May 9, 1760: Count Nicholaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, founder of the Moravian Brethren and a pioneer of ecumenism and mission work, dies in Herrnhut, Germany. By his death the Moravians (which themselves only numbered in the hundreds) had sent out 226 missionaries around the world (see issue 1: Nicolaus Zinzendorf and the Moravians).
May 9, 1983: Pope John Paul II speaks before a gathering of 200 scientists and apologizes for the suffereing that Galileo Galilei had endured at the hands of the church when he was forced to recant his views of a heliocentric universe under threat of torture in 1633. John Paul II indicated that the church had renewed a review of the matter, which eventually led to a reversal of the Catholic Church's condemnation of Galileo in 1992.
