February 25, 616 (traditional date): Ethelbert, the first Christian English king and instigator of the first written code of British law, dies.

February 25, 1570: Pope Pius V excommunicates England's Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, declaring her to be a usurper to the throne. It was the last time a pope "deposed" a reigning monarch.

February 28, 1807: Robert Morrison sails from Britain to become the first Protestant missionary to China. By the time he died 27 years later, he had baptized only 10 Chinese, but his pioneering work (including a six-volume dictionary and a translation of the Bible) helped missionaries who came after him.

February 28, 1944: Nazi soldiers arrest Dutch Christian Corrie ten Boom and her family for harboring Jews. The Jews hiding in her house escaped. Corrie was the only member of her family who survived internment in concentration camps.

February 28, 1638: The castle of Hara, on the Japanese island of Amakusa, held by 30,000 Christian troops under Masada Shiro, is captured. The defenders set fire to the castle, and all perished in the flames or by the sword. From then until 1873 (235 years later), Christianity was banned in Japan under penalty of death.

March 1, 589 (traditional date): David of Wales, whose ascetic path of restraint earned him the love of all Wales (he is now the patron saint of that country), dies. His final words were, "Be joyful, brothers and sisters. Keep your faith and do the little things that you have seen and heard from me".

March 1, 1854: Pioneer missionary Hudson Taylor lands in Shanghai, China. "My feelings on stepping ashore I cannot attempt to describe," he wrote. "My heart felt as though it had not room and must burst its bonds, while tears of gratitude and thankfulness fell from my eyes." Taylor would found the China Inland Mission in 1865, and he popularized the idea that missionaries should live and dress like the people they seek to evangelize.

March 2, 1415: At the Council of Constance, convened to end the Great Schism-during which three men claimed to be pope-John XXIII (one of the men) abdicated. Ironically, John himself had convened the council the previous year convinced that he would emerge victorious. Now he feared for his life and fled the city in disguise. It didn't work: he was brought back, condemned, and deposed. The council eventually healed the schism. It also called for the execution of Bohemian reformer Jan Hus.

March 2, 1791: Founder of Methodism John Wesley dies in London. Thanks to his organizational genius, we know exactly how many followers he had when he died: 71,668 British members, 294 preachers, 43,265 American members with 198 preachers and 19 missionaries. Today Methodists number about 30 million worldwide.

March 2, 1930: The Catholic Hour, one of the oldest religious radio programs, is inaugurated.

March 3, 1263: French cardinal, Hugh of St. Cher, dies. He reputedly compiled the first Bible concordance and was the first person to divide the Old and New Testaments into chapters.