August 19
1099: The armies of the First Crusade defeat the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon, (Palestinian city on the Mediterranean), one month after they had captured Jerusalem.
1531: Execution of Thomas Bilney for his Protestant views.
1662: Passing away of Blaise Pascal, a famous French scientist and Christian apologist, famous for his argument that it makes more sense to wager on the existence of God than against him.
1680: Demise of John Eudes at Caen, France, a priest, who founded a mission to save the fallen women. He is also the founder of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary to train priests and to carry out missionary work.
1846: The Evangelical Alliance meets in London with thousand delegates from fifty different evangelical sects throughout the world; one major decision of the meeting was to keep fellowship with slave-holders.
1849: Repose of Gotthold Heinrich Loeber, a Lutheran pioneer, who was instrumental in conducting the Missouri Synod.
1883: W. J. David conducts a revival program in Lagos, Nigeria, that runs for many weeks, during which Adeline Adeotan Sikuade Agbebi and her husband Vincent David Omojola got converted. Vincent became a pastor and Adeline became an educator and founded the Women Missionary Union of the Nigerian Baptist Convention.
1886: Richard G. Spurling, a Baptist clergyman, starts The Christian Union in Monroe County, Tennessee. This Pentecostal denomination changed its name to the Church of God in 1923 which has  500,000 members at present.
1929: Passing away of Arthur Samuel Peake, English Bible scholar, the first Rylands professor of biblical exegesis at Manchester University and the first dean of its theological faculty.
1953: Israel’s parliament confers Israeli citizenship posthumously on all Jews killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust in Europe.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy:Â www.studylight.org