1641 - 2000
1641-1660 A.D.
Some saints are obscure. Some are known by name, but not by deed. And then there are those
who have become favorites through the centuries, like Francis of Assisi and Joan of Arc.
Vincent de Paul belongs in that category. Parishes throughout the world have charitable
societies named in his honor; members of the orders he founded (the Vincentians and
Daughters of Charity) have touched millions of people; and Catholic charities take him as
a model for serving those in need. A Frenchman from a poverty-stricken family, Vincent
devoted himself to helping the poorest people, including galley slaves (a legend about him
is that he himself was once captured at sea and enslaved by pirates). While some saints
changed the Church by their intellects, Vincent changed it by doing the hard work of
caring for the needy.
Elsewhere in time
Richelieu and Galileo die...Isaac Newton, Stradivarius and William Penn
born...Puritans close London theaters...Tasmania and New Zealand discovered...Dalai Lama's
residence built in Tibet...War, famine and plague cut German population in half...Quakers
founded...Coffee, tea and minuets come into fashion...Queen of Sweden converts to
Catholicism and abdicates...Cromwell rules England...
1661-1680 A.D.
The list of saints includes people of all colors: the Ugandan and Korean martyrs,
for example, and people of mixed races like Martin de Porres. While the Church does not
yet have a Native American saint, the closest candidate is Kateri Tekakwitha, who was born
in what is now upstate New York of an Algonquin mother and Mohawk father. Disfigured and
nearly blind because of small pox, Kateri was converted by a Jesuit missionary and
baptized in 1676. Fleeing to Canada where she had more religious freedom, Kateri practiced
charity and took a vow of celibacy. When she died at 24 in 1680, her reputation for
holiness inspired many Native Americans. Beatified in 1980, Blessed Kateri now awaits
canonization. Her feast day is July 14.
Elsewhere in time
England restores monarchy...Pascal and Milton die...Jonathan Swift, Vivaldi and
Peter the Great born...Minute hands added to watches...Catholics banned from holding
office in England...Dodo becomes extinct...
1681-1700 A.D.
He held more titles than a library: vice-legate, legate, inquisitor, governor,
nuncio, secretary, maestro di camera, bishop, archbishop and cardinal. His last step up
the Church ladder took him to the papacy as Innocent XII. Called an "exceptionally
holy and charitable priest," Innocent opened a hospital for poor children and a
shelter for the unemployed. He also set about reforming the Vatican, trimming its budget
and forbidding nepotism. A believer in evangelization, he promoted missionary activity in
America, Persia and China. He was also one of nine popes to reign during the monarchy of
one man: Louis XIV of France.
Elsewhere in time
Turks besiege Vienna...Bach, Handel and Scarlatti born...William and Mary become
rulers of England; college in their name founded in Virginia...Russia taxes
beards...Kabuki theater develops in Japan...Williamsburg becomes capital of Virginia...
1701-1720 A.D.
When the emperors of China sat for their portraits in the early 18th century, the
artist with the paints and brushes was a Jesuit -- Father Giuseppe Castiglione. Born in
Milan in 1688, Father Castiglione served in Portugal before being sent to Peking as a
missionary. Under three emperors, the Jesuit (who was known as Lang Shih-ning) did more
than paint. He also tried to spread Christianity. His respected position at court also
provided him with the opportunity to intercede for Christians when Emperor Ch'ien Lung
persecuted them. In addition to his portraits, Father Castiglione painted landscapes and
still lifes, including a 30-foot-long scroll showing 100 horses. The Jesuit artist and
missionary died in 1766 -- in Peking.
Elsewhere in time
Captain Kidd, the pirate, hanged...Cotton Mather preaches in America...Jonathan
Edwards and Benjamin Franklin born; John Locke dies...first daily paper published in
London...Swift and Defoe write...Bach and Handel compose...Peter the Great rules Russia..
1721-1740 A.D.
