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Christian mission history: Important events, locations, people and movements in World Evangelism

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Some of the earliest years in this missions dateline are approximate. I'm part of the Church of the Nazarene. Therefore, various countries in which there are Nazarene congregations and ministries will appear in this chronological listing.

A chronology of Church history from the perspective of the expansion of Christianity

Earliest dates must all be considered "approximate."

An earlier edition of this time line was used in Wikipedia and other internet sites.

30 - Pentecost and birth of the Christian church
34 - Church scattered by persecution; In Gaza, Philip baptizes a convert, an Ethiopian who was already a Jewish proselyte.
39 - Peter preaches to the Gentiles
42 - Mark goes to Egypt
49 - Jerusalem Council on admitting Gentiles into the Church 48 - Paul (formerly known as Saul of Tarsus) begins his first missionary journey to modern-day Turkey.
51 - Paul begins his second missionary journey, a trip that will take him through Turkey and on into modern-day Greece.
52 - Apostle Thomas arrives in India and founds church that subsequently becomes Indian Orthodox Church (and its various descendants).
54 - Paul begins his third missionary journey
60 - Paul journeys to Rome.
66 -Thaddeus establishes the Christian church of Armenia
72 - Traditional date of the Apostle Thomas' martyrdom in India
100 - First Christians are reported in Monaco, Algeria, and Sri Lanka
112 - Traditional date of martyrdom of Sharbil, Babai, and Barsamy in Edessa, Mesopotamia
117 - Emperor Hadrian executes thousands of soldiers who had converted to Christianity
166 - Bishop Soter writes that the number of Christians has surpassed the Jews
174 - First Christians reported in Austria
180 - Pantaenus preaches in India
196 - Bar Daisan writes of Christians among the Parthians, Bactrians (Kushans), and other peoples in the Persian Empire
197 - Tertullian writes that Christianity had penetrated all ranks of society in North Africa
200 - First Christians are reported in Switzerland and Belgium
206 - Abgar, King of Edessa, embraces the Christian faith
208 - Tertullian writes that Christ has followers on the far side of the Roman wall in Britain where Roman legions have not yet penetrated
250 - Denis (or Denys or Dionysius) is sent from Rome along with six other missionaries to establish the church in Paris
280 - First rural churches emerge in northern Italy; Christianity is no longer exclusively in urban areas
287 - Maurice from Egypt is killed at Agauno, Switzerland for refusing to sacrifice to pagan divinities
295 - Dudi (David) of Basra evangelizes in India
300 - First Christians reported in Greater Khorasan; an estimated 10% of the world's population is now Christian; the Bible is available in 10 different languages
304 - Armenia accepts Christianity as state religion
306 - The first bishop of Nisibis is ordained
314 - Tiridates I of Armenia converted by Gregory the Illuminator
327 - Emperor Constantine baptized shortly before his death
328 - Frumentius takes gospel to Ethiopia
333 - Ethiopian King Ezana of Axum makes Christianity an official religion
334 - The first bishop is ordained for Merv in Transoxiana
340 - Ulfilas begins work with the Goths in present-day Romania
350 - Two young Christians, shipwrecked in the Red Sea, are taken as slaves to Ethiopia to serve in the royal court. Given freedom to preach the gospel, their witness gives birth to the Coptic Church.
354 - Theophilus "the Indian" reports visiting Christians in India; Philostorgius mentions a community of Christians on the Socotra islands, south of Yemen in the Arabian Sea
364 - Conversion of Vandals to Christianity during the reign of Emperor Valens
370 - Ulfilas translates the Bible into Visigothic, the first Bible translation done specifically for missionary purposes
381 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I makes Christianity the official state religion
382 - Jerome is commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin
386 - Augustine of Hippo converted
390 - Nestorian missionary Abdyeshu builds a monastery on the island of Bahrain
397 - Ninian evangelizes the Southern Picts of Scotland
410 - New Testament translated into Armenian
420 - An Arabian Bedouin tribe is converted under sheik Peter-Aspebet
425 - The first bishops are ordained for Herat (Afghanistan) and Samarkand (Uzbekistan)
432 - Patrick goes to Ireland as missionary
496 - Conversion of Clovis I, king of Franks in Gaul, along with 3,000 warriors
500 - First Christians reported in North Yemen
508 - Philoxenus of Mabug begins translation of the Bible into Syriac
528 - Benedict of Nursia destroys pagan temple at Monte Cassino (Italy) and builds a monastery
535 - The Hephthalite Huns - nomads living in northern China, Central Asia, and northern India who were also known as the White Huns - are taught to read and write by Nestorian missionaries.
542 - Julian (or Julianus) from Constantinople begins evangelizing Nubia accompanied by an Egyptian named Theodore
563 - Columba sails from Ireland to Scotland where he founds an evangelistic training center on Iona.
565 - The first report of a Loch Ness monster after the Irish missionary Columba visits the Loch. Columba described an animal that broke the surface of the 800 foot-deep loch with a loud roar and an open mouth
569 - Longinus, Bishop of Nobatia, evangelizes Alodia (in what is now Sudan)
578 - Conversion to Christianity of An-numan III, last of Lachemids (Arab princes)
592 - Death of Irish missionary Moluag (Old Irish Mo-Luóc)
596 - Gregory the Great sends Augustine and a team of missionaries to (what is now) England to reintroduce the gospel. The missionaries settle in Canterbury and within a year baptize 10,000 people
600 - First Christian settlers in Andorra (southwestern Europe, between France and Spain)
629 - Amandus of Elnon is consecrated a missionary bishop. He evangelized the region around Ghent and went on missions to Slavs along the Danube and to Basques in Navarre
631 - Conversion of the East Angles (one of the seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy)
635 - First Christian missionaries (Nestorian monks, including Alopen, from Asia Minor and Persia) arrive in China; Aidan of Lindisfarne begins evangelizing in the heart of Northumbria (England)
637 - Lombards, a German people living in northern Italy, become Christians
638 - A church building is erected in Ch'ang-an, then perhaps the largest city in the world
650 - First church organized in Netherlands
673 - Irish monk Maol Rubha founds a training center at Aprochrosan that would serve as a base for missionary outreach into Scotland
680 - First translation of Christian Scriptures into Arabic
689 - Pagans kill Irish missionary Kilian near Würzburg in what is now Germany. His remains will be buried in a Benedictine abbey in Würzburg.
692 - Willibrord and 11 companions cross the North Sea to become missionaries to the Frisians (modern day Netherlands)
697 - Muslims overrun Carthage, capital of North Africa
720 - Caliph Umar II puts heavy pressure on the Christian Berbers to convert to Islam
722 - Boniface goes to Germanic tribes
724 - Boniface fells pagan sacred oak of Thor at Geismar in Hesse (Germany)
740 - Irish monks reach Iceland
781 - Nestorian Stele erected near Xi'an (China) to commemorate the propagation in China of the Luminous Religion, thus providing a written record of a Christian presence in China
787 - Liudger begins missionary work among the pagans near the mouth of the Ems river (in modern day Germany)
822 - Mojmír I of Great Moravia, converts to Christianity
826 - Ansgar from France is sent by Roman papal authority to Denmark as a royal chaplain and missionary
828 - First Christian church in present-day Slovakia built in Nitra
828 - First missionaries reach the area that is now the Czech Republic
830 - Scotch-born Erluph is evangelizing in (what is now) Germany when he is killed by the Vandals.
859 - Execution of Eulogius, proponent of confrontational Christian witness in Muslim societies. Opposed to any feeling of affinity with Muslim culture, Eulogius advocated using a missiology of martyrdom to confront Islam.
863 - Cyril and Methodius are invited by Rastislav to evangelize in Great Moravia and the Balaton Principality
864 - Conversion of Prince Boris of Bulgaria
867 - The Serbian and Montenegrin peoples embrace Christianity
878 - Last definite reference to Christians in China before the Mongol era
880 - First Slavic archbishopric established in Great Moravia with Methodius as its head
900 - Missionaries reach Norway
912 - The Normans become Christian
948 - The leader of the Magyars converts to Christianity
957 - Princess Olga of Kiev baptized
965 - Harold I of Denmark converts to Christianity and smooths the way for the acceptance of Christian faith by the Danish people
981 - Nestorian monks visiting China find no traces of Christian community left
988 - Baptism of Kievan Rus' under Vladimir I
997 - Adalbert of Prague dies as a martyr in Prussia
1000 - Leif the Lucky evangelizes Greenland
1008 - Sigfrid (or Sigurd), English missionary, baptizes King Olof of Sweden
1009 - Bruno of Querfurt is beheaded in Prussia where he had gone as a missionary
1015 - Russia is said to have been "comprehensively" converted to the Orthodox faith
1017 - The Danish king Canute converts to Christianity
1099 - Crusaders capture Jerusalem and massacre 70,000 Muslims as well as Jews
1200 - The Bible is now available in 22 different languages
1219 - Francis of Assisi presents the Gospel to the Sultan of Egypt
1220 - Dominican Order established
1223 - Franciscan Order established
1251 - King Mindaugas of Lithuania baptized
1252 - Franciscan William of Rubruck begins his journey to the Mongols
1266 - Mongol leader Khan sends Marco Polo's father and uncle, Niccolo and Matteo Polo, back to Europe with a request to the Pope to send 100 Christian missionaries (only two responded and they turned back before reaching Mongol territory)
1276 - Ramon Llull opens training center to send missionaries to North Africa
1289 - Franciscan friars begin mission work in China
1294 - Franciscan Giovanni di Monte Corvino goes to China
1303 - Arnold von Koln arrives in China to assist Giovanni di Monte Corvino
1321 - Jordanus, a Dominican monk, arrives in India as the first resident Roman Catholic missionary
1322 - Odoric of Pordenone, a Franciscan monk from Italy, arrives in China
1323 - Franciscans make contacts on Sumatra, Java, and Borneo
1326 - Changatid Khan Ilchigedai grants permission for a church to be built in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
1329 - Nicea falls to Muslim Ottoman Turks
1368 - Collapse of the Franciscan mission in China as Ming Dynasty abolishes Christianity
1379 - Stephen of Prem travels north toward the White Sea and settles as a missionary among the Finno-Ugric speaking Komi peoples living between Pechora and Vychegda Rivers at Ust-Vim
1382 - Bible translated into English from Latin by John Wycliff
1386 - Jagiello, king of the Lithuanians, is baptized
1410 - Bible is translated into Hungarian
1435 - Forced conversion of Jews in Spain
1448 - First Christians reported in Mauritania
1453 - Constantinople falls to the Muslim Ottoman Turks who make it their capital
1462 - Johannes Gutenberg begins printing the Bible with his movable-type printing process; Pope Pius II assigns the evangelization of the Portuguese Guinea Coast of Africa to the Franciscans led by Alfonso de Bolano
1485 - After having come into contact with the Portuguese, the King of Benin requests that a church be planted in his kingdom
1486 - Dominicans become active in West Africa, notably among the Wolof people in Senegambia.
