Today in 2011, Harold Camping, a 90 year-old evangelist and Californian radio show host, put the world on red alert that the rapture would definitely happen that day, just around tea time. Mr Camping was so confident in his maths, which were reliably based on the Book of Revelation, that he spent over $100 million – of other people’s money, given in donations – advertising the date as ‘Judgment Day’ on roadside billboards (above). Jesus failed to keep the appointment, at which he (Mr Camping, not Jesus) then announced a new date for the end of the world, 21 October 2011.
Charles Wesley was healed of pleurisy and was converted today in 1738. He heard a voice in his room say, ‘In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth arise and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities.’ He thought it was the voice of Christ, but it later turned out to be Mrs Musgrave. He wrote the hymn, ‘And Can It Be?’ the same day. His brother John probably sang it on the evening of his conversion three days later, but then who didn’t?
Elizabeth Fry was born into a wealthy Quaker family in Norwich, England, today in 1780. At 31, she became a Quaker minister, and two years later she visited Newgate Prison and was horrified by the way the women and their children were forced to live. She devoted herself to campaigning for the reform of prisons and convict ships, and also set up night shelters for the homeless and a training school for nurses.
Tommaso Campanella, the much imprisoned Italian friar, theologian and astrologer, died today in 1639. He is the author of The City of the Sun, one of the most remarkable books of the 17th century, describing a utopian society where goods are held in common, and the walls of the city are a painted encyclopaedia of all the arts and sciences.
It is Albrecht Dürer’s birthday. The insanely gifted engraver and painter was born today in 1471 in Nuremberg. His father expected him to follow the family talent for goldsmithing, but Albrecht was so obviously gifted in drawing that he was apprenticed to a printmaker at 15 and started producing woodcuts for books. Dürer went on to become a key figure in the north European Renaissance.
It is the feast of Godric, a 12th century merchant adventurer who settled down as a hermit at Finchale Priory, on a bend of the River Wear, near Durham, England. He is the earliest known English singer-songwriter whose lyrics and tunes have come down to us. He died today in 1170.
Saint Nicholas, God’s beloved,
Build for us a fair bright house;
At the birth, at the bier,
Saint Nicholas, bring us safely there.
Godric, song to St Nicholas
Image: O’Dea