1855 – Samuel Rogers, an English Unitarian, banker, and poet, died at age 92. Born in Newington Green, London, he came from a prominent family of Dissenters. He would have preferred the ministry but followed the wishes of his father and joined him in banking.…

1523 – Ludwig Hetzer, a Protestant with Unitarian beliefs, published a treatise against the worship of images. He denounced the trinity, claiming that “the Father alone is the true God…” Hetzer was arrested, charged with impugning the doctrine of the Trinity by the Synod of Constance, and ordered beheaded and burned.…

1816 – Russell Lant Carpenter was born in Exeter, England. He was the son of Lant Carpenter, a prominent Unitarian minister. He studied for the ministry at Manchester New College in York, now in Oxford, and went on to serve many churches.…

1611 – Iwan Tyskiewicz, a Socinian, was executed in the great marketplace of Warsaw, Poland, for heresy. His tongue was cut out and one hand and one foot cut off before he was beheaded. Tysziewicz’s life would have been spared had he renounced his faith.…

1588 – Peter Gonesius professed his Unitarianism at the Synod of Brzesc in Poland. Said to be Polish Unitarianism what Francis Dávid was to Transylvanian Unitarianism, Gonesius was the first of the Polish Anapabtist reformers to publicly declare the union of two theologies — the use of adult reason in achieving faith and the monotheistic nature of God.…

1647 – The Presbyterian ministers of London, England, met at Sion College to protest the errors, heresies, and blasphemies of the time and to denounce toleration of such ideas. They were objecting to the growing influence of Unitarian beliefs on English Presbyterians.…

1816 – The Second Society of Universalists was incorporated in Boston in order to attract Hosea Ballou as the minister. The congregation erected a large brick building at a cost of $22,000, which became known as the School Street Church, and dedicated the building on October 16, 1817.…

1805 – Frederic Henry Hedge was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served Unitarian churches in Arlington and Brookline, Massachusetts; Bangor, Maine; and Providence, Rhode Island. Hedge’s influence extended beyond the denomination. He was appointed nonresident professor at Harvard Divinity School and then as professor of German languages and literature at Harvard College.…

1928 – Lewis Howard Latimer, a Unitarian African-American inventor and engineer, died at age 80. Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, he was one of the founding members of the First Unitarian Church of Flushing, New York. He was the only African-American member of the Edison Pioneers, Thomas Edison’s engineering division of the Edison Company.…

1741 – John Murray was born in Alton, England. The beginning of Universalism in America is often traced back to the grounding of Murray’s boat at Cranberry Inlet, New Jersey, at 1770, near Thomas Potter’s family chapel. Potter believed God sent Murray to preach Universalism there.…