1489 - Baptism of Wolof king Behemoi in Senegal
1491 - The Congo sees its first group of missionaries arrive. Under the ministry of these Franciscan and Dominican priests, the king would soon be baptized and a church built at the royal capital.
1492 - Birth of the church in Angola
1493 - Christopher Columbus takes Christian priests with him on his second journey to the New World
1494 - First missionaries arrive in Dominican Republic
1495 - The head of a convent in Seville, Spain, Mercedarian Jorge, makes a trip to the West Indies.
1496 - First Christian baptisms in the New World take place when Indian chief Guaticaba along with other members of his household are baptized on the island of Hispaniola
1497 - Forced conversion of Jews in Portugal
1498 - First Christians are reported in Kenya
1499 - Portuguese Augustinian missionaries arrive at Zanzibar. Their mission will end in 1698 due to the Oman-Arab conquest.
1500 - Franciscans enter Brazil with Cabral
1501 - Pope Alexander VI grants to the crown of Spain all the newly-discovered countries in the Americas, on condition that provision be made for the religious instruction of the native populations
1502 - Bartolome de Las Casas, who will later become an ardent defender of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, goes to Cuba. For his military services there he will be given an encomienda, an estate that included the services of the Indians living on it.
1503 - Mar Elijah, Patriarch of the East Syrian church, sends three missionaries "to the islands of the sea which are inside Java and to China."
1506 - Mission work begun in Mozambique
1510 - Dominicans begin work in Haiti
1515 - Portuguese missionary Francisco Álvares is sent on a diplomatic mission to Dawit II, the Negus or Emperor of Abyssinia (an old name for Ethiopia)
1516 - Three Franciscans are killed by cannibals in northeastern South America, in the area of Colombia and Venezuela
1517 - The Mughal Rulers of Delhi opened the door of Bengal to Christian missionaries
1518 - Don Henrique, son of the king of the Congo, is consecrated by Pope Leo X as the first indigenous bishop from Black Africa
1519 - Two Franciscans accompany Hernán Cortés in his expedition to Mexico
1520 - German missionary Maximilian Uhland, also known as Bernardino de San Jose, goes to Hispaniola with the newly appointed Bishop Geraldini.
1521 - Pope Leo X grants Franciscan Francis Quiñones permission and faculties to go as a missionary to the New World together with Juan Clapión
1522 - Portuguese missionaries establish presence on coast of Sri Lanka and begin moving inland with Portuguese military units
1523 - Martin Luther writes a missionary hymn based on Psalm 67. Titled "May God Bestow on Us His Grace," it has been called "the first missionary hymn of Protestantism."
1524 - Martin de Valencia goes to New Spain with 12 Franciscan friars
1525 - Italian Franciscan missionary Giulio Zarco is sent to Michoacán on the western coast of Mexico where he will become very proficient in Indian languages
1526 - Franciscans enter Florida; Twelve Dominican friars arrive in the Mexican capital
1527 - Missionary Conference of Augsburg -- Organized by the Anabaptists, it is the first-ever Protestant missionary conference
1528 - Franciscan missionary Juan de Padilla arrives in Mexico. He will accompany Coronado's expedition searching for the Seven Cities and eventually settle among the Quivira (now called the Wichita)
1529 - Franciscan Peter of Ghent writes from Latin America that he and a colleague had baptized
14,000 people on one day.
1530 - In his On Translating: An Open Letter, Martin Luther lays out some principles of correct Bible translating
1531 - Franciscan Juan de Padilla begins a series of missionary tours among Indian tribes southeast of Mexico City.
1532 - Evangelization of Peru begins when missionaries arrive with Francisco Pizzaro's military expedition
1533 - First Christian missionaries arrive in Tonkin, Vietnam
1534 - The entire caste of Paravas on the Coromandel Coast are baptized -- perhaps 10,000 people in all
1535 - German Franciscan missionary Maximilian Uhland (also called Bernardino de San Jose) speaks before the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith about the wretched condition of Indians in the New World
1536 - Northern Italian Anabaptist missionary Hans Oberecker (also spelled Overacker and Overakker) is burned at the stake in Vienna, Austria
1537 - Pope Paul III orders that the Indians of the New World be brought to Christ "by the preaching of the divine word, and with the example of the good life."
1538 - Franciscans enter Paraguay
1539 - The Pueblos of what is now the U.S. Southwest are encountered by Spanish Franciscan missionary Marcos de Niza
1540 - Franciscans arrive in Trinidad and are killed by cannibals
1541 - Franciscans begin establishing missions in California
1542 - Francis Xavier goes to Portuguese colony of Goa in South India; Franciscans reach what is now New Mexico
1543 - Anabaptist Menno Simons goes as a missionary from the Netherlands to Germany
1544 - Franciscan Andrés de Olmos, a veteran missionary in Mexico, struck northward into the Texas wilderness. After gathering a group of Indian converts, he will lead them back into Tamaulipas
1546 - Francis Xavier travels to the Indonesian islands of Morotai, Ambon, and Ternate
1547 - Wealthy Spaniard Juan Fernandez becomes a Jesuit. He will wind up in Japan as a missionary.
1548 - Francis Xavier founds the College of the Holy Name of God in Baçaim on the northwest coast of India
1549 - Dominican Luis Cancer, who had worked among the Mayans of Guatemala and Mexico, lands at Tampa Bay, Florida with two companions. They are immediately killed by the Calusa within sight of the ship from which they had disembarked.
1550 - Printed Bibles are available in 28 languages
1551 - Dominican Jerome de Loaysa founds the National University of San Marcos in Lima (Peru) as well as a hospital for the Indians
1552 - Founder of Jesuits, Spanish missionary Francis Xavier, dies awaiting admission to China
1553 - Portuguese missionaries build a church in Malacca Town, Malaysia
1554 - 1,500 converts to Christianity are reported in Siam (now called Thailand)
1555 - John Calvin sends Huguenots to Brazil
1556 - Dominican Gaspar da Cruz arrives in Guangzhou, China
1557 - Jesuits arrive in Ethiopia
1558 - The Kabardian duke Saltan Idarov converts to Orthodox Christianity
1559 - Missionary Vilela settles in Kyoto, Japan
1560 - Goncalo da Silveira, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, visited the Munhumutapa Empire, where he quickly made converts
1562 - Diego de Landa burns the libraries of the Maya civilization
1563 - Jesuit missionary Luis Frois, who will later write a history of Jesuit activity in Japan, arrives in that country; Omura Sumitada becomes the first daimyo (feudal landholder) to convert to Christianity
1564 - Legaspi begins Augustinian work in Philippine Islands
1565 - Jesuits arrive in Macau.
1566 - The first Jesuit to enter what is now the United States, Pedro Martinez, is clubbed to death by fearful Indians on the sands of Fort George Island, Florida
1567 - Missionaries Jeronimo da Cruz and Sebastiao da Canto, both Dominicans, arrive at Ayutthia, Thailand
1568 - In the Philippines, Diego de Herrera baptizes Chieftain Tupas of Cebu and his son
1569 - Jeronimo da Cruz is murdered along with two newly-arrived missionaries
1570 - Ignacio Azevedo and 39 other Jesuit missionaries are killed by pirates near Palma, one of the Canary Islands, while on their way to Brazil
1571 - Capuchin friars of the 'Strict Observance' arrive on the island of Trinidad with conquistador Don Juan Ponce of Seville.
1572 - Jesuits arrive in Mexico
1573 - Large-scale evangelization of the Florida Indian nations and tribes begins with the arrival of Franciscan friars
1574 - Augustinian Guillermo de Santa Maria writes a treatise on the illegitimacy of the war the Spanish government was waging against the Chichimeca in the Mexican state of Michoacán
1575 - Church building constructed in Kyoto. Built in Japanese architectural style, it was popularly called the "temple of the South Barbarians."
1576 - Jesuit missionaries enter the land of the Bengalis following Portuguese explorations
1577 - Dominicans enter Mozambique and penetrate inland, burning Muslim mosques as they go
1578 - King of Spain orders the bishop of Lima not to confer Holy Orders on mestizos
1579 - Jesuit Alessandro Valignano arrives in Japan where, as "Visitor of Missions," he formulates a basic strategy for Catholic proselytism in that country. Valignano's adaptationism attempted to avoid cultural frictions by covering the gap between certain Japanese customs and Roman Catholic values.
