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Dwight L. Moody

1837: Born February 5 at Northfield, Mass.

1854: Leaves home for Boston; begins work in S.S. Holton shoe store; joins, YMCA

1855: Converted April 21 through Sunday school teacher; denied membership at Mt. Vernorn Congregational Church

1856: Accepted as member of Mt. Vernon Church; moves to Chicago; employed by C.E. Wiswall as shoe salesman

1858: Meets Emma C. Revell; organizes North Market Hall sabbath School

1860: John V. Farwell elected superintendent of the North Market Mission; Abraham Lincoln visits

1861: Gives up business

1862: Marries Emma C. Revell on August 28; as delegate of U.S. Christian Commission, works with Civil War soldiers

1863: Appointed missionary of YMCA of Chicago

1864: Helps form Illinois Street Independent Church

1865: Enrolls as student in Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicago

1866: Elected president of Chicago YMCA

1867: First visit to Great Britain; meets Earl of Shaftesburv, Charles H. Spurgeon, and George Muller

1870: Meets Ira Sankey at International Convention of YMCA; second visit to Great Britain

1871: Great Chicago Fire destroys Illinois Street Church and Moody’s home; Moody experiences new endowment of power

1872: Third visit to Great Britain; preaches in London and Dublin

1873: First great campaign in U.K. begins in June (continues until July 1875); first form of Sacred Songs and Solos used

1874: Meetings in Scotland (Jan Aug.); Ireland (Sept.—Nov.); Manchcster (Dec.)

1875: Meetings at Oxford and Cambridge; in Great London campaign March July, speaks to 2.5 million; campaigns in Brooklyn and Philadelphia

1876: Elected president of Illinois Sunday School Union; purchases farm at Northfield; Chicago Avenue Church dedicated; evangelistic campaigns in Chicago, Nashville, Kansas City

1877: Evangelistic meetings in Boston and in Mexico and Canada

1877—78: Meetings throughout New England; in October 1878 begins seven—month Baltimore campaign

1879: Northfield Seminary opens November 3; six months’ meetings in St. Louis

1880: First Northfield Conference

1881: Mt. Hermon School for boys established; second major campaign in U.K. begins (continues to April 1883)

1882: Meetings throughout England, including Oxford and Cambridge; twice preaches in Paris

1883: January through April, meetings in Ireland and England; returns to America

1885: Evangelistic meetings in southeastern U.S.

1886: Student Volunteer movement begins; Chicago Evangelization Society formed; conference of college students at Mt. Herman; campaigns in New Orleans, Washington, New York

1887: Four-month campaign in Chicago; second conference at Northfield

1888: Evangelistic meetings on West Coast and in Canada and England

1889: Meetings in Scotland and Ireland; Bible Institute formally opened in Chicago

1890: Chicago Bible Institute building dedicated

1891: Seventh visit to England

1892: Travel through Europe and Holy Land; meetings in England and Ireland, including eight days at Spurgeon’s Tabernacle; accident at sea

1893: Great campaign at Chicago World’s Fair

1894: Meetings across Eastern Seaboard and in Canada

1895: Meetings in New York, Boston, Dallas, Mexico City

1896: Elected President of International Sunday School Association; meetings in New York

1897: Meetings in Boston, Chicago, Ottawa, elsewhere

1898: Works among soldiers of Spanish-American War; preaches in Colorado, Montreal, Tampa Bay

1899: Meetings throughout western US; dies December 22 at Northfield home

Other Significant Dates

1840: Renoir, Monet, and Tchaikovsky born

1844: YMCA founded in England by George Williams

1846: Irish potato famine

1846–48: Mexican-American War

1848: California gold rush; Marx’s Communist Manifesto

1850: US population hits 17 million

1852: Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

1854: Hudson Taylor arrives in China; War for Bleeding Kansas over state slavery rights

1858: Third Great Awakening begins

1859: Darwin’s On the Origin of Species

1861: Dickens’s Great Expectations

1861–1865: U.S. Civil War

1864: Pasteur invents pasteurization . 1865 Lincoln assassinated i 1867 Russia sells Alaska to U.S.

1869: First Vatican Council

1870: Rockefeller founds Standard Oil

1872: Ulysses S. Grant reelected; Whistler’s The Artist’s Mother

1875: Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health

1876: Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone

1878: Treaty of Berlin settles Russo— Turkish Wars; Salvation Army begins

1880: Edison devises practical electric light

1881: President Garfield assassinated

1883: First skyscraper (10 stories, in Chicago)

1884: Grover Cleveland elected

1889: Dakotas, Montana, and Washington become states

1890: Global flu epidemics

1892: Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker

1894–1895: Chinese-Japanese War

1895: Röntgen discovers x-rays

1896: First modern Olympics held Athens

1898: Spanish-American War

By the Editors

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