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1509 – John Calvin was born. His ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’ became the most popular doctrinal statement of the Protestant Reformation. Calvinism, a system of theological thought, was later developed from his writings and include the famous TULIP, an acronym outlining its five main points.

Total Depravity (also known as Total Inability and Original Sin)
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement (also known as Particular Atonement)
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints (also known as Once Saved Always Saved)

To read more about TULIP, you might want to go here. As a United Methodist myself, I am more disposed to the other predominant strain of thought in American theology: Arminianism.  To read more about it, you might want to go here, but for me the main differences are that the Atonement is unlimited (Christ died for all), humans play a part in choosing to serve God, and they may also decide to stop believing in God and thus lose their salvation.

For a summary of the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism, this site is a good beginning point, even though it is written from a Calvinist point of view.

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1830 – Camille Pissarro, the French Impressionist painter, was born (See painting below).

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1875 – Mary McLeod Bethune was born.  Bethune was an American educator, co-founder of Bethune-Cookman College, and a civil rights advisor to Franklin Roosevelt.  She once said, “Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.”  She also once opined, “Knowledge is the prime need of the hour,” a statement that is often true.

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1925 – The famous ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ began in Dayton, TN, after high school biology teacher John T. Scopes was charged with teaching evolution to his students.

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1985 – The Coca-Cola Co., bowing to pressure from irate customers after the introduction of New Coke, said it would resume selling its old formula.