1580 - Japanese Daimyo (feudal landholder) Arima Harunobu becomes Christian and takes the name Protasio
1581 - Luis de Valdivia becomes a Jesuit. After finishing his studies, he will be sent to Peru
1582 - Jesuits begin mission work in China, introduce Western science, mathematics, astronomy
1583 - Five Jesuit missionaries -- Rudolph Acquaviva, Peter Berno, Francis Aranha, Alphonsus Pacheco and Anthony Francisco -- are murdered near Goa (India)
1584 - Matteo Ricci and a Chinese scholar translate a catechism into Chinese under the title T'ien-chu sheng-chiao shih-lu (A True Account of God and the Sacred Religion)
1585 - Carmelite leader Jerome Gracian meets with Martin Ignatius de Loyola, a Franciscan missionary from China. The two sign a vinculo de hermandad misionera -- a bond of missionary brotherhood -- by which the two orders would collaborate in missionary work in Ethiopia, China, the Philippines, and the East and West Indies.
1586 - Portuguese missionary Joao dos Santos reports that locals kill elephants to protect their crops in Sofala, Mozambique.
1587 - All foreigners ordered out of Japan; Manteo becomes the first American Indian to be baptized by the Church of England
1588 - A Dominican missionary arrives in the Philippines
1589 - Francis Solano goes to Peru as a missionary
1590 - A book by Belgian pastor Hadrian Saravia has a chapter arguing that the Great Commission is still binding on the church today because the Apostles did not fulfill it completely
1591 - First Roman Catholic church built in Trinidad; First Chinese admitted as members of the Jesuit order
1593 - The Franciscans arrive in Japan and establish St. Anna's hospital in Kyoto
1594 - First Jesuit missionaries arrive in Pakistan
1595 - Dutch East India Company chaplains expand their ministry beyond the European expatriates
1596 - Jesuit missionaries travel across the island of Samar in the Philippines to establish mission centers on the eastern side
1597 - Twenty-six Japanese Christians are crucified for their faith by General Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Nagasaki, Japan. By 1640, thousands of Japanese Christians will have been martyred.
1598 - Spanish missionaries push north from Mexico into what is now the state of New Mexico
1599 - Jesuit Francisco Fernandez goes to what is now the Jessore District of Bangladesh and, with the permission of King Pratapaditya, builds a church there
1600 - French missionaries arrive in the area of what is now Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
1601 - Matteo Ricci goes to China; First ordination of Japanese priests
1602 - Chinese scientist and translator Xu Guangqi is baptized
1603 - The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan commences publication of a Japanese- Portuguese dictionary
1604 - Jesuit missionary Abbè Jessè Flèchè arrives at Port Royal, Nova Scotia
1605 - Roberto de Nobili goes to India
1606 - Japanese Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu bans Christianity
1607 - Missionary Juan Fonte establishes the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico
1608 - A missionary expedition into the Ceará area of Brazil fails when the Tacariju kill the Jesuit leader
1609 - Missionary Nicolas Trigault goes to China
1610 - Chinese mathematician and astronomer Li Zhizao is baptized
1611 - Two Jesuits begin work among Mi'kmaq Indians of Nova Scotia
1612 - Jesuits found a mission for the Abenakis in Maine
1613 - Missionary Alvarus de Semedo goes to China
1614 - Anti-Christian edicts issued in Japan
1615 - French missionaries in Canada open schools in Trois-Rivieres and Tadoussac to teach Native American children with the hopes of converting them
1616 - Nanjing Missionary Case in which the clash between Chinese practice of ancestor worship and Catholic doctrine ends in the deportation of foreign missionaries. Missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell arrives in China
1617 - Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina arrives in Vietnam
1618 - Portuguese Carmelites go from Persia to Pakistan to establish a church in Thatta (near Karachi)
1619 - Dominican missionaries found the University of St. Tomas in the Philippine islands
1620 - Carmelites enter Goa
1621 - The Augustinians establish themselves in Chittagong
1622 - Pope Gregory VI founds the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith
1623 - A team of workers digging near an ancient Christian church and monastery in Ch'ang-ngan (Si-ngan-fu), China unearth an ancient stone monument over 9 feet tall, 33 inches wide, and 10 inches thick. The text, in both Chinese characters and Persian script, begins with the words, "Let us praise the Lord that the [Christian] faith has been popular in China." The inscription had been written by Ching Ching (Adam), a Syrian monk in AD 781. It told of the arrival of a missionary, A-lo-pen (Abraham), in AD 625. He had arrived "bearing the sacred books, braving difficulties and dangers." Christianity was described as "The Illustrious Religion," and the text included a doctrinal overview and a list of Christian worship practices and ethics. It also mentioned a succession of Emperors who were greatly supportive of the Church, and the names of 67 priests in both Persian and Chinese.
1624 - Persecution intensifies in Japan with 50 Christians being burned alive in Edo (now called Tokyo)
1625 - Vietnam expels missionaries
1626 - After entering Japan in disguise, Jesuit missionary Francis Pacheco is captured and executed at Nagasaki
1627 - Alexander de Rhodes goes to Vietnam where in three years of ministry he baptizes 6,700 converts
1628 - Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples established in Rome to train "native clergy" from all over the world
1629 - Franciscan missionary Benavides founds Santa Clara de Capo on the border of Apache Indian country in what is now New Mexico
1630 - An attempt is made in the El Paso, Texas area to establish a mission among the Mansos Indians
1631 - Dutch missionary Abraham Roger, who authored Open Door to the Hidden Heathendom, begins 10 years of ministry among the Tamil people in the Dutch colony of Pulicat near Madras, India
1632 - Zuni Indians murder a group of Franciscan missionaries who had three years earlier established the first mission to the Zunis at Hawikuh in what is now New Mexico
1633 - German Lutheran Church sends Peter Heyling as first Protestant missionary to Ethiopia
1634 - Jesuit missionary Jean de Brèbeuf travels to the Petun nation (in Canada) and baptizes a
40 year old man.
1635 - An expedition of Franciscans leaves Quito, Ecuador, to try to penetrate into Amazonia from the west. Though most of them will be killed along the way, a few will manage to arrive two years later on the Atlantic coast.
1636 - The Dominicans of Manila (the Philippines) organize a missionary expedition to Japan. They are arrested on one of the Okinawa islands and will be eventually condemned to death by the tribunal of Nagasaki.
1637 - When smallpox kills thousands of Native Americans, tribal medicine men blame European missionaries for the disaster
1638 - Official ban of Christianity in Japan with death penalty; Influential Puritan Richard Sibbes writes The Fountain Opened in which he says that the gospel must continue its journey "til it have gone over the whole world."
1639 - The first women to New France as missionaries -- three Ursuline Nuns -- board the "St. Joseph" and set sail for New France
1640 - Jesuit missionaries arrive on the Caribbean island of Martinique
1641 - Jesuit missionary Cristoval de Acuna describes the Amazon River in a written report to the king of Spain
1642 - Catholic missionaries Isaac Jogues and Rene Goupil are captured by Mohawk Indians as they return to Huron country from Quebec. Goupil was tomahawked to death while Jogues will be held for a period of time as a slave. He used his slavery as an opportunity for missionary work
1643 - John Campanius, Lutheran missionary to the Indians, arrives in America on the Delaware River; Reformed pastor Johannes Megapolensis begins outreach to Native Americans while pastoring at Albany, New York
1644 - John Eliot begins ministry to Algonquin Indians in North America
1645 - After thirty years of work in Vietnam, the Jesuits are expelled from that country
1646 - After being accused of being a sorcerer, Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues is killed by the Iroquois
1647 - The Discalced Carmelites begin work on Madagascar
1648 - Baptism of Helena and other members of the imperial Ming family
1649 - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel In New England formed to reach the Indians of New England
1650 - The destruction of Huronia by the Iroquois puts an end to the Jesuits' dream of making the Huron Indians the focal point of their evangelism
1651 - Count Truchsess of Wetzhausen, prominent Lutheran layman, asks the theological faculty of Wittenberg why Lutherans are not sending out missionaries in obedience to the Great Commission
1652 - Jesuit Antonio Vieira returns to Brazil as a missionary where he will champion the cause of exploited indigenous peoples until being expelled by Portuguese colonists
1653 - A Mohawk war party captures Jesuit Joseph Poncet near Montreal. He is tortured and will be finally sent back with a message about peace overtures
1654 - John Eliot publishes a catechism for American Indians
1655 - Jinga, princess of Matamba in Angola is converted; later she will write to the Pope urging that more missionaries be sent
1656 - First Quaker missionaries arrive in what is now Boston, Massachusetts
1657 - Thomas Mayhew, Jr., is lost at sea during a voyage to England that was to combine an appeal for missionary funds with personal business
1658 - After the flight of the French missionaries from his area, chief Daniel Garakonthie of the Onondaga Indians, examines the customs of the French colonists and the doctrines of the missionaries and openly begins protecting Christians in his part of what is now New York
1659 - Jesuit Alexander de Rhodes establishes the Paris Foreign Missions Society
1660 - Christianity is introduced into Cambodia
1661 - George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sends 3 missionaries to China (although they never reached the field)
1662 - French Jesuit missionary Julien Garnier sails for Canada
1663 - John Eliot's translation of the Bible into one of the Algonquian languages is published (the New Testament came out two years earlier). This Bible was the first complete Bible to be printed in the New World
1664 - Justinian Von Welz, author of three powerful pamphlets on the need for world missions, goes to Dutch Guinea (now called Surinam) where he dies after only three months
1665 - Japanese feudal landholders (called Daimyo) were ordered to follow the shogunate's example and to appoint inquisitors to do a yearly scrutiny of Christians
1666 - John Eliot publishes his The Indian Grammar, a book written to assist in conversion work among the Indians. Described as "some bones and ribs preparation for such a work," Eliot intended his Grammar for missionaries wishing to learn the dialect spoken by the Massachusett Indians.
