February 3
865 (traditional date) Death of Anskar (St. Ansgar), an early English missionary, who worked hard to evangelize Scandinavia.
1238 Surrounded by Mongols, the citizens of the city of Vladimir pledge to defend God’s churches even at the cost of their lives. The city fell on the fourteenth of the same month.
1399 Death of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whose political struggles with powerful prelates forced him to become a supporter of the religious reformer John Wycliffe.
1469 Death of Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany. He had developed a movable type printing press, which later became a powerful factor in the spread of the Protestant Reformation. Gutenberg completed his 42-line Bible – The Gutenberg Bible – in 1455.
1518 Pope Leo X imposes silence on the Augustinian monks to prevent a revolt in the church, after Martin Luther – an Augustinian Monk – had published his 95 theses against the abuse of indulgence in the church.
1744 David Brainerd, Colonial missionary to the American Indians, exhorted in a tract: “God designs that those whom He sanctifies…shall tarry awhile in this present evil world, that their own experience of temptations may teach them how great the deliverance is, which God has wrought for them.”
1788 Rev. Richard Johnson from the Church of England, the first Christian cleric appointed to Australia, preaches his first sermon in that country.
1864 The new protestant denomination `Christian Union` consisting of independent Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational and United Brethren churches is formed in Columbus, Ohio.
1943 S.S. Dorchester, the Allied troopship, was torpedoed by a German submarine and went down with 600 people on board. Four chaplains who were on board offered their life-jackets to shipmates, thereby losing their lives in the icy waters. The American Congress later honoured the bravery of Rev. Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed), Rev. George Lansing Fox (Methodist), Father John Washington (a Catholic priest) and Alexander David Goode (a Jewish rabbi) by declaring February 3rd as “Four Chaplains Day.”
1985 Desmond Tutu became the first black Anglican bishop in Johannesburg (South Africa).
1998 Execution of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas, a murderer; she converted to Christianity on death row and died praising Jesus. Many Movies and documentaries were made about her life.
2005 In a blow to Christianity, the Islamic city council of Demre, Turkey (formerly the Christian city, Myra), votes to replace the town’s traditional bronze statue of St. Nicholas of Myra with an effigy of a fat man with a red fur suit.