Nicknamed "The Red Priest" because of his hair color, Antonio Vivaldi is more
widely known to the world as the premiere composer of Baroque music. "The Four
Seasons," for example, has delighted listeners for 250 years. But many music fans
don't know that the Italian composer was a priest, ordained in 1703. Instructed in music
by his father, who was a violinist, Antonio was assigned to teach that instrument at a
home for female foundlings, who put on concerts to raise money. He also began writing
sonatas, operas, concerti and other compositions, often with religious themes. He reached
the height of his fame in the 1720s and died in 1741 in Austria.
Elsewhere in time
Catherine the Great becomes czarina of Russia...future George III of England
born...Newton and Stradivarius die...Swift writes "Gulliver's Travels" and Bach
composes "The Passion of St. Matthew"...George Washington, John Adams, Patrick
Henry, Paul Revere and George III born...
1741-1760 A.D.
In the back of many Catholic churches, you can find a magazine called Liguorian,
published in Liguori, Missouri. Both the magazine and the town are named for St. Alphonsus
Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists. Born in Naples in 1696, he became a lawyer. But
dismayed by the corrupt practices of his profession, he renounced his job and entered the
seminary. He soon became renowned for his oratorical skills, this time used to spread the
Gospel instead of defending a client. In 1749, his new order was approved by Pope Benedict
XIV. A bishop and doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus distinguished himself by his ability
to teach the Gospel in simple terms. He died in 1787, was canonized in 1839 and became
patron of confessors in 1950. His feast is August 1.
Elsewhere in time
Handel composes "The Messiah"...Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James
Monroe, Alexander Hamilton and John Paul Jones born...British authors Pope and Swift, and
German composer J.S. Bach die...British Parliament declares year will begin on January
1...France and England go to war...George III becomes king of England...
1761-1780 A.D.
Americans know what was happening around 1776 on the east coast of what would
become the United States. But what about the west coast? While Virginia, Massachusetts and
the other colonies were rebelling against England, Franciscan Father Junipero Serra
(1713-1784) was founding missions in California. Born on a farm in Spain, Father Serra had
a doctorate in theology and taught philosophy in colleges. Sent to Mexico to teach, he
soon began founding missions there and later in its northern province -- California. In
1773, he wrote a document to the government outlining 32 points for improving the
conditions of Native Americans. Credited with bringing thousands of them to Christianity
and for bettering their lives, he is also criticized by some activists for supporting the
repression of Indians.
Elsewhere in time
Peter III of Russia assassinated...Mozart begins composing...British taxes on
American colonies part of reason for Revolution and independence...Mason-Dixon line
drawn...Andrew Jackson, Beethoven, Wordsworth born...France suppresses Jesuits; Spain and
Poland expel them; Pope Clement XIV dissolves them...Gainsborough paints "The Blue
Boy"...
1781-1800 A.D.
The late 18th century was not a good time for the Jesuits. Founded in the 1500s
by St. Ignatius of Loyola, the order was known for its high intellectualism, rigorous
loyalty to the pope and staunch defense of dogma. But those qualities attracted jealousy
from rivals and opposition from anti-religious elements. In the mid-1700s, Portugal,
Spain, France and Poland expelled the Jesuits. This effort reached its zenith (or nadir)
when Pope Clement XIV dissolved the order entirely. Jesuits joined other orders or the
diocesan clergy; some were martyred; one, John Carroll of Baltimore, was made the first
archbishop of the new U.S. In 1814, as history turned and their foes disappeared, the
suppression of the Jesuits was lifted by Pius VII.
Elsewhere in time
American Revolution ends; Washington, Adams and Jefferson elected
president...Cornwallis becomes governor-general of India...Watt invents steam engine; Eli
Whitney invents cotton gin...French revolution overthrows monarchy and bans Catholicism;
Napoleon seizes power...Daguerre born...Benjamin Franklin, John Wesley and Mozart die...
1801-1820 A.D.