1667 - The first missionary to attempt to reach the Huaorani (or Aucas), Jesuit Pedro Suarez, is slain with spears
1668 - In a letter from his post in Canada, French missionary Jacques Bruyas laments his ignorance of the Oneida language: "What can a man do who does not understand their language, and who is not understood when he speaks. As yet, I do nothing but stammer; nevertheless, in four months I have baptized 60 persons, among whom there are only four adults, baptized in periculo mortis. All the rest are little children."
1669 - Eager to compete with the Jesuits for conversion of the Indian Nations on the western Great Lakes, Sulpilcian missionaries Dollier de Casson and Galinee set out from Montreal with twenty-seven men in seven canoes led by two canoes of Seneca Indians
1670 - Jesuits establish missions on the Orinoco River in Venezuela
1671 - Quaker missionaries arrive in the Carolinas
1672 - A chieftain on Guam kills Jesuit missionary Diego Luis de San Vitores and his Visayan assistant, Pedro Calungsod, for having baptized the chief's daughter without his permission (some accounts do say the girl's mother consented to the baptism)
1673 - French trader Louis Jolliet and missionary Jacques Marquette visit what is now the state of Illinois, where the latter establishes a mission for Native Americans
1674 - Vincentian mission to Madagascar collapses after 25 years of abortive effort
1675 - An uprising on the islands of Micronesia leads to the death of three Christian missionaries
1676 - Kateri Tekakwitha, who became known as the Lily of the Mohawks, is baptized by a Jesuit missionary. Her tribes-people will jeer and stone her for her new faith, and she will eventually go to a missionary settlement in Canada
1678 - French missionaries Jean La Salle and Louis Hennepin discover Niagara Falls, that stupendous series of waterfalls on the Niagara River between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie
1679 - Writing from Changzhou, newly arrived missionary Juan de Yrigoyen describes three Christian congregations flourishing in that Chinese city
1680 - The Pueblo Revolt begins in New Mexico with the killing of twenty-one Franciscan missionaries
1681 - After arriving in New Spain, Italian Jesuit Eusebio Kino soon becomes what one writer described as "the most picturesque missionary pioneer of all North America." A bundle of evangelistic zeal, Kino was also an explorer, astronomer, cartographer, mission builder, ranchman, cattle king, and defender of the frontier
1682 - 13 missionaries go to "remote cities" in East Siberia
1683 - Missionary Louis Hennepin returns to France after exploring Minnesota and being held captive by the Dakota to write the first book about Minnesota, Description de la Louisiane
1684 - Louis XIV of France sends Jesuit missionaries to China bearing gifts from the collections of the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles
1685 - Consecration of first Catholic bishop of Chinese origin
1686 - Russian Orthodox monks arrive in China as missionaries
1687 - French activity begins in what is now Côte d'Ivoire when missionaries land at Assinie
1688 - New Testament translated into the Malay language (the first Bible translation into a language of southeast Asia)
1689 - Calusa Indian chief from what is the state of Florida visits Cuba requesting missionaries
1690 - First Franciscan missionaries arrive in Texas
1691 - Christian Faith Society for the West Indies organized
1692 - Chinese Kangxi Emperor permits the Jesuits to freely preach the Christian message, converting whom they wish
1693 - Jesuit missionary John de Britto is publicly beheaded in India
1694 - Missionary and explorer Eusebio Kino becomes the first European to enter the Tucson, Arizona basin and create a lasting settlement
1695 - China's first Russian Orthodox church building is consecrated
1696 - Jesuit missionary Francois Pinet founds the Mission of the Guardian Angel near what is today Chicago, Illinois. The mission was abandoned in 1700 when missionary efforts seemed fruitless
1697 - To evangelize the English colonies, Thomas Bray, an Anglican preacher who made several missionary trips to North America, begins laying the groundwork for what will be the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
1698 - Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge organized by Anglicans
1699 - Priests of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions establish a mission among the Tamaroa Indians at Cahokia in what is now the state of Illinois
1700 - After a Swedish missionary's sermon to an Indian tribe in Pennsylvania, one Native American posed such searching questions that the episode was reported in a history of the Swedish church in America printed in 1731. The interchange later inspired Benjamin Franklin's Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784), in which Franklin has an Indian reply to a sermon on original sin: "What you have told us ... is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cyder."
1701 - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts officially organized
1702 - George Keith, Scotch Quaker, arrives in America as a missionary of the newly-organized Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
1703 - The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts expands to the West Indies
1704 - French missionary priests arrive to evangelize the Chitimacha living along the Mississippi River in what is now the state of Louisiana
1705 - Danish-Halle Mission to India begins with Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henry Plutschau
1706 - Irish-born Francis Makemie, who has been an itinerant Presbyterian missionary among the colonists of America since 1683, is finally able to organize the first American presbytery
1707 - Maillard de Tournon makes public, in Nanjing, the Vatican decisions on rites, including the stipulations against the veneration of ancestors and of Confucius. Clergy who do not conform are to be excommunicated. Emperor Kangxi is furious. To him, the Pope is a foreign sovereign who has no right to interfere in Chinese affairs; Italian Capuchin missionaries reach Kathmandu in Nepal
1708 - Jesuit missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti is arrested in Japan. He is taken to Edo (now called Tokyo) to be interrogated by Arai Hakuseki
1709 - Experience Mayhew, missionary to the Martha's Vineyard Indians, translates the Psalms and the Gospel of John into the Massachusett language. It will be a work considered second only to John Eliot's Indian Bible in terms of significant Indian-language translations in colonial New England
1710 - German Bible Society founded by Count Canstein
1711 - Jesuit Eusebio Kino, missionary explorer in southern Arizona and northern Sonora, dies suddenly in northern Mexico. Kino, who has been called "the cowboy missionary," had fought against the exploitation of Indians in Mexican silver mines.
1712 - Using a press sent by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Tranquebar Mission in India begins printing books in the Portuguese language
1713 - Jesuit Ippolito Desideri goes to Tibet as a missionary
1714 - New Testament translated into Tamil (India); a missionary training college is established in Copenhagen
1715 - Eastern Orthodox Church missionary outreach is renewed in Manchuria and Northern China
1716 - The establishment of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio is authorized by the viceroy of Mexico. The mission was to be an educational center for Native Americans who converted to Christianity.
1717 - Chen Mao writes to the Chinese Emperor about his concerns over Catholic missionaries and Western traders. He urgently requested an all-out prohibition of Catholic missionaries in the Qing provinces.
1718 - Bartholomew Ziegenbalg constructs a church building in India that is still in use today
1719 - Isaac Watts writes missionary hymn "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun"
1720 - Missionary Johann Ernst Gruendler dies in India. He had arrived there in 1709 with the sponsorship of the Danish Mission Society
1721 - Mission San Juan Bautista Malibat in Baja California is abandoned due to the hostility of the Cochimies Indians, as well as to the decimation of the local population by epidemics and a water shortage
1722 - Hans Egede goes to Greenland
1723 - Robert Millar publishes A History of the Propagation of Christianity and the Overthrow of Paganism
1724 - Yongzheng Emperor bans missionary activities outside the Beijing area
1725 - Knud Leem arrives as a missionary to the Sami people of Finnmark (Norwegian Arctic)
1726 - John Wright, a Quaker missionary to the Native Americans, settles in southeastern Pennsylvania
1728 - Institutum Judaicum founded in Halle by Francke as first Protestant mission center for Jewish evangelism
1729 - Roman Catholic missionary Du Poisson becomes the first victim in the Natchez massacre. On his way to New Orleans, he had been asked to stop and say Mass at the Natchez post. He was killed in front of the altar
1730 - Lombard, French missionary, founds a Christian village with over 600 Indians at the mouth of Kuru river in French Guiana. A Jesuit, Lombard has been called the most successful of all missionaries in converting the Indians of French Guiana
1731 - A missionary movement is born when Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf attends the coronation of King Christian VI of Denmark. For the first time, he met a non-European who talked about only recently hearing the name of Christ. By the following year, the movement with which Zinzendorf was associated, the Moravians, would launch missionary outreach in the Caribbean.
1732 - Alphonsus Liguori founds the Roman Catholic religious order known as the Redemptorist Fathers with the purpose of doing missionary work among rural people
1733 - Moravians go to Greenland
1734 - A missionary convinces a Groton, Connecticut church to lend its building to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe for Christian worship services.
1735 - John Wesley goes to Indians in Georgia as missionary with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
1736 - Anti-Christian edicts in China; Moravian missionaries at work among Nenets people of Arkhangelsk
1737 - Rev. Pugh, a missionary in Pennsylvania with The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, writes home to London to say that he had begun ministering to blacks. He noted that the masters of the slaves were prejudiced against them becoming Christian.
1738 - Moravian missionary George Schmidt settles in Baviaan Kloof (Kloof of the Baboons) in the Riviersonderend Valley of South Africa. He begins working with the Khoikhoi people, who were practically on the threshold of extinction.
1739 - The first missionary to the Mahican (Mohegan) Indians, John Sergeant, builds a home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts that is today a museum.
1740 - Moravian David Zeisberger starts work among Creek people of Georgia
1741 - Dutch missionaries start building Christ Church building in Malacca Town, Malaysia. It will take 12 years to complete.
