Christopher Columbus (above) almost didn’t discover the New World today in 1492 when the crew of his flagship, the Santa Maria, threatened mutiny after two months with no sight of land. Columbus quelled the revolt by telling them: ‘I started out to find the Indies and will continue until I have accomplished that mission, with the help of Our Lord.’ Two days later they sighted land, but it was a Caribbean island and not India.
Tonight in 1940 during the London Blitz, a German bomb pierced the choir roof of St Paul’s Cathedral and exploded immediately beneath it, shattering the high altar 90 feet below, and peppering the stained glass with shrapnel. A crucifix was untouched by the blast, but a painting of Doubting Thomas was shredded, which must have fuelled 1,000 sermons at the time.
Pope Valentine died today in the year 827, only five weeks after being made Pope. The gossip was that he had been highly favoured by Pope Eugene II, who had only just vacated the chair of St Peter, because he was either his son or his boyfriend. In the rush to get Valentine crowned, no one remembered that he was only a deacon, and not even a priest.
It is the feast of St Maharsapor, a 5th century martyr from Persia. He was arrested and imprisoned when Christians recklessly destroyed a Zoroastrian temple in what is now Iran and extinguished its sacred fire. Zoroastrianism was the state religion at the time. When Maharsapor refused to renounce his faith, he was put into a dark pit and starved to death.
The monks of the Zograf Monastery on Mt Athos, Greece, remember 26 of their brother monks who were killed today in 1275 when Catalan pirates came ashore to plunder their monastery and burned it down.
Image: Rijksmuseum