Just as the American revolution was getting underway, Elizabeth Bayley was born
into privilege in New York City in 1774. Her father was a physician and professor of
anatomy; her grandfather was an Episcopal clergyman; her mother died when Elizabeth was a
child. Soon, she was showing the qualities that would one day make her famous: a concern
for the poor and a deep spirituality. But first came marriage to wealthy William Seton and
their five children. By 1803, Elizabeth's life had changed drastically: Her husband was
dead and his fortune was gone. She began a new direction by converting to Catholicism,
opening a school and eventually founding the Sisters of Charity in Maryland. She is now
revered as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, patroness of Catholic education in America and the
first American-born saint.
Elsewhere in time
Jefferson makes Louisiana Purchase...Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe, Longfellow,
Tennyson, Berlioz, Marx and Lincoln born...Napoleon Bonaparte rules France, Joseph
Bonaparte heads Naples, Louis Bonaparte is king of Holland and Jerome Bonaparte leads
Westphalia...Beethoven composes fifth symphony...Pius VII imprisoned...waltz sweeps
Europe...Francis Scott Key pens "Star-Spangled Banner"...Brazil, Chile and
Mexico declare independence...
1821-1840 A.D.
On May 6, 1984, Pope John Paul II canonized a disparate group of people. There were dozens
of men and women. Most were lay people, but there were a few clergy. They ranged in age
from 13 to 79. Some were married; others were widowed. They were martyred by beheadings,
strangulations and horrible tortures between 1839 and 1846. What they had in common is
that all but three of them were Koreans. Collectively known as the Martyrs of Korea, they
suffered persecution with thousands of other Christians during a time when that nation was
known as the Hermit Kingdom because it kept itself closed off from the world and did not
tolerate western influences, including religion. Their witness was not in vain, however;
Korea soon became christianized. The feast of the Korean Martyrs is Sept. 20.
Elsewhere in time
Napoleon, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Lafayette, Beethoven and Goethe
die...Doestoevsky, U.S. Grant, Cezanne, Monet, Tchaikovsky and Lewis Carroll
born...Catholics permitted to sit in British Parliament...Mormons founded...cholera
epidemic sweeps through Europe and Asia...Alamo falls...Queen Victoria crowned monarch of
Great Britain...
1841-1860 A.D.
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, which has existed from the founding of the Church, got a
major boost during this time period because of two major events. In 1854, Pope Pius IX
declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception: that Mary was "preserved from the
stain of original sin in the first instant of her conception" in her mother. (The
term "immaculate conception" is often misunderstood as referring to the virgin
birth of Jesus.) The feast of this dogma is Dec. 8, nine months before the feast of Mary's
birth, Sept. 8. Then, between Feb. 11 and July 16, 1858, Our Lady appeared 18 times to the
teenaged Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France, referring to herself as "the
Immaculate Conception." The shrine and healing spring at Lourdes has become one of
the most popular pilgrimage spots in the world.
Elsewhere in time
William Henry Harrison dies after one month as president of U.S...Hong Kong ceded
to Great Britain by China...Dickens writes novels; Mendelssohn composes music...John Henry
Newman, future cardinal, converts to Catholicism...Marx and Engels meet...Edison, Van
Gogh, Chekhov and Freud born; Poe and Chopin die...women's rights convention held in New
York State...Lincoln elected president...
1861-1880 A.D.
Catholic history in this era is often summed up in two events: the first
Ecumenical Council at which papal infallibility was defined and the election of Pope Leo
XIII, whose encyclicals on social justice would help define the 20th century. But
sharper-eyed historians shift their gaze from the Vatican to Africa for another
significant event: the life of St. Charles Lwanga, who was born around 1860. A member of
the royal court of Uganda, Lwanga became interested in Catholicism. When his mentor was
martyred, Lwanga requested baptism. In turn, he became a mentor to others whose faith was
tested by persecution. He was martyred in 1885 with 21 other new Catholics, all of whom
were canonized in 1964. The Feast of the Ugandan Martyrs is marked on June 3, the date of
their deaths.