1742 - Moravian Leader Count Zinzendorf visits Shekomeko, New York and baptizes six Indians
1743 - David Brainerd starts ministry to North American Indians
1744 - Thomas Thompson resigns his position as dean at the University of Cambridge to become a missionary. He was sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to New Jersey. Taking a special interest in the slave population there, he would later request to begin mission work in Africa. In 1751, Thompson would become the first S.P.G. missionary to the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana).
1745 - One day in late December, David Brainerd, missionary to Native Americans, writes in his journal: "After public worship was over, I went to my house, proposing to preach again after a short season of intermission. But they soon came in one after another; with tears in their eyes, to know, what they should do to be saved. . . . It was an amazing season of power among them, and seemed as if God had bowed the heavens and come down ... and that God was about to convert the whole world."
1746 - From Boston, Massachussets a call is issued to the Christians of the New World to enter into a seven-year "Concert of Prayer" for missionary work
1747 - Jonathan Edwards appeals for prayer for world missions; birth of Thomas Coke, the "Father of Methodist Missions"
1748 - Roman Catholic Pedro Sanz and the four other missionaries are executed, together with
14 Chinese Christians. Prior to his death, Sanz reportedly converted some of his prison guards to Christianity.
1749 - Spanish Franciscan priest Junipero Serra (1713-1784) arrives in Mexico as a missionary. In 1767 he would go north to what is now California, zealously converting native Americans.
1750 - Jonathan Edwards, preacher of the First Great Awakening, having been banished from his church at Northampton, Massachusetts goes as a missionary to the nearby Housatonic Indians. Christian Frederic Schwartz goes to India with Danish-Halle Mission
1751 - Samuel Cooke arrives in New Jersey as a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
1752 - Thomas Thompson, first Anglican missionary to Africa, arrives in the Gold Coast (now Ghana)
1753 - Searchers in Labrador looking for Moravian Johann Christian Erhardt finds the body of one of his traveling companions. The disappearance of Erhardt and six companions had led to temporary abandonment of Moravian missionary initiatives in Labrador.
1754 - Moravian John Ettwein arrives in America from Germany as a missionary. Preaching to Native Americans and establishing missions, Ettwein will travel as far south as Georgia. Eventually, he will become head of the Moravian church in what is now the United States.
1755 - The Mahican Indian settlement at Gnadenhutten, Pa. is attacked and destroyed. Moravian missionary Johann Jacob Schmick who pastors a group of Indian converts, will remain with the Mahicans through exile and captivity despite almost constant threats from white neighbors. Schmick will join his Indian congregation as they seek refuge in Bethlehem, follow them as captives to Philadelphia, and remain with them after they settle in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.
1756 - Civil unrest forces Gideon Halley away from his missionary work among the Six Nations on the Susquehanna River where he has been working for four years under the supervision of Jonathan Edwards with an appointment from the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians.
1757 - Lutherans reportedly begin ministering to Blacks in the Caribbean
1758 - John Wesley baptizes two African-American slaves, thus breaking the skin color barrier for Methodist societies
1759 - Native American Samson Occom, direct descendant of the great Mahican chief Uncas, is ordained by the Presbyterians. Despite poor eyesight, Occom became the first American Indian to publish works in English. These included sermons, hymns and a short autobiography.
1760 - Adam Voelker and Christian Butler arrive in Tranquebar as the first Moravian missionaries to India
1761 - The first Moravian missionary in Ohio, Frederick Post, settles on the north side of the Muskingum in what is now Bethlehem township
1762 - Moravian Missionary John Heckewelder confers with Koquethagacton ("White Eyes") at the mouth of the Beaver River (Pennsylvania)
1763 - The Presbyterian Synod of New York orders that a collection for missions be taken. In
1767 the Synod will ask that this collection be done annually.
1764 - The Moravians make a decision to expand and begin publicizing their missionary activity, particular in the British colonies; Moravian Jens Haven makes the first of three exploratory missionary journeys to Greenland
1765 - Suriname Governor General Crommelin convinces three Moravian missionaries to work near the head waters of the Gran Rio. They settle among the Saramaka near the Senthea Creek in Granman Abini's village where they are received with mixed feelings.
1766 - Philip Quaque, a Fetu youth from the Cape Coast area of Ghana who spent twelve years studying in England, returns to Africa. Supported as a missionary by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Quaque is first non-European ordained priest in the Church of England
1767 - Spain expels the Jesuits from Spanish colonies in the New World
1768 - Five United Brethren missionaries from Germany, invited by the Danish Guinea Company, arrive in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), to teach in the Cape Coast Castle schools
1769 - Junípero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, first of the 21 Alta California missions.
1770 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, begins ministering cross-culturally, preaching to the American Indians. By 1775 he had carried the gospel to the Cherokee and Creek Indians as well as to groups he called the Catawar and Housaw peoples.
1771 - Francis Asbury arrives in America; David Avery is ordained as missionary to the Oneida tribe
1772 - After visiting Scilly Cove in Newfoundland, Canada, missionary James Balfour describes it as a "most Barbarous Lawless Place"
1773 - Pope Clement XIV dissolves the Jesuit Order; two Dominican order missionaries beheaded in Vietnam
1774 - Moravian missionaries Christoph Brasen and Gottfried Lehmann drown when their sloop sinks in a storm off Greenland
1775 - John Crook is sent by Liverpool Methodists to the Isle of Man
1776 - Cyril Vasilyevich Suchanov builds first church among Evenks of Transbaikal (or Dauria) in (Siberia); The first baptism of an Eskimo by a Lutheran pastor takes place in Labrador.
1777 - Portuguese missionaries build a church at Hashnabad, Bangladesh
1778 - Theodore Sladich is martyred while doing missionary work to counter Islamic influence in the western Balkans
1779 - Charles Simeon is converted while a student at King's College, Cambridge. Twenty years later he helped found what became the Church Missionary Society.
1780 - August Gottlieb Spangenberg writes An Account of the Manner in Which the Protestant Church of the Unitas Fratrum, or United Brethren, Preach the Gospel, and Carry On Their Missions Among the Heathen. Originally written in the German language, the book will be translated into English in 1788.
1781 - In the midst of the American Revolutionary War, the British so feared Moravian missionary David Zeisberger and his influence among the Lenapi (also called Delaware) and other Native Americans that they arrested him and his assistant, John Heckewelder, charging them with treason,
1782 - Freed slave George Lisle goes to Jamaica as missionary
1783 - Moses Baker and George Gibbions, both former slaves, leave the U.S. to become missionaries in the West Indies
1784 - Thomas Coke (Methodist) submits his Plan for the Society for the Establishment of Missions Among the Heathen. Methodist missions among the "heathen" will begin in 1786 when Coke, destined for Nova Scotia, is driven off course by a storm and lands at Antigua in the British West Indies.
1785 - Joseph White's sermon titled "On the Duty of Attempting the Propagation of the Gospel among our Mahometan and Gentoo Subjects in India" is published in the second edition of his book Sermons Containing a View of Christianity and Mahometanism, in their History, their Evidence, and their Effects. The sermon was first preached at the University of Oxford.
1786 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, preaches to "a great number of Indians and white people" at Green's Harbor, Newfoundland. Marrant's cross-cultural ministry led him to take the Gospel to the Cherokee, Creek, Catawba (he called them the Catawar), and Housaw Indians.
1787 - William Carey is ordained in England by the Particular Baptists and soon begins to urge that worldwide missions be undertaken
1788 - Dutch missionaries begin preaching the Gospel among fishermen in Bangladesh
1789 - The Jesuits, establish Georgetown University in present-day Washington, D.C., as the first US Catholic college
1790 - Prince Williams, a freed slave from South Carolina, goes to Nassau, Bahamas, where he will start Bethel Meeting House
1791 - One hundred and twenty Korean Christians are tortured and killed for their faith. It began when Paul Yun Ji-Chung, a noble who had become a Christian, decided not to bury his mother according to traditional Confucian custom. A ferocious persecution of Christians had been when this is reported to the authorities.
1792 - William Carey writes Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen and forms the Baptist Missionary Society to support him in establishing missionary work in India.
1793 - Frontier missionary Stephen Badin
1794 - Eight Russian Orthodox missionaries arrive in Alaska
1795 - The London Missionary Society is formed to send missionaries to Tahiti
1796 - Scottish and Glasgow Missionary Societies established; In India, Johann Philipp Fabricius finishes translating entire Bible into Tamil
1797 - Netherlands Missionary Society formed; The Duff, carrying 37 lay and pastoral missionaries, drops anchor in Tahiti; Twenty-one-year-old William Pascoe Crook of the London Missionary Society is left alone at Vaitahu on the Pacific island of Tahuata. The first missionary to visit Hiva, he was not well received by the islanders.
1798 - The Missionary Society of Connecticut is organized by the Congregationalists to take the gospel to the "heathen lands" of Vermont and Ohio. Its missionaries evangelized both European settlers and Native Americans.
1799 - The Church Missionary Society (Church of England) is formed; John Vanderkemp, Dutch physician goes to Cape Colony, Africa; Religious Tract Society organized
1800 - New York Missionary Society formed
1801 - John Theodosius Van Der Kemp moves to Graaff Reinet to minister to the Khoikhoi (Hottentots) people. Earlier he had helped found the Netherlands Missionary Society. In 1798, he had gone to South Africa to work as a missionary among the Xhosa.
1802 - Henry Martyn hears Charles Simeon speak of William Carey's work in India and resolves to become a missionary himself. He will sail for India in 1805
1803 - The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society votes to publish a missionary magazine. Now known as The American Baptist, the periodical is the oldest religious magazine in the U.S.
