Christianity: Baptist

  • Former Anglican John Smyth rebaptizes himself and 40 others by pouring in Amsterdam.

  • First Baptist Church is formed in Kittery, Maine, then moves to South Carolina, becoming the first Baptist church in the South.

  • Baptists found the school later called Brown University, only the seventh institution of higher education founded in the colonies.

  • Baptist preacher William Miller announces the coming end of the world, beginning the Millerite movement.

  • Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon becomes pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in London.

  • Nannie Helen Burroughs delivers speech “How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping.”

  • William Bell Riley, “The Grand Old Man of Fundamentalism,” sets up the Anti-Evolution League of Minnesota and the Baptist Bible Union.

  • Pat Robertson founds Christian Broadcasting Network; Progressive National Baptist Convention leaves the NBCU; Ralph Elliott publishes The Message of Genesis.

  • Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated.

  • SBC issues 150th-anniversary resolution on racial reconciliation.