Elsewhere in time
U.S. Civil War rages...Lincoln assassinated; his successor, Andrew Johnson, is
impeached...Ibsen pens plays, Tolstoy and Twain write novels, Verdi composes
operas...Gandhi, Rasputin, Churchill, Sun Yet-sen born...Dickens dies...baseball rises in
popularity in America...Nobel perfects dynamite...Russian sells Alaska to U.S...Darwin and
Pasteur are leading scientists...Bell invents telephone...President of France is named
MacMahon...Lew Wallace writes "Ben Hur"...Bingo developed...
1881-1900 A.D.
On May 15, 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued what many people consider to be one of the
first harbingers of the 20th century: his encyclical, "Rerum Novarum" ("On
New Things"). As the Industrial Revolution swept through the world, shifting large
populations from the farms to the cities, new issues emerged, including the rights of
workers. Secular movements, including socialism, were trying to address those issues, so
it was imperative for the Church to offer its directions. "Rerum Novarum" is
also one of the first expressions of the Church's social teaching that was to become a
major force in the coming century. Dealing with everything from the rights of workers to
the power of justice, "Rerum Novarum" would directly trigger two later
encyclicals by two other popes who continued what Leo began.
Elsewhere in time
President Garfield assassinated...Picasso, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Babe Ruth,
FDR and Hitler born...Marx, Walt Whitman, Tchaikovsky, Sojourner Truth and Van Gogh
die...first Sherlock Holmes story published...motion pictures invented...U.S. bans
immigration from China...North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Utah become
states...Japanese hold first general election...Western powers occupy China...
1901-1920 A.D.
One of the oddities of Catholic history is that it took nearly 2,000 years for
the Church to develop the code of canon law by which it is governed. The code lays out
such laws as who can be ordained and who votes for a new pope. In the early Church,
individual bishops set up their own rules; at councils, they sometimes agreed on general
precepts. But customs varied from place to place. After a thousand years, canon law was a
mess. In the 12th century, a monk named Gratian attempted to bring some order to the chaos
through a book he titled "A Concordance of Discordant Canons." But it would be
several more centuries before the first official code was approved. Pope Benedict XV said
with candor that even the experts had been confused about canon law until the new Code of
Canon Law was issued in 1917. Another oddity: That code has already been revised.
Elsewhere in time
Queen Victoria dies...Walt Disney, Shostakovich, Steinbeck, Nixon and John F.
Kennedy born...World Series begins...President McKinley assassinated...Ford produces Model
T...Einstein develops theory of relativity..."Birth of a Nation" causes
controversy for its racism...Boy Scouts founded...Arizona becomes 48th state...Titanic
sinks...World War I rages; millions die...Russian Revolution installs communism...American
popular culture dominated by immigrants like Chaplin and Berlin...eight-hour workday comes
into favor...Babe Ruth sold by Red Sox to Yankees...
1921-1940 A.D.
Church history is dotted with wealthy women who sacrificed their fortunes in
order to serve others. One of America's examples is Mother Katharine Drexel (1858-1955),
who was born into Philadelphia's upper crust but who devoted her life to helping minority
populations. An heiress from both her father and stepmother, Katharine visited Pope Leo
XIII to ask where she should send her money to help Indians and Blacks. He told her to
help them herself, so she entered the convent and eventually founded her own order.
Primarily directed to the South and Southwest at the beginning, her order eventually
established missions and opened schools all over the U.S. Pope Pius XII would later
describe her work as "a glorious page in the annals of the Church." By the time
of her death, she had spent $12 million of her inheritance on the needy.
Elsewhere in time
Lenin and Wyatt Earp die...Paul Newman and Robert Redford born...Jazz Age and
Roaring Twenties devolve into worldwide depression that devastates economies, sending
millions into poverty and despair...Hitler takes control of Germany...Engelbert
Humperdinck, German composer dies; Engelbert Humperdinck, British pop singer, born...first
radio station in U.S. goes on air...Lindbergh flies Atlantic...Yankees of Ruth-Gehrig era
dominate baseball..."Gone With the Wind" and "Wizard of Oz" popular
films...