1804 - British and Foreign Bible Society formed; Church Missionary Society enters Sierra Leone
1805 - The first Christian missionaries arrive in Namibia, brothers Abraham and Christian Albrecht from the London Missionary Society
1806 - Haystack prayer meeting at Williams College; Andover Theological Seminary founded as a missionary training center; Protestant missionary work begins in earnest across southern Africa
1807 - First Protestant missionary to China, Robert Morrison, begins work in Guangzhou (formerly called Canton)
1808 - London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews founded
1809 - National Bible Society of Scotland organized
1810 - The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is formed
1811 - English Wesleyans enter Sierra Leone
1812 - First American foreign missionary, Adoniram Judson, arrives in Serampore and soon goes to Burma
1813 - The Methodists form the Wesleyan Missionary Society.
1814 - First recorded baptism of a Chinese convert, Cai Gao; American Baptist Foreign Mission Society formed; Netherlands Bible Society founded; four Native Americans from beyond the Rocky Mountains come east to St. Louis, Missouri seeking information on the "palefaces' religion"; first missionaries arrive in New Zealand led by Samuel Marsden
1815 - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions open work on Ceylon; Basel Missionary Society organized; Richmond African Missionary Society founded.
1816 - Robert Moffat arrives in Africa; American Bible Society founded
1817 - James Thompson begins distributing Bibles throughout Latin America
1818 - Missionary work begins in Madagascar with the reluctant approval of the king
1819 - John Scudder, missionary physician, joins the Ceylon Mission; Wesleyan Methodists start work in Madras, India; Reginald Heber writes words to missionary classic "From Greenland's Icy Mountains"
1820 - Hiram Bingham goes to Hawaii (Sandwich Islands)
1821 - African-American Lott Carey, a Baptist missionary, sails with 28 colleagues from Norfolk, VA to Sierra Leone; Protestant Episcopal Church mission board established.
1822 - Paris Evangelical Missionary Society established
1823 - Scottish Missionary Society workers arrive in Mumbai (known then as Bombay), India; Liang Fa, first Chinese Protestant evangelist, is ordained by Robert Morrison; Colonial and Continental Church Society formed; African American Betsy Stockton is sent by the American Board of Missions to Hawaii. She thus becomes the first single woman missionary in the history of modern missions.
1824 - Berlin Mission Society formed
1825 - George Boardman goes to Burma
1826 - American Bible Society sends first shipment of Bibles to Mexico
1827 - Missionary Lancelot Threlkeld reports in The Monitor that he was "advancing rapidly" in his efforts to disseminate Holy Scripture among Indigenous Australians of the Hunter and Shoalhaven Rivers.
1828 - Basel Mission begins work in the Christiansborg area of Accra, Ghana; Karl Gutzlaff of the Netherlands Missionary Society lands in Bangkok, Thailand; Rhenish Missionary Association formed
1829 - George Mueller, a native of Prussia, goes to England as a missionary to the Jews
1830 - Church of Scotland missionary Alexander Duff arrives in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta); William Swan, missionary to Siberia, writes Letters on Missions, the first Protestant comprehensive treatment of the theory and practice of missions; Baptism of Taufa'ahau Tupou, King of Tonga, by a western missionary
1831 - American Congregational missionaries arrive in Thailand, withdrawing in 1849 without a single convert; Presbyterian Church mission board established; Trinitarian Bible Society formed
1832 - Teava, former cannibal and pioneer Pacific Islander missionary, is commissioned by John Williams to work on the Samoan island of Manono
1833 - Baptist work in Thailand begins with John Taylor Jones; American Methodist missionary Melville Box arrives in Liberia; Free Will Baptist Foreign Missionary Society begins work in India
1834 - American Presbyterian Mission opens work in India in the Punjab
1835 - Rhenish Missionary Society begins work among the Dayaks on Borneo (Indonesia); Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta calls India's caste system "a cancer."
1836 - Plymouth Brethren begin work in Madras, India; George Müller begins his work with orphans in Bristol, England;Gossner Mission formed; Leipzig Mission Society established; Colonial Missionary Society formed; The Providence Missionary Baptist District Association is formed, one of at least six national organizations among African American Baptists whose sole objective was missionary work in Africa.
1837 - Evangelical Lutheran Church mission board established; First translation of Bible into Japanese (actual translation work done in Singapore)
1838 - Church of Scotland Mission of Inquiry to the Jews; four Scottish ministers including Robert Murray M'Cheyne and Andrew Bonar journey to Palestine.
1839 - Entire Bible is published in language of Tahiti; three French missionaries martyred in Korea; English Protestant missionaries murdered on Erromango (Vanuatu, South Pacific)
1840 - David Livingstone is in present-day Malawi (Africa) with the London Missionary Society; American Presbyterians enter Thailand and labor for 18 years before seeing their first Thai convert; Irish Presbyterian Missionary Society formed; Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Missionary Society founded
1841 - Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society formed; Welsh Methodists begin working among the Khasi people of India
1842 - Gossner Mission Society begun in Berlin
1843 - Baptist John Taylor Jones translates New Testament into the Thai language; British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews formed
1844 - German Ludwig Krapf begins work in Mombasa on the Kenya Coast; first Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) formed by George Williams; George Smith and Thomas McClatchie sail for China as the first two CMS missionaries to that country
1845 - Southern Baptist Convention mission organization founded
1846 - The London Missionary Society establishes work on Niue, a South Pacific island which westerners had named the "savage island."
1847 - Presbyterian William Burns goes to China, translates The Pilgrim's Progress into Chinese; Moses White sails to China as a Methodist medical missionary
1848 - Charles Forman goes to Punjab; German missionaries Johannes Rebmann and Johann Ludwig Krapf arrive at Kilimanjaro. Initially, their story of a snow-covered peak near the equator was scoffed at.
1849 - Just weeks after arriving on the Melanesian island of Aneityum (or Anatom), missionary John Geddie wrote in his journal: "In the darkness, degradation, pollution and misery that surrounds me, I will look forward in the vision of faith to the time when some of these poor islanders will unite in the triumphant song of ransomed souls, 'Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.'"
1850 - On the occasion of Karl Gützlaff's visit to Europe, the Berlin Ladies Association for China is established in conjunction with the Berlin Missionary Association for China. Work in China will commence in 1851 with the arrival of Hermandine Neumann in Hong Kong.
1851 - Allen Gardiner and six missionary colleagues die of exposure and starvation at Patagonia on the southern tip of South America when a re-supply ship from England arrives six months late
1852 - Zenana (women) and Medical Missionary Fellowship formed in England to send out single women missionaries
1853- The Hermannsburg Missionary Society, founded in 1849 by Louis Harms, has finished training its first group of young missionaries. They are sent to Africa on a ship (the Kandaze) which had been built entirely from donations.
1854 - London Missionary Conference; New York Missionary Conference; Henry Venn, secretary of the Church Missionary Society, sets out ideal of self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating churches; Hudson Taylor arrives in China
1855 - Henry Steinhauer is ordained as a Canadian Methodist missionary to North American Indians and posted to Lac La Biche, Alberta. Steinhauer's missionary work had actually begun 15 years earlier in 1840 when he was assigned to Lac La Pluie to assist in translating, teaching and interpreting the Ojibwa and Cree languages.
1856 - Presbyterians start work in Colombia with the arrival of Henry Pratt
1857 - Bible translated into Tswana language; Board of Foreign Missions of Dutch Reformed Church set up
1858 - John G. Paton begins work in New Hebrides; Elizabeth Freeman martyred in India; Basel Evangelical Missionary Society begins work in western Sumatra (Indonesia);Publication of David Livingstone's book Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
1859 - Protestant missionaries arrive in Japan
1860 - United Lutheran Church begins work in Liberia; Liverpool Missionary Conference; Cyrus Hamlin lays groundwork for the establishment of Robert College in Constantinople
1861 - Protestant Stundism arises in the village of Osnova of modern-day Ukraine; Sarah Doremus founds the Women's Union Missionary Society; Episcopal Church opens work in Haiti; Rhenish Mission goes to Indonesia under Ludwig Nommensen
1862 - Paris Evangelical Missionary Society opens work in Senegal
1863 - Robert Moffat, missionary to Africa with the London Missionary Society, publishes his book Rivers of Water in a Dry Place, Being an Account of the Introduction of Christianity into South Africa, and of Mr. Moffat's Missionary Labours
1864 - Baptists enter Argentina
1865 - The China Inland Mission is founded by James Hudson Taylor; James Laidlaw Maxwell plants first viable church in Taiwan.
1866 - Theodore Jonas Meyer (1819-1894), a converted Jew serving as a Presbyterian missionary in Italy, nurses those dying in a cholera epidemic until he himself falls prey to the disease. Barely surviving, he becomes a peacemaker between Catholics and Protestants; Robert Thomas, the first Protestant martyr in Korea, is beheaded giving a Bible to his executioner.
1867 - Methodists start work in Argentina; Scripture Union established; Lars Skrefsrud and Hans Barreson begin working among the Santals of India.
1868 - Robert Bruce goes to Iran, Canadian Baptist missionary Americus Timpany begins work among the Telugu people in India.
1869 - The first Methodist women's missionary magazine, The Heathen Women's Friend, begins publication
1870 - Clara Swain, the very first female missionary medical doctor, arrives at Bareilly, India.
1871 - Henry Stanley finds David Livingstone in central Africa; George Leslie Mackay plants church in northern Taiwan.
