Pope John XXIII Crowned
Pope John XXIII was head of the Catholic Church from October 1958 until his death in 1963. Born in 1881 as Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, he was one of thirteen children in a family of sharecroppers who lived in a village...
Pope Pius XII Dies
Pope Pius XII (born in 1876 as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli) died on October 9, 1958 after a long, tumultuous, and controversial pontificate (1939–58). During his reign, Pius XII faced the ravages of World War II, the abuses of...
“Under God” phrase added to the Pledge of Allegiance
https://youtu.be/Xi8MXIq_0t0 In June 1954, In response to the perceived communist threat during the Cold War, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God," to the pledge of allegiance. Today the Pledge reads: I pledge allegiance to the flag of...
14th Dalai Lama
https://youtu.be/6dqYEfpJbA4 In November 1950 15-year-old Tenzin Gyatso was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama, becoming chief of state of the semi-independent kingdom, and the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists worldwide. Born as Lhamo...
Mother Teresa
In October 1950, Mother Teresa and the small community formed by her former pupils received permission from the Diocese of Calcutta (Kolkata) India to identify as a Catholic organization. Her order the Missionaries of Charity, subsequently received approval...
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis
Dianetics
In May 1950 the magazine Astounding Science Fiction published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard. Dianetics divides the mind into: (1) the conscious analytical mind (2) the subconscious reactive mind (3) the somatic mind...
Cardinal Mindszenty
https://youtu.be/IH7rFQWP0Lk In February 1949 Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty was convicted of treason by the Hungarian Communist People’s Court. The Cardinal had been an outspoken critic of the persecution of Jews by the Hungarian fascist government during WWII....
Mahatma Gandhi Assassinated
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 –1948) led Indians in a nonviolent independence movement from British colonization. Known worldwide by his honorific Sanskrit title Mahātmā (high-souled, venerable) he was also...
Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (1918 –2018) was an American Southern Baptist evangelist who held huge rallies, broadcasting sermons on radio and television from 1947 until his retirement in 2005. Graham repudiated racial...
Partition of India
The 1947 partition of India into Hindu and Muslim majorities divided three provinces: Assam, Bengal and the Punjab. The division of >14 million people according to religious beliefs resulted in large-scale violence, with varying estimates...
Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin at the caves of Qumran in Jordan. Although written before the Christian gospels, the scrolls contained many similarities, but also some differences from the traditional Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible....
Hirohito’s Not the Sun God Anymore
As the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the Shinto religion disestablished and its concept that the Emperor Hirohito was descended from Japan's sun goddess to be disavowed. The Humanity Declaration was an...
Dietrich Bonhöffer Executed
Together with theologians Karl Barth and Martin Niemöller, the German pastor Dietrich Bonhöffer was a founding member of the German Bekennende Kirche ( Confessing Church), a Protestant movement that opposed Nazi attempts to unify all Protestant churches into...
Easter in Nazi Germany
In a 1939 census of Nazi Germany (including annexed Austria), 54% of Germans considered themselves Protestant, 40% Catholic, 3.5% gottgläubig (non-sectarian believers in God) and 1.5% as non-religious. In the spring of 1936, Der Angriff, Berlin’s Nazi paper founded by...
Patton’s Weather Prayer
Midst bad weather in the Battle of the Bulge, General George S. Patton commissioned his chaplain to write a prayer for good weather and victory. Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with...
Dietrich Bonhöffer
Dietrich Bonhöffer (1906 –1945) was a German Lutheran theologian and founding member of the Confessing Church that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to permeate German Protestant churches with Nazi doctrine. An outstanding academic theologian,...
Japanese Demons and Spirits
Source: 10 Horrifying Demons and Spirits from Japanese Folklore | Mental Floss Oni(鬼) variously translated as demons, devils, ogres or trolls) are popular characters in Japanese art, literature and theater. Hairy, multi-colored humanoid creatures, dressed in tiger...
Virulent Anti-Semitism Redux
The current eruption of virulent anti-semitism and violence against Jews in France, makes it imperative that we recall the progressive Nazi legislation from 1933-1945 that resulted in the institution of draconian measures against the Jewish community and ultimately...
The Mask of Nippon
Racial stereotypes predominated in Allied propaganda about Imperial Japan. This rather heavy-handed propaganda film was part of the National Film Board of Canada's 1942 World in Action series. Modeled after the popular American March of Time newsreels it...
Lübeck Martyrs
In 1934 Karl Friedrich Stellbrink was appointed to the Luther Church in Lübeck. Although an early member of the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP), he became disenchanted with the party when it began to profess anti-Church attitudes. In 1936 he was...
Christianity in Wartime Japan
Church of Christ gathering, Japan 1940; Wikimedia Commons When Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the 16th century, thousands of Japanese converted from Shinto/Buddhism to Catholicism. In the 17th century, Christianity was banned - followers and missionaries who...
Christmas in the Third Reich
Worshiping a Jewish messiah at Christmas time was problematic for Nazi Aryan ideology. Yuletide celebration with emphasis on the observance of the Germanic pre-Christian Winter Solstice was the official government line. Unofficially, most Christians and...
American Antisemitism
In a 1938 public opinion poll, 60 percent of American respondents held a low opinion of Jews, labeling them “greedy,” “dishonest,” and “pushy.” Right-wing demagogues linked the Great Depression, the New Deal, President Roosevelt and the threat of war in Europe to the...
Bishamon – God of War
Bishamon (毘沙門), is one of the the seven gods of good fortune in Japanese mythology. Originally a Buddhist deity from India, this god of warfare and protector of the righteous was popular during the rise of Japanese militarism in the 1930s.