1216 - Pope Honorius III officially approved the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), founded in 1216 by St. Dominic. During the Middle Ages, many leaders of European thought were Dominicans; and a good number followed Portuguese and Spanish explorers to the Americas as missionaries.
1770 - Birth of Father Demetrius Gallitzin, a Dutch Catholic priest. Arriving in America in 1792, he spent his remaining years as a frontier missionary, building up the Catholic church in parts of PA, MD, VA and WV. Gallitzin became known as the "Apostle to the Alleghenies."
1804 - Anglican missionary to Persia Henry Martyn wrote in his journal: 'I look forward to a day of prayer; for my soul hath great need of quickening and restoration, that it may act more in the view of eternity.'
1837 - Mercer University was chartered in Penfield, Georgia under Baptist support. In 1871 the college moved its campus to Macon, Georgia.
1921 - The first U.S. commercial radio license assigned to a religious broadcaster was awarded to the National Presbyterian Church of Washington, D.C. Within five years, there were over 60 other licensed religious broadcasters, including KJS-Biola (L.A.), KFUO-Concordia Seminary (St. Louis), and WMBI-Moody Bible Institute (Chicago).
© 1987-2009, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from
Almanac of the Christian Church