1872 - First All-India Missionary Conference with 136 participants
1873 - Regions Beyond Missionary Union founded in London in connection with the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions; first Scripture portion (Gospel of Luke) translated into a language of the Philippines (Pangasinan); Lottie Moon appointed as missionary to China
1874 - Lord Radstock's first visit to St. Petersburg and the beginning of an evangelical awakening among the St. Petersburg nobility; Albert Sturges initiates the Interior Micronesia Mission in the Mortlock Islands under the leadership of Micronesian students from Ohwa
1875 - The Foreign Christian Missionary Society is organized with Isaac Errett as president. It served a network of churches within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Church of Christ movements.
1876 - In September, a rusty ocean steamer arrives at a port on the Calabar River in what is now Nigeria. That part of Africa was then known as the White Man's Grave. The only woman on board that ship is 29-year-old Mary Slessor, a missionary.
1877 - James Chalmers goes to New Guinea
1878 - Mass movement to Christ in Ongole, India; Evangelical Association Missionary Society formed
1879 - H. F. Reynolds enters the ministry. He became the missionary secretary of the new Church of the Nazarene in 1907.
1880 - Woman missionary doctor Fanny Butler goes to India; Missionary periodical The Gospel in All Lands is launched by A. B. Simpson
1881 - Methodist work in Lahore, Pakistan starts in the wake of revivals under Bishop William Taylor; North Africa Mission (now Arab World Ministries) founded on work of Edward Glenny in Algeria
1882 - James Gilmour, London Missionary Society missionary to Mongolia, goes home to England for a furlough. During that time he published a book: Among the Mongols. It was so well-written that one critic wrote, "Robinson Crusoe has turned missionary, lived years in Mongolia, and wrote a book about it." Concerning the author, the critic said, "If ever on earth there lived a man who kept the law of Christ, and could give proof of it, and be absolutely unconscious that he was giving it to them, it is this man whom the Mongols called 'our Gilmour.'"
1883 - Salvation Army enters West Pakistan; A.B. Simpson organizes The Missionary Union for the Evangelization of the World. The first classes of the Missionary Training College are held in New York City. Zaire Christian and Missionary Alliance mission field opens.
1884 - David Torrance is sent by the Jewish Mission of the Free Church of Scotland as a medical missionary to Palestine
1885 - Horace Underwood, Presbyterian missionary, and Henry Appenzellar, Methodist missionary, arrive in Korea; Scottish Ion Keith-Falconer goes to Aden on the Arabian peninsula; "Cambridge Seven" -- C. T. Studd, M. Beauchamp, W. W. Cassels, D. E. Hoste, S. P. Smith, A. T. Podhill-Turner, C. H. Polhill-Turner -- go to China as missionaries; Ugandan troops kill Anglican bishop James Hannigton and the Africans traveling with him.
1886 - Student Volunteer Movement launched as 100 university and seminary students at Moody's conference grounds at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, sign the Princeton Pledge which says: "I purpose, God willing, to become a foreign missionary."
1887 -Dr. William Cassidy, a Toronto medical doctor, was ordained as the Christian and Missionary Alliance's first missionary preacher. Unfortunately, en route to China, he died of smallpox. However, Cassidy's death has been called the "spark that ignited the Alliance missionary blaze."
1888 - Jonathan Goforth sails to China; Student Volunteer Movement for foreign missions officially organized with John R. Mott as chairman and Robert Wilder as traveling secretary. The movement's motto, coined by Wilder, was: "The evangelization of the world in this generation"; Scripture Gift Mission (now Lifewords) founded
1889 - Samuel Moffett sails from US for Korea, establishes Presbyterian Mission there; North Africa Mission enters Tripoli as first Protestant mission in Libya
1890 - Central American Mission founded by C. I. Scofield, editor of the Scofield Reference Bible; The Scandinavian Alliance (now The Evangelical Alliance Mission) founded; Methodist Charles Gabriel writes missionary song "Send the Light"; John Livingston Nevius of China visits Korea to outline his strategy for missions: 1) Each believer should be a productive member of society and active in sharing his faith; 2) The church in Korea should be distinctly Korean and free of foreign control; 3) The leaders of the Korean church will be selected and trained from its members; 4) Church buildings will be built by Koreans with their own resources
1891 - Samuel Zwemer goes to Arabia; Helen Chapman sails for the Congo (Zaire). She married a Danish missionary, William Rasmussen, whom she met during the voyage.
1892 - Redcliffe Missionary Training College founded in Chiswick (London)
1893 - Eleanor Chestnut goes to China as Presbyterian medical missionary; Sudan Interior Mission founded by Rowland Bingham, a graduate of Nyack College
1894 - Soatanana Revival begins in Madagascar, lasting over 90 years
1895 - Africa Inland Mission formed by Peter Cameron Scott; Japan Bible Society established; Roland Allen sent as missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to its North China Mission.
1896 - Ödön Scholtz founds the first Hungarian Lutheran foreign mission periodical Külmisszió
1897 - Presbyterian Church (USA) begins work in Venezuela
1898 - Theresa Huntington leaves her New England home for the Middle East. For seven years she will work as an American Board missionary in Elazig (Kharput) in the Ottoman Empire. Her letters home will be published in a book titled Great Need over the Water.
1899 - James Rodgers arrives in Philippines with the Presbyterian Mission; Central American Mission enters Guatemala
1900 - American Friends open work in Cuba; Ecumenical Missionary Conference in Carnegie Hall, New York (162 mission boards represented); 189 missionaries and their children killed in Boxer Rebellion in China; South African Andrew Murray writes The Key to the Missionary Problem in which he challenges the church to hold weeks of prayer for the world
1901 - Nazarene John Diaz goes to Cape Verde Islands; Maude Cary sails for Morocco; Disciples of Christ open work in northern Luzon (Philippines); Oriental Missionary Society founded by Charles Cowman (his wife is the compiler of popular devotional book Streams in the Desert); Missionary James Chalmers killed and eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea
1902 - Swiss members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Missions in Many Lands (CMML) enter Laos; California Yearly Meeting of Friends opens work in Guatemala
1903 - Church of the Nazarene enters Mexico
1904 - Premillennialist theologian W.E. Blackstone begins teaching that the world has already been evangelized, citing Acts 2:5, 8:4, Mark 16:20 and Colossians 1:23
1905 - Gunnerius Tollefsen is converted at a Salvation Army meeting under the preaching of Samuel Logan Brengle. Later he would become a missionary to the Belgian Congo and then first mission secretary of the Norwegian Pentecostal movement.
1906 - The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) opens work in Venezuela with T. J. Bach and John Christiansen
1907 - Harmon Schmelzenbach sails for Africa; Presbyterians and Methodists open Union Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines; Bolivian Indian Mission founded by George Allen
1908 - Gospel Missionary Union opens work in Colombia with Charles Chapman and John Funk; Assemblies of God enter Rome and southern Italy
1909 - Pentecostal movement organized in Chile; Nazarenes enter Argentina
1910 - C.T. Studd establishes Heart of Africa Mission (now called WEC International); Edinburgh Missionary Conference held in Scotland, presided over by John Mott, beginning modern ecumenical cooperation in missions
1911 - Christian & Missionary Alliance enters Vietnam
1912 - Conference of British Missionary Societies formed
1913 - African-American Eliza George sails from New York for Liberia
1914 - Large-scale revival movement in Uganda
1915 - Founded in 1913 in Nanjing, China as a women's Christian college, Ginling College officially opens with eight students and six teachers. It was supported by four missions: the Northern Baptists, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Methodists, and the Presbyterians.
1916 - Rhenish missionaries are forced to leave Ondjiva in southern Angola under pressure from the Portuguese authorities and Chief Mandume of the Kwanyama. By then, four congregations existed with a confessing membership of 800.
1917 - Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA) founded
1918 - James L. Barton, head of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, asked missionaries who had served in the Ottoman Empire for detailed reports of the horrors they had witnessed of the Armenian Genocide
1919 - The Union Version of Chinese Bible translation is published; Nazarenes enter South Africa
1920 - Baptist Mid-Missions formed;Church of the Nazarene enters Syria
1921 - Founding of International Missionary Council (IMC); Norwegian Mission Council formed
1922 - Nazarenes enter Mozambique
1923 - Scottish missionaries begin work in British Togoland
1924 - Bible Churchman's Missionary Society opens work in Upper Burma; Baptist Mid-Missions begins work in Venezuela
1925 - E. Stanley Jones, Methodist missionary to India, writes The Christ of the Indian Road
1926 - Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, is converted through Bible verses he had memorized
1927 - Near East Christian Council established
1928 - Cuba Bible Institute (West Indies Mission) opens; Jerusalem Conference of IMC
1929 - Christian & Missionary Alliance enters East Borneo (Indonesia)
1930 - Christian & Missionary Alliance starts work among Baouli tribe in the Côte d'Ivoire
1931 - HCJB radio station started in Quito, Ecuador by Clarence Jones; Baptist Mid-Missions enters Liberia
1932 - Assemblies of God open mission work in Colombia; Laymen's Missionary Inquiry report published
1933 - Gladys Aylward (subject of movie "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness") arrives in China
1934 - William Cameron Townsend begins the Summer Institute of Linguistics
1935 - Frank C. Laubach, American missionary to the Philippines, perfects the "Each one teach one" literacy program, which has been used worldwide to teach 60 million people to read.
1936 - With the outbreak of civil war in Spain, missionaries are forced to leave that country.
