On this day...

October 6, 1536: English reformer William Tyndale, who translated and published the first mechanically-printed New Testament in the English language, which was against the law at the time, is strangled to death. His body was then burned at the stake.

October 6, 1552: Matteo Ricci, the first Roman Catholic missionary to China, is born in Macareta, Italy. Other missionaries criticized his complete adoption of Chinese customs and alliance with Confucianism, which saw as merely a civil cult, unlike Buddhism and Taoism.



(abbridged from Christian History website)