1941-1960 A.D.
The middle part of the 20th century was a time of tension: a world war, a
conflict in Korea, the Cold War between the super powers. In the midst of this tension
came an American woman of peace: Dorothy Day (1897-1980). After dabbling with communism,
having an abortion and bearing an illegitimate child, Day found her faith -- and decided
to live it for the poor. She helped to establish the Catholic Worker movement, which not
only provided shelter and food for the poor but also demonstrated against social
injustices. She could be found on bread lines, handing out sandwiches, and on picket
lines, protesting abortion or the Vietnam War. Jailed for acting on her pacifist beliefs,
Day has become a widely admired figure whom many Catholics think should be the next
American saint.
Elsewhere in time
Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters World War II...Holocaust revealed; Israel
founded...Joe DiMaggio hits in 56 consecutive games...Korean conflict rages...Cold War
begins...television begins to dominate American culture with Lucille Ball as its
queen..."Ben Hur" wins 11 Academy Awards, most ever...India gains its freedom
from Great Britain as western powers give up their colonies...swing music gives way to
rock 'n' roll...AFL and CIO merge...Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Paul McCartney, Jerry
Seinfeld and Madonna born...
1961-1980 A.D.
For middle-aged and older Catholics, it's simply "Vatican II," a
shorthand term that might puzzle younger Catholics. The Second Vatican Council, summoned
by Pope John XXIII in 1962, spurred a series of changes in the Church that millions of
people now take for granted: liturgies in their native language instead of Latin, lay
people urged to live their baptismal call, and ecumenical and interfaith efforts to build
understanding among believers. The Council, which lasted until 1965, gathered bishops from
all over the world for meetings in Rome. They issued dramatic and important documents
about the place of the Church in the modern world and the place of Catholics in the
Church. As a result, "Vatican II" has become one of the most significant events
in the 2,000-year history of Catholicism.
Elsewhere in time
Cold War deepens...John F. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinated...Martin Luther
King Jr. wins Nobel Peace Prize; later is assassinated...Neil Armstrong lands on the
moon...Vietnam War fought...feminism and sexual revolution come to the fore...Pope Paul VI
issues encyclical restating Church's teaching on birth control...facing impeachment, Nixon
becomes first U.S. president to resign...Popes John Paul I and II elected within a few
weeks of each other...Mao and Churchill die...Iran takes U.S. hostages...America marks its
bicentennial...Beatles dominate music scene...
1981-2000 A.D.
The coming of a new century and millennium is a time to think of young people;
after all, they are the ones who will live in these new eras. With that in mind, Pope John
Paul II recently encouraged young Catholics to become the next millennium's saints.
"Be contemplative; love prayer; be coherent with your faith, and generous in the
service of your brothers and sisters; be active members of the Church and builders of
peace," he said. "The Lord wants you to be intrepid apostles of His Gospel and
builders of a new humanity." He asked youth to believe that in the history of
humanity, even though it is marked by evil and suffering, the final word belongs to life
and to love, because God came to dwell among us, so we may dwell in Him."
Elsewhere in time
President Reagan and Pope John Paul II wounded in assassination attempts;
assassins kill Sadat of Egypt and Indira Gandhi of India...communism collapses throughout
Eastern Europe, including Russia...unrest produces violence in Nicaragua and El
Salvador...personal computers become routine part of work and home life...Gulf War
rages...O.J. Simpson trial captures public attention...President Clinton impeached...Cary
Grant, James Cagney, Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, Fred Astaire and Jackie Gleason
die...world prepares for the coming of the third millennium...
View information for the years:
1301-1640 A.D.
1001-1300 A.D.
761-1000 A.D.
561-760 A.D.
441-560 A.D.
321 - 440 A.D.
0 - 320 A.D..