1937 - After expulsion of missionaries from Ethiopia by Italian invaders, widespread revival erupts among Protestant (SIM) churches in south
1938 - West Indies Mission enters Dominican Republic; Church Missionary Society forced out of Egypt; Madras World Missionary Conference held; Dr. Orpha Speicher oversees construction of Reynolds Memorial Hospital in central India
1939 - A sick missionary, Joy Ridderhof, makes a recording of gospel songs and a message and sends it into the mountains of Honduras. It is the beginning of Gospel Recordings
1940 - Marianna Slocum begins translation work in Mexico; Military police in Japan arrest the executive officers of the Salvation Army
1941 - The steamship Zamzam, sailing from New York with 140 missionaries bound for various mission fields in Africa, is sunk by the Germans. All the missionary passengers would be saved.
1942 - William Cameron Townsend founds Wycliffe Bible Translators; New Tribes mission founded with a vision to reach the tribal peoples of Bolivia
1943 - World Gospel Mission (National Holiness Missionary Society) enters Honduras; 5 missionaries with New Tribes Mission martyred; Nazarenes enter Virgin Islands; 11 American Baptist missionaries beheaded in the Philippines by Japanese soldiers
1944 - Missionaries return to Suki, Papua New Guinea after withdrawal of the Japanese military
1945 - Mission Aviation Fellowship formed; Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) founded; Evangelical Foreign Missions Association formed by denominational mission boards; Nazarenes enter Australia, Bolivia, Guyana and the Philippines
1946 - First Inter-Varsity missionary convention (now called "Urbana"); United Bible Societies formed;
1947 - Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society begins work among the Senufo people in the Côte d'Ivoire
1948 - Alfredo del Rosso merges his Italian Holiness Mission with the Church of the Nazarene, thus opening Nazarene work on the European continent; Don Owens opens work for the Church of the Nazarene in Korea; Southern Baptist Convention adopts program calling for the tripling of the number of missionaries (achieved by 1964)
1949 - Southern Baptist Mission board opens work in Venezuela
1950 - Paul Orjala arrives in Haiti; radio station 4VEH, owned by East and West Indies Bible Mission, starts broadcasting from near Cap Haitien, Haiti
1951 - World Evangelical Alliance organized; Bill and Vonette Bright create Campus Crusade for Christ at UCLA
1952 - Church of the Nazarene enters New Zealand; Trans World Radio founded
1953 - Walter Trobisch, who would publish I loved a girl in 1962, begins pioneer missionary work in northern Cameroon; Nazarenes enter Panama
1954 - Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities opens work in Cuba; Argentina Revival breaks out during Tommy Hicks crusade
1955 - Donald McGavran publishes Bridges of God; Dutch missionary "Brother Andrew" makes first of many Bible smuggling trips into Communist Eastern Europe; Sydney and Wanda Knox go to Papua New Guinea as Nazarene missionaries
1956 - U.S. missionaries Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Edward McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian die at the hands of the Huaorani on the Curaray River in Ecuador; Assemblies of God open work in Senegal
1957 - Nazarenes enter Malawi
1958 - Rochunga Pudaite completes translation of Bible into Hmar language (India) and was appointed the leader of the Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission; Nazarenes enter Brazil and Germany
1959 - Radio Lumiere founded in Haiti by West Indies Mission (now World Team); Josephine Makil becomes the first African-American to join Wycliffe Bible Translators.
1960 - Kenneth Strachan starts Evangelism-in-Depth in Central America; 18,000 people in Morocco reply to newspaper ad by Gospel Missionary Union offering free correspondence course on Christianity; Loren Cunningham founds Youth with a Mission
1961 - Nazarenes enter Zambia
1962 - Don Richardson goes to Sawi tribe in Papua New Guinea; Operation Mobilisation founded in Mexico by George Verwer
1963 - Theological Education by Extension movement launched in Guatemala by Ralph Winter and James Emery
1964 - In separate incidents, rebels in the Congo kill missionaries Paul Carlson and Irene Ferrel as well as brutalizing missionary doctor Helen Roseveare; Carlson is featured on December 4 TIME magazine cover; Hans von Staden of the Dorothea Mission proposes to Patrick Johnstone that he write the book now titled Operation World.
1965 - Evangelist Juliet Ndzimandze is ordained in Swaziland, the first woman in Africa to be ordained by the Church of the Nazarene
1966 - Red Guards destroy churches in China; Berlin Congress on Evangelism; Missionaries expelled from Burma; God's Smuggler published
1967 - A million Christians are killed in Biafra civil war; Church of the Nazarene enters the Netherlands
1968 - Wu Yung and others form the Chinese Missions Overseas in order to send out missionaries from Taiwan to do cross-cultural ministry
1969 - OMF International begins "industrial evangelism" to Taiwan's factory workers
1970 - Frankfurt Declaration on Mission; Operation Mobilisation launches Logos ship
1971 - Gustavo Gutierrez publishes A Theology of Liberation
1972 - American Society of Missiology founded with journal Missiology; Nazarenes enter Ecuador and St. Lucia
1973 - Church of the Nazarene enters Argentina, Indonesia, Namibia, and Portugal; first All-Asa Mission Consultation convenes in Seoul, Korea with 25 delegates from 14 countries; founding of American Society of Missiology
1974 - Missiologist Ralph Winter talks about "hidden" or unreached peoples at Lausanne Congress of World Evangelism. Lausanne Covenant is written and ratified; Guatemala Las Verapaces becomes first "regular" Nazarene district on a mission field
1975 - Missionaries Armand Doll and Hugh Friberg imprisoned in Mozambique after communist takeover of government
1976 - U.S. Center for World Mission founded in Pasadena, California; 1600 Chinese assemble in Hong Kong for the Chinese Congress on World Evangelization; Islamic World Congress calls for withdrawal of Christian missionaries; Peace Child appears in Reader's Digest.
1977 - Evangelical Fellowship of India sponsors the All-India Congress on Mission and Evangelization
1978 - Nazarenes enter Switzerland; LCWE Consultation on Gospel and Culture in Willowbank, Bermuda
1979 - Production of JESUS film commissioned by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ; PIONEERS is founded, the first missionary agency with a sole focus on the "unreached people groups" paradigm
1980 - Philippine Congress on Discipling a Whole Nation; Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism Conference in Pattaya
1981 - Colombian terrorists kidnap and kill Wycliffe Bible Translator Chet Bitterman; Project Pearl: one million Bibles are delivered in a single night to thousands of waiting believers in China
1982 - Third World Theologians Consultation in Seoul; story on "The New Missionary" makes December 27 cover of TIME magazine; Andes Evangelical Mission (formerly Bolivian Indian Mission) merges into SIM (formerly Sudan Interior Mission)
1983 - Nazarenes start work on St. Kitts-Nevis
1984 - Founding of STEM (Short Term Evangelical Mission teams) ministry by Roger Petersen signals the rising importance of Short-term missions groups
1985 - Nazarenes start work in Cyprus
1986 - Entire Bible published in Haitian Creole language; Nazarenes enter Egypt and Guadeloupe
1987 - Second International Conference on Missionary Kids (MKs) held in Quito, Ecuador
1988 - Wycliffe Bible Translators complete their 300th New Testament translation (Cotabato Manobo language of the Philippines); Nazarenes start work in French Guiana, Senegal, and Uganda
1989 - Adventures In Missions (AIM) Short-term missions agency founded by Seth Barnes; Lausanne II, a world missions conference; concept of 10/40 Window emerges; "Ee-Taow" video released by New Tribes Mission; Nazarenes enter Thailand
1990 - Church of the Nazarene enters Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda and Tanzania
1991 - The Marxist government of Ethiopia is overthrown and missionaries are able to return to that country; Regions Beyond Missionary Union is dissolved
1992 - Nazarenes start work in Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Romania, Russia, Solomon Islands and Ukraine
1993 - Church of the Nazarene enters Albania, Eritrea, Lesotho, Madagascar
1994 - Liibaan Ibraahim Hassan, a convert to Christianity in Somalia, is martyred by Islamic militants in the capital city of Mogadishu; Church of the Nazarene enters Bulgaria and St. Martin
1995 - Nazarene missionary Don Cox abducted in Quito, Ecuador; Church of the Nazarene starts work in Fiji and Palau
1996 - Nazarenes enter Hungary, Kazakhstan, Pakistan
1997 - Nazarenes enter Burkina Faso and Sao Toma
1998 - Nazarenes enter Benin, Nepal and Togo
1999 - Trans World Radio goes on the air from Grigoriopol (Moldova) using a 1-million-watt AM transmitter; Veteran Australian missionary Graham Stewart Stains and his two sons are burned alive by Hindu extremists as they are sleeping in a car in eastern India.
2000 - Militants detonate two bombs in a Christian church in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, killing seven persons and injuring 70 others.
2001 - New Tribes Missionaries Martin and Gracie Burnham are kidnapped in the Philippines by Muslim terrorist group; Baptist missionary Roni Bowers and her infant daughter are killed when a Peruvian Air Force jet fires on their small float-plane. Though severely wounded in both legs, missionary pilot Kevin Donaldson landed the burning plane on the Amazon River; Six masked gunmen shoot up a church in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, killing 15 Pakistani Christians.
2002 - Militants throw grenades into the Protestant International Church in Islamabad, Pakistan, during a church service. Five persons are killed and 46 are wounded
2003 - Church of the Nazarene starts work on Réunion
2004 - Four Southern Baptist missionaries are killed by gunman in Iraq
2006 - Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert, is forced out of Afghanistan by local Muslim leaders, and he is exiled to Italy.

What happened on specific days of the year?

For "what happened today in missionary history?"

SNU missions course materials and syllabi

Cultural Anthropology Introduction to Missions Linguistics Missions Strategies Modern Missionary Movement (History of Missions) Nazarene Missions Church Growth and Christian Missions Theology of Missions Traditional Religions World Religions

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Updated: February 7, 2019

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