Stanislaus Lutomirski, a Polish priest and secretary to King Sigismund Augustus of Poland, professed his Unitarian beliefs and was appointed superintendent of the Churches of Little Poland by the 19th Synod at Pinczow in 1561.…

1786 – Aaron Bancroft was ordained as minister of the Second Congregational Church, later called the First Unitarian Church, in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1825 he became the first president of the American Unitarian Association. Read more about Aaron Bancroft.…

Henry Whitney Bellows, the 19th century’s leading Unitarian churchman, died in 1882 at age 67. Read more about Henry Whitney Bellows.…

1875 – Henry Wilder Foote Jr. was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Foote, a Unitarian minister, was chairman of the Unitarian Commission on Hymns and Services, which, in a cooperative effort with the Universalist Commission on Hymns and Services, chaired by L.…

1813 – John Murray Forbes was born in Bordeaux, France. His father was a wealthy merchant, and John learned the trade. He invested in land, iron, steam and railroads and served as the president of the Michigan Central Railroad. Murray became an abolitionist and provided equal pay to freed slaves.…

1566 The first disputation on the Trinity in Transylvania, originally scheduled for Torda, was opened at Gyulafehervard under the leadership of Francis Dávid and authority of Prince John Sigismund. This brought to a close a period of outbursts against the Trinity by a local clergy and congregations throughout the country.…

1608 – George Otinovius, a Socinian who was imprisoned for writing Book of Extracts from the Scriptures and the Church Fathers, died in prison. He was headmaster of the Socinian School in Rakow. With his older brother, Erasmus Otvinovius, he also wrote Unitarian tracts.…

1566 – Ferancesco Sega de Rovigo was executed for being a member of the Unitarian society in Venice, Italy. He was a friend of Laelius Socinus and was influenced by Michael Servetus’s On the Errors of the Trinity. De Rovigo was taken by boat into the Adriatic Sea, weighted with stones, and dropped into the sea.…

1807 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the most famous American poet of his time, was born in Portland, Maine. He taught modern languages at Bowdoin College and at Harvard University. His many famous poems included “The Song of Hiawatha,” “Tales of a Wayside Inn,” and “Evangeline.”…

1901 – Linus Carl Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon. He helped integrate chemistry with quantum theory and founded the discipline now known as molecular biology. When the atomic bomb was developed, Pauling became a pacifist. He joined First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, California.…