv, Charles H. Spurgeon, and George Muller
1870: Meets Ira Sankey at International Convention of YMCA; second visit to Great Britain
1871: Great Chicago Fire destroys Illinois Street Church and Moody’s home; Moody experiences new endowment of power
1872: Third visit to Great Britain; preaches in London and Dublin
1873: First great campaign in U.K. begins in June (continues until July 1875); first form of Sacred Songs and Solos used
1874: Meetings in Scotland (Jan Aug.); Ireland (Sept.-Nov.); Manchcster (Dec.)
1875: Meetings at Oxford and Cambridge; in Great London campaign March July, speaks to 2.5 million; campaigns in Brooklyn and Philadelphia
1876: Elected president of Illinois Sunday School Union; purchases farm at Northfield; Chicago Avenue Church dedicated; evangelistic campaigns in Chicago, Nashville, Kansas City
1877: Evangelistic meetings in Boston and in Mexico and Canada
1877-78: Meetings throughout New England; in October 1878 begins seven-month Baltimore campaign
1879: Northfield Seminary opens November 3; six months’ meetings in St. Louis
1880: First Northfield Conference
1881: Mt. Hermon School for boys established; second major campaign in U.K. begins (continues to April 1883)
1882: Meetings throughout England, including Oxford and Cambridge; twice preaches in Paris
1883: January through April, meetings in Ireland and England; returns to America
1885: Evangelistic meetings in southeastern U.S.
1886: Student Volunteer movement begins; Chicago Evangelization Society formed; conference of college students at Mt. Herman; campaigns in New Orleans, Washington, New York
1887: Four-month campaign in Chicago; second conference at Northfield
1888: Evangelistic meetings on West Coast and in Canada and England
1889: Meetings in Scotland and Ireland; Bible Institute formally opened in Chicago
1890: Chicago Bible Institute building dedicated
1891: Seventh visit to England
1892: Travel through Europe and Holy Land; meetings in England and Ireland, including eight days at Spurgeon’s Tabernacle; accident at sea
1893: Great campaign at Chicago World’s Fair
1894: Meetings across Eastern Seaboard and in Canada
1895: Meetings in New York, Boston, Dallas, Mexico City
1896: Elected President of International Sunday School Association; meetings in New York
1897: Meetings in Boston, Chicago, Ottawa, elsewhere
1898: Works among soldiers of Spanish- American War; preaches in Colorado, Montreal, Tampa Bay
1899: Meetings throughout western US; dies December 22 at Northfield home
Other Significant Dates
1840: Renoir, Monet, and Tchaikovsky born
1844: YMCA founded in England by George Williams
1846: Irish potato famine
1846–48: Mexican-American War
1848: California gold rush; Marx’s Communist Manifesto
1850: US population hits 17 million
1852: Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
1854: Hudson Taylor arrives in China; War for Bleeding Kansas over state slavery rights
1858: Third Great Awakening begins
1859: Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
1861: Dickens’s Great Expectations
1861–1865: U.S. Civil War
1864: Pasteur invents pasteurization . 1865 Lincoln assassinated i 1867 Russia sells Alaska to U.S.
1869: First Vatican Council
1870: Rockefeller founds Standard Oil
1872: Ulysses S. Grant reelected; Whistler’s The Artist’s Mother
1875: Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health
1876: Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
1878: Treaty of Berlin settles Russo- Turkish Wars; Salvation Army begins
1880: Edison devises practical electric light
1881: President Garfield assassinated
1883: First skyscraper (10 stories, in Chicago)
1884: Grover Cleveland elected
1889: Dakotas, Montana, and Washington become states
1890: Global flu epidemics
1892: Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker
1894–1895: Chinese-Japanese War
1895: Röntgen discovers x-rays
1896: First modern Olympics held Athens
1898: Spanish-American War
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