March 10

1302 Italian poet and politician Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), author of the Divine Comedy, was sentenced to be burned to death for political reasons. He avoided the fate by living in exile, but he never saw his wife again.

1510 Johann(es) Geiler von Kaysersberg, celebrated German pulpit orator and reformer, died (b. 16 March 1445).

1521 Charles V (1500–1558), the Holy Roman Emperor, declared that the writings of Martin Luther were to be burned.

1528 Balthasar Hubmaier (b. ca. 1480), German religious leader and chief writer for the Anabaptist movement, was martyred.

1734 Lutheran Salzburgers landed and settled in Georgia.

1748 John Newton (1725–1807), the captain of a slave ship, was converted to Christianity during a huge storm at sea. He eventually became an Anglican clergyman, the author of the famous hymn “Amazing Grace” and a zealous abolitionist.

1812 Christian Streit, Lutheran Revolutionary War chaplain, died (b. 7 June 1749 near New Germantown, New Jersey, of Swiss extraction).

1823 John Bacchus Dykes, Anglican clergyman and composer of nearly eight hundred hymns, was born in Hull, England (d. 22 January 1876).

1861 Max John Frederick Albrecht, president of Concordia College (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), was born at Gross-Polzen, Pomerania (d. 21 October 1943).

1877 The first Protestant Church in Japan was founded during the Meiji Restoration.

1880 The first English Salvation Army mission to the U.S. landed at New York City headed by Commissioner George S. Railton and seven women.

1898 George F. Mueller (b. 1805), English philanthropist and evangelist, died.

1900 An eighteen-year-old Chinnian became the first person baptized through the Missouri Synod mission effort in Ambur, India.

1905 James R. Murray (b. 7 March 1841), American music editor and hymn writer, died.

1913 Harriet Tubman, known as the “Moses of her people” for her work rescuing slaves and guiding them north on what was dubbed the Underground Railroad, died (b. ca. 1822).

1917 Folliott S. Pierpoint (b. 7 October 1835), English classics instructor and hymn writer, died.

2000 Ernest G. Schwiebert, author of Luther and His Times, died (b. 1895).