842 - The Medieval Iconoclastic Controversy ended, when a Council in Constantinople formally reinstated the veneration of images (icons) in the churches. (This debate over icons is often considered the last event which led to the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.)
1568 - Death of Miles Coverdale, 80, translator and publisher of the first complete Bible to be printed in English (1535). Coverdale was also editor of the Great Bible of 1539.
1812 - Congregational missionaries Adoniram Judson, 23, and his wife Ann, 22, first sailed from New England to Calcutta, India. (Judson eventually concentrated his labors in Burma.)
1869 - Death of Elizabeth Clephane, 39, an orphaned Scottish poet who left the Church with two hauntingly beautiful hymns: "Beneath the Cross of Jesus" and "The Ninety and Nine." (All of Clephane's poetry was published posthumously.)
1942 - Presidential Executive Order 9066 began placing 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry (of which over 2/3 were American-born citizens) into ten "relocation centers" for the duration of WWII. During confinement within the armed, barbed-wire surroundings, however, prayer meetings, Bible studies and worship services were held.
© 1987-2009, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from
Almanac of the Christian Church
