garb at the end of a sermon to his Woodstock, Virginia, congregation to reveal that he has signed up as an officer in the state militia.
Thomas Jefferson authors and the Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.
xxxv1781
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General Charles Cornwallis surrenders British troops to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.
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1782
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Robert Aitken publishes the first full-length Bible in the United States, the only such Bible ever to be officially authorized by Congress.
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1783
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The Treaty of Paris brings an official end to the Revolutionary War.
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1786
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The Virginia legislature adopts Jefferson’s “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” which disestablished the state church.
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1787
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Delegates from twelve states meet in Philadelphia to draw up a new Constitution to replace that under the Articles of Confederation.
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1789
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George Washington is inaugurated as the first U.S. president.
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1790
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Matthew Carey of Philadelphia publishes the first edition of the “Douai” (Catholic) Bible, and only the second Bible in English, in America.
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1791
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Ratification of the first ten amendments, now referred to as the Bill of Rights.
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1794
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Thomas Paine released the first part of The Age of Reason, which attacks the trustworthiness of the Bible.
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1801
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As many as twenty-five thousand people gather for revival services in Cane Ridge, Kentucky.
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1802
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On New Year’s Day, the Baptist leader John Leland delivers a 1,235-pound mammoth cheese to the White House with the words “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
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1804
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Founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
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1808
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Charles Thomson, former secretary of the Continental Congress, publishes the first English translation of the Greek Septuagint.
U.S. bans slave trade.
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1812
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Beginning of America’s second war with Great Britain.
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1814
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Francis Scott Key writes “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Biblica Hebraica becomes the first Hebrew Bible published in the United States.
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1816
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The American Bible Society is organized.
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1820
|
The Missouri Controversy exposes deepening divisions in the United States over slavery.
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1826
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In what many citizens interpret as a providential sign, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
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1827
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Presbyterian Ezra Stiles Ely calls upon Protestant Christians to form “a Christian party in politics.”
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1830
|
First publication of the Book of Mormon.
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xxxvi1831
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James Monroe dies on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of his abolitionist news magazine, The Liberator.
Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Virginia.
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1833
|
Great Britain bans slavery within all its territories.
Noah Webster publishes a revised edition of the King James Bible.
Massachusetts becomes the last state to disestablish its official church.
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1834
|
James Madison composes his “Advice to My Country” with its reference to a serpent in paradise.
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1836
|
The American Temperance Union is formed.
|
1842
|
A Dominican friar publicly burns some Bibles in Champlain, New York, that had been distributed by a Protestant Bible society.
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1843
|
Date first predicted by William Miller for the second coming to Earth of Christ.
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1844
|
Anti-Catholic riots break out in Philadelphia, in part stimulated by whether public schools should continue to read from the King James Version of the Bible.
Joseph Smith runs as an independent for president but is killed by a mob in Illinois.
Individuals gather to await the second coming of Christ, which was predicted by William Miller; this is sometimes called the Great Disappointment.
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1848
|
The American Missionary Association starts a fund to provide the Bible to southern slaves.
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1852
|
Frederick Douglass uses the Fourth of July to deliver a Scripture-laden sermon condemning slavery.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) announces that it accepts plural marriages.
|
1853
|
Isaac Lester publishes the first Jewish translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into English.
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1859
|
Biologist Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, which undermines traditional interpretations of the biblical book of Genesis.
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1861
|
Abraham Lincoln becomes the first Republican president of the United States.
Beginning of the Civil War.
First Bibles ever published in the South are published by the Southwestern Publishing House in Nashville.
|
1863
|
Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.
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1865
|
Lincoln gives his second inaugural address.
|
1865
|
End of the Civil War.
Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting slavery.
|
1867
|
The first of numerous meetings of the Bible and Prophecy Conference Movement.
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xxxvii1868
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Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment providing citizenship for all persons born or naturalized in the United States and guaranteeing them certain fundamental rights.
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1872
|
The Ohio Supreme Court upholds a decision by the Cincinnati School Board to remove the Bible from the public school curriculum.
|
1874
|
Creation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
|
1875
|
Mary Baker Eddy publishes Science and Health.
|
1876
|
Catholic bishop James Gibbons of Richmond, Virginia, publishes The Faith of Our Fathers: Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The American Publishing Company of Hartford, Connecticut, publishes the first complete translation of the Bible into English by a woman, Julia E. Smith.
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1878
|
William L. Blackstone publishes Jesus Is Coming, which raises millennial expectations.
The Niagara Conference adopts a fourteen-point creed that serves as a foundation for twentieth-century Protestant fundamentalism.
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