1760 - Richard Allen, the first black ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church (1799), and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816, was born in slavery in Philadelphia.

1805 - Colonial American theologian Henry Ware, 41, was confirmed as the first Unitarian professor to teach at Harvard University. Soon after, the Trinitarian Congregationalist teachers began withdrawing from the school, and in 1808 established Andover Theological Seminary.



1914 - Birth of Ira F. Stanphill, Assemblies of God clergyman and song evangelist. He is best known today for the hymn, "Room at the Cross," which he penned in 1946.



1949 - Russian-born English chemist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, 74, was elected first president of the newly restored modern state of Israel.



1985 - The U.S. Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism announced their decision to begin accepting women as rabbis.

© 1987-2012, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from

Almanac of the Christian Church