June 9
0597: Death of St. Columba (born 521), pioneer missionary to Scotland. From the Isle of Iona, Columba evangelized the mainland of Scotland and Northumbria.
1549: In England, Parliament established a uniformity of religious services and the first Book of Common Prayer, as Anglicanism became the newly established national faith.
1732: Englishman James Oglethorpe received a royal charter to form the American colony of Georgia. It was to be a place of refuge for sectarian Protestant believers, persecuted in England.
1784: In the first step toward formal organization of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S., Father John Carroll was appointed superior of the American missions by Pius VI.
1834: English Baptist missionary pioneer William Carey died at 73. Having translated portions of Scripture into as many as 25 languages, he is known by some today as the "father of modern missions."
Source: William D. Blake. Almanac of the Christian Church, Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
