March 5, 1179: Alexander III convokes the Third Lateran Council. Attended by 300 bishops, it gave the college of cardinals the exclusive right to elect the pope (by a two-thirds majority) and enacted measures against the Waldensians and Albigensians.

March 5, 1797: The three-masted ship Duff arrives in Tahiti's Matavai Bay, completing a 207-day voyage from London. The ship, commanded by Captain John Wilson, had aboard 37 artisans and pastors of the London Missionary Society (L.M.S.) and their families, who were to be resettled in the South Pacific on the islands of Tahiti, Tonga and the Marquesas.

March 6, 1475: Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti, famous for his paintings (the Sistine Chapel), sculpture ("David"), and architecture (the rebuilding of St. Peter's Cathedral), is born in Caprese.

March 7, 203: Perpetua, a Christian about 22 years old, her slave, Felicitas, and several others are martyred at the arena in Carthage. They were flogged, attacked by hungry leopards, and finally beheaded. Perpetua remains one of early Christianity's most famous martyrs.

March 7, 1530: Pope Clement VII rejects Henry VIII's request to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Henry eventually responded by declaring himself supreme head of England's church.

March 7, 1964: At a Roman parish church, Pope Paul VI celebrates mass in Italian instead of Latin, implementing one of the most significant changes of the Second Vatican Council-worship in the vernacular.

March 8, 1698: British missionary Thomas Bray and four laymen found the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (S.P.C.K.) "to advance the honor of God and the good of mankind by promoting Christian knowledge both at home and in the other parts of the world by the best methods that should offer.

March 8, 1782: Ninety-six Native Americans, who had converted to Christianity and were living peacefully in the Moravian Brethren town of Gnadenhutten (near New Philadelphia), Ohio, are killed by militiamen in "retaliation" for Indian raids made elsewhere in the Ohio territory.

March 10, 1528: Balthasar Hubmaier, called by his enemies "head and most important of the Anabaptists," is burned at the stake in Vienna after being deemed a heretic by a Roman Catholic court. In addition to his writings against Lutherans and Zwinglians, he penned one of the earliest arguments for religious toleration. Though other Anabaptist leaders rejected his pleas for a tolerant Christian government and judicious use of the sword, they adopted his arguments for adult baptism, tolerance, and free will.

March 10, 1681: Charles II makes English Quaker William Penn sole proprietor of the colonial American territory known today as the state of Pennsylvania. Penn gave legal rights not only to Native Americans but also to persecuted Christians like the Mennonites.

March 10, 1880: Commissioner George S. Railton and seven women arrive in New York City to establish the Salvation Army in the United States.

March 10, 1898: George Mueller, English philanthropist and evangelist, dies. He, in his 93 years helped more than 10,000 English orphans.