450: Death of Theodosius II, killed by a fall from his horse while hunting, an event which brings about the accession of his sister Pulcheria, who has long been an advocate of orthodox Christianity.
1148: Too weak to retake Edessa from the Muslims, the armies of the Second Crusade besiege Damascus.
1534: John Allen, Archbishop of Dublin, is murdered at Artaine, near Dublin, during the rebellion of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald.
1540: Protestant reformer Thomas Cromwell, for many years the chief advisor to King Henry VIII, is executed at Tower Hill after refusing to support Henry’s divorce against Anne of Cleves. The charge is “betraying the crown.”
1675: Death of Bulstrode Whitelocke, an influential Christian lawyer during the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell. Among Whitelocke’s last words: “There has been one true religion in the world; and that is the work of the Spirit of God in the hearts and souls of men.”
1750: Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest Christian composers of all time, succumbs to apoplexy and fever.
1875: Clergy from many Protestant denominations gather at Kidderminster, England, for the unveiling and dedication of a statue in commemoration of influential Puritan preacher and writer Richard Baxter (1615-1691).
1880: Francis Pfanner lands at Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where he will do a notable missionary work.
1941: Forty-five Serbs are tortured by Germans in an Orthodox church in Serbia.
1974: Chinese troops massacre Christians of the A-Hmao ethnic group who are worshiping secretly in a cave at Xinglongchang. Their leaders had defied the Chinese by saying if forbidden to worship openly they would worship secretly and if attacked on Sunday they would multiply their meetings to every day of the week.
1979: Martyrdom of Ethiopian theologian Gudina Tumsa at the hands of rebel Derg soldiers.
1991: Death of Wang Ming Dao, an influential Chinese evangelist who spent many years in a Communist prison for his faith.
Courtesy: christianhistoryinstitute.org