June 24, 64: Roman Emperor Nero begins persecuting Christians.

June 24, 1178: Five Canterbury monks report something exploding on the moon, the only recorded time an asteroidal impact has been observed with the naked eye.

June 24, 1542: Roman Catholic reformer, mystic, and poet John of the Cross is born in Spain. A student of Teresa of Avila, he attained fame for his poems "The Dark Night [of the Soul]" and "Spiritual Canticle."

June 24, 1813: Henry Ward Beecher, abolitionist and Congregational clergyman, is born in Litchfield, Connecticut.

June 27, 444: Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria and author of several writings on the dual natures of Christ, dies. He opposed Nestorius, who supposedly taught there were two separate persons in the Incarnate Christ, one divine and the other human. Historians doubt, however, whether or not Nestorius actually taught this. In any case, Cyril deposed Nestorius in 430.

June 27, 1933: James Mountain, English revivalist and hymnwriter ("Like a River Glorious"), dies.

June 28, 195: Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (France) and one of the most important Christian writers of the second century, dies. He argued that tradition is key in sustaining orthodoxy, and he was instrumental in raising the authority of the Roman bishop. He was also the first to add the four Gospels to a list of apostolic writings, calling them "Scripture" with the Old Testament. Many consider him the first theologian of the Christian church, since others were more apologists than theologians.

June 28, 1245: Innocent IV convenes the Council of Lyons to deal with the "five wounds of the Church:" corruption of the clergy and faithful, the danger of the Saracens, the Greek Schism, the invasion of Hungary by the Tatars, and the rupture between the church and Emperor Frederick II.

June 28, 1491: Henry VIII, the "Defender of the faith" who broke with Rome when the pope would not grant him a divorce, is born in Greenwich, England.

June 28, 1577: Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, who sympathized with the Jesuit movement and the Counter Reformation, is born. Among his most famous works are Raising of the Cross (1610) and Descent from the Cross (1611).

June 29, 1810: After resolute petitioning of college students from Williams College and Andover Seminary, the Congregationalists of Massachusetts organize the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, America's first foreign missions society.

June 30, 1315 (traditional date): Lay missionary, mystic, and philosopher Ramon Lull, who was persuaded by a vision to seek the conversion of the Muslims, is reportedly stoned to death in Bougie, North Africa.

June 30, 1881: Presbyterian preacher and African-American abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet is appointed minister to Liberia. The former slave shocked the abolitionist community in 1843 by calling for violent rebellion. "Rather die free-men than live to be slaves," he preached.