Mellitus was the first Bishop of London, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons. He arrived in 601 AD, and was consecrated as Bishop of London in 604. Pope Gregory I sent Mellitus a letter now known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually and integrate pagan rituals and customs. Following the deaths of his patrons, King Sæberht of Essex and King Æthelberht of Kent, Mellitus was exiled from London and forced to take refuge in Gaul. Æthelberht's successor converted to Christianity the following year, and Mellitus returned to England. Unable to return to the pagan inhabitants of London, he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 619. During his tenure, he was alleged to have miraculously saved the cathedral, and much of the town of Canterbury, from a fire. After his death in 624, Mellitus was revered as a saint.
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1479 BC:
Thutmose III became the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt according to the official chronology, although during the first 22 years of the reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III
1877:
Unable to resolve a series of disputes over the Balkans in the aftermath of the 1876 Bulgarian April Uprising, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, starting the Russo-Turkish War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_%281877%E2%80%931878%29
1915:
The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire began with the arrest and deportation of hundreds of prominent Armenians in Constantinople. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
1916:
Irish republicans led by teacher and political activist Patrick Pearse began the Easter Rising, a rebellion against British rule in Ireland, and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_Irish_Republic
1961:
The Swedish warship Vasa of 1628 was salvaged with a largely intact hull in Stockholm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_%28ship%29
1967:
The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 1 crashed in Siberia during its return to Earth, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov, the first in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mikhaylovich_Komarov
1993:
The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person, injuring 44 others and causing £1 billion in damages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
multiculturalism (n): The characteristics of a society, city etc. which has many different ethnic or national cultures mingling freely; political or social policies which support or encourage such coexistence http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/multiculturalism
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere. --William the Silent http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_the_Silent