garb at the end of a sermon to his Woodstock, Virginia, congregation to reveal that he has signed up as an officer in the state militia.
Thomas Jefferson authors and the Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.
xxxv1781
General Charles Cornwallis surrenders British troops to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.
1782
Robert Aitken publishes the first full-length Bible in the United States, the only such Bible ever to be officially authorized by Congress.
1783
The Treaty of Paris brings an official end to the Revolutionary War.
1786
The Virginia legislature adopts Jefferson’s “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” which disestablished the state church.
1787
Delegates from twelve states meet in Philadelphia to draw up a new Constitution to replace that under the Articles of Confederation.
1789
George Washington is inaugurated as the first U.S. president.
1790
Matthew Carey of Philadelphia publishes the first edition of the “Douai” (Catholic) Bible, and only the second Bible in English, in America.
1791
Ratification of the first ten amendments, now referred to as the Bill of Rights.
1794
Thomas Paine released the first part of The Age of Reason, which attacks the trustworthiness of the Bible.
1801
As many as twenty-five thousand people gather for revival services in Cane Ridge, Kentucky.
1802
On New Year’s Day, the Baptist leader John Leland delivers a 1,235-pound mammoth cheese to the White House with the words “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
1804
Founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
1808
Charles Thomson, former secretary of the Continental Congress, publishes the first English translation of the Greek Septuagint.
U.S. bans slave trade.
1812
Beginning of America’s second war with Great Britain.
1814
Francis Scott Key writes “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Biblica Hebraica becomes the first Hebrew Bible published in the United States.
1816
The American Bible Society is organized.
1820
The Missouri Controversy exposes deepening divisions in the United States over slavery.
1826
In what many citizens interpret as a providential sign, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
1827
Presbyterian Ezra Stiles Ely calls upon Protestant Christians to form “a Christian party in politics.”
1830
First publication of the Book of Mormon.
xxxvi1831
James Monroe dies on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of his abolitionist news magazine, The Liberator.
Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Virginia.
1833
Great Britain bans slavery within all its territories.
Noah Webster publishes a revised edition of the King James Bible.
Massachusetts becomes the last state to disestablish its official church.
1834
James Madison composes his “Advice to My Country” with its reference to a serpent in paradise.
1836
The American Temperance Union is formed.
1842
A Dominican friar publicly burns some Bibles in Champlain, New York, that had been distributed by a Protestant Bible society.
1843
Date first predicted by William Miller for the second coming to Earth of Christ.
1844
Anti-Catholic riots break out in Philadelphia, in part stimulated by whether public schools should continue to read from the King James Version of the Bible.
Joseph Smith runs as an independent for president but is killed by a mob in Illinois.
Individuals gather to await the second coming of Christ, which was predicted by William Miller; this is sometimes called the Great Disappointment.
1848
The American Missionary Association starts a fund to provide the Bible to southern slaves.
1852
Frederick Douglass uses the Fourth of July to deliver a Scripture-laden sermon condemning slavery.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) announces that it accepts plural marriages.
1853
Isaac Lester publishes the first Jewish translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into English.
1859
Biologist Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, which undermines traditional interpretations of the biblical book of Genesis.
1861
Abraham Lincoln becomes the first Republican president of the United States.
Beginning of the Civil War.
First Bibles ever published in the South are published by the Southwestern Publishing House in Nashville.
1863
Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.
1865
Lincoln gives his second inaugural address.
1865
End of the Civil War.
Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting slavery.
1867
The first of numerous meetings of the Bible and Prophecy Conference Movement.
xxxvii1868
Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment providing citizenship for all persons born or naturalized in the United States and guaranteeing them certain fundamental rights.
1872
The Ohio Supreme Court upholds a decision by the Cincinnati School Board to remove the Bible from the public school curriculum.
1874
Creation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
1875
Mary Baker Eddy publishes Science and Health.
1876
Catholic bishop James Gibbons of Richmond, Virginia, publishes The Faith of Our Fathers: Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The American Publishing Company of Hartford, Connecticut, publishes the first complete translation of the Bible into English by a woman, Julia E. Smith.
1878
William L. Blackstone publishes Jesus Is Coming, which raises millennial expectations.
The Niagara Conference adopts a fourteen-point creed that serves as a foundation for twentieth-century Protestant fundamentalism.
