Below is a general timeline of important Unitarian and Universalist events. Each of the links below
will open in a new window.
Click
here for links to other UU histories.
Many web pages and sources have been used to create this timeline. Click
here
for a list of non-web sources (web sources are contained in the pages
themselves).
I make no gaurantee that external
web pages will continue to function. If you have a problem, or if you see
something glaringly missing, please let me know by sending email to webmaster@webuus.com.
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| Year |
|
|
|
Event |
| 1492 |
 |
 |
 |
Columbus lands on America |
| 1517 |
|
|
|
Martin Luther posts his
Ninety Five Theses |
| 1553 |
|
|
|
Michael Servetus is killed |
| 1568 |
|
|
|
King Sigismund posts his
Act of Religious Toleration |
| 1569 |
|
|
|
Frances David participates in the
Debate at Nagyvarad |
| 1605 |
|
|
|
Faustus Socinus
publishes Racovian Catechism |
| 1695 |
|
|
|
John Locke publishes
The Reasonableness of Christianity |
| 1742 |
|
|
|
Charles Chauncy
writes Enthusiasm Described and Cautioned Against |
| 1749 |
|
|
|
Jonathan Mayhew delivers his
Seven Sermons |
| 1759 |
|
|
|
Ebenezer Gay delivers
Natural Religion, as Distinguished from Revealed |
| 1770 |
|
|
|
John Murray arrives in America |
| 1774 |
|
|
|
Caleb Rich is called
to the first Universalist society established in America |
| 1776 |
|
|
|
The Declaration of
Independence is issued |
| 1782 |
|
|
|
James Freeman is appointed reader at
King's Chapel in Boston |
| 1784 |
|
|
|
Charles Chauncy
publishes The Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations |
| 1789 |
|
|
|
The French Revolution |
| 1790 |
|
|
|
Philadelphia Convention of Universalists -- first attempt at national organization |
| 1792 |
|
|
|
New England Convention of Universalists -- first successful attempt at organization |
| 1794 |
|
|
|
Joseph Priestley arrives in America |
| 1803 |
|
|
|
The New England Convention of Universalists adopt the Winchester Profession of Faith |
| 1805 |
|
|
|
Henry Ware is elected Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard,
Hosea Ballou publishes A Treatise on Atonement, and
Joseph Stevens Buckminster is ordained as pastor of the Brattle Street Church, Boston |
| 1813 |
|
|
|
Andrews Norton assumes Harvard's Dexter lectureship in Biblical Criticism |
| 1815 |
|
|
|
William Ellery Channing writes a letter to the Rev. Samuel C. Thacher |
| 1819 |
|
|
|
William Ellery Channing
delivers Unitarian Christianity |
| 1820 |
|
|
|
A legal decision allows the parish in Dedham, MA to retain church property after a split with the church |
| 1825 |
|
|
|
The American Unitarian Association is formed |
| 1826 |
|
|
|
Divinity Hall at Harvard is completed, Joseph Tuckerman is made minister at large in Boston |
| 1829 |
|
|
|
Hosea Ballou
2nd. publishes The Ancient History of Universalism |
| 1831 |
|
|
|
Henry Ware, Jr. publishes On the Formation of the Christian Character |
| 1833 |
|
|
|
Lydia Maria Child publishes
Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans |
| 1838 |
|
|
|
Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers the
Divinity School Address at Harvard |
| 1841 |
|
|
|
Theodore Parker delivers
The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity |
| 1844 |
|
|
|
Meadville Theological School is founded |
| 1845 |
|
|
|
Margaret Fuller publishes
Woman in the Nineteenth Century |
| 1852 |
|
|
|
The Western Unitarian Conference is formed |
| 1859 |
|
|
|
Henry Whitney Bellows delivers
The Suspense of Faith |
| 1860 |
|
|
|
Olympia Brown denied admission to Meadville, Thomas Starr King goes to San Francisco |
| 1861 |
|
|
|
The American Civil War begins |
| 1865 |
|
|
|
The American Civil War ends, The Universalist General Convention is formed,
First Meeting of the National Conference of Unitarian Churches is held, Frederic Henry Hedge
publishes Reason in Religion |
| 1867 |
|
|
|
The Free Religious Association is founded |
| 1870 |
|
|
|
The Centennial Conference of American Universalism is held |
| 1873 |
|
|
|
Octavius Brooks Frothingham publishes
The Religion of Humanity |
| 1886 |
|
|
|
Jabez T. Sunderland publishes The Issue in the
West,
James Freeman Clarke publishes Vexed Questions in Theology |
| 1887 |
|
|
|
William Channing Gannett's The Things Most Commonly Believed Today Among Us
is adopted by the Western Unitarian Conference |
| 1891 |
|
|
|
Quillen Shinn becomes a full time missionary |
| 1894 |
|
|
|
Meeting of the National Conference |
| 1898 |
|
|
|
Isaac M. Atwood becomes first general superintendent of the Universalist General
Convention |
| 1900 |
|
|
|
Samuel A. Eliot becomes President and CEO of the AUA |
| 1906 |
|
|
|
The Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry is incorporated |
| 1908 |
|
|
|
Antoinette Brown Blackwell starts and becomes minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in Elizabeth, NJ. |
| 1917 |
|
|
|
The United States enters WWI, Clarence R. Skinner publishes A Declaration of Social Principles |
| 1918 |
|
|
|
WWI Ends |
| 1920 |
|
|
|
Women given the right to Vote (19th
Amendment) |
| 1921 |
|
|
|
John H. Dietrich and
William L. Sullivan debate Humanism at the National Conference |
| 1933 |
|
|
|
A Humanist Manifesto is published |
| 1936 |
|
|
|
Unitarians Face a New Age is published |
| 1937 |
|
|
|
Fredrick May Eliot assumes the presidency of the
AUA, Clarence R. Skinner
publishes Liberalism Faces the Future |
| 1939 |
|
|
|
WWII Begins |
| 1945 |
|
|
|
WWII Ends |
| 1946 |
|
|
|
James Luther Adams
publishes A Faith for Free Men |
| 1948 |
|
|
|
The AUA begins an office of fellowships under the leadership of
Lon Ray Call and Munroe Husbands |
| 1953 |
|
|
|
The Council of Liberal Churches is formed |
| 1961 |
|
|
|
The AUA and the UCA merge to form the UUA |
| 1964 |
|
|
|
Martin Luther King, Jr. receives Nobel Peace Prize |
Unitarian Universalist History