1266 - The Khan sends Marco Polo.s father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, back to Europe with a request to the Pope to send 100 missionaries (only two responded and they turned back before reaching Mongolia)
1276 - Ramon Llull opens training center to send missionaries to North Africa
1537 - Pope Paul III orders that the Indians of the New World be brought to Christ "by the preaching of the divine word, and with the example of the good life."
1542 - Francis Xavier, having two years previously launched the missionary work of the Society of Jesus, goes to Portuguese colony of Goa in South India; Franciscans reach what is now New Mexico
1649 - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel In New England formed to reach the Indians of New England
1651 - Count Truchsess, prominent Lutheran layman, asked the theological faculty of Wittenberg as to why Lutherans were not sending out missionaries in obedience to the Great Commission
1786 - John Marrant, a free black from New York City, preaches to "a great number of Indians and white people" at Green's Harbor, Newfoundland. Marrant's cross-cultural ministry led him to take the Christian gospel to the Cherokee, Creek, Catawar, and Housaw Indians.
1792 - William Carey writes Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen and forms the Baptist Missionary Society to support him in establishing missionary work in India.
1799 - The Church Missionary Society (Church of England) is formed; John Vanderkemp, Dutch physician goes to Cape Colony, Africa; Religious Tract Society organized
1819 - John Scudder, the missionary physician, joins the Ceylon Mission; Wesleyan Methodists start work in Madras, India; Reginald Heber writes words to missionary classic "From Greenland's Icy Mountains"
1826 - American Bible Society sends first shipment of Bibles to Mexico
1828 - Basel Mission begins work at Christiansborg, Accra (Africa); Karl F. A. Gutzlaff of the Netherlands Missionary Society lands in Bangkok, Thailand; Rhenish Missionary Association formed
1830 - Alexander Duff arrives in Calcutta; Baptism of Taufa'ahau Tupou, King of Tonga, by a western missionary
1831 - American Congregational missionaries arrive in Thailand, withdrawing in 1849 without a single convert
1833 - Baptist work in Thailand begins with John Taylor Jones; American Methodist missionary Melville Box arrives in Liberia
1834 - American Presbyterian Mission opens work in India in the Punjab
1840 - David Livingstone is in present-day Malawi (Africa) with the London Missionary Society; American Presbyterians enter Thailand and labor for 18 years before seeing their first Thai convert
1858 - John G. Paton begins work in New Hebrides; Elizabeth Freeman martyred in India; Basel Evangelical Missionary Society begins work in western Sumatra (Indonesia)
1860 - United Lutheran Church begins work in Liberia; Liverpool Missionary Conference; Cyrus Hamlin establishes Robert College in Constantinople
1861 - Sarah Doremus founds the Women's Union Missionary Society; Episcopal Church opens work in Haiti; Rhenish Mission goes to Indonesia under Ludwig Nommensen
1862 - Paris Evangelical Missionary Society opens work in Senegal
1881 - Methodist work in Lahore, Pakistan starts in the wake of revivals under Bishop William Taylor; North Africa Mission (now Arab World Ministries) founded on work of Edward Glenny in Algeria
1885 - Horace Underwood, Presbyterian missionary, and Henry Appenzellar, Methodist missionary, arrive in Korea; Scottish Ion Keith-Falconer goes to Aden on the Arabian peninsula; "Cambridge Seven" (C. T. Studd, M. Beauchamp, W. W. Cassels, D. E. Hoste, S. P. Smith, A. T. Podhill-Turner, C. H. Polhill-Turner) go to China as missionaries.
1886 - Student Volunteer Movement launched as 100 university and seminar students at Moody's conference grounds at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, sign the 1887 - A.B. Simpson founds the Christian & Missionary Alliance
1888 - Jonathan Goforth sails to China; Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions officially organized with John R. Mott as chairman and Robert Wilder as traveling secretary. The movement's motto, coined by Wilder, was: "The evangelization of the world in this generation"; Scripture Gift Mission founded
1889 - Samuel Moffett sails from US for Korea, establishes Presbyterian Mission there.
1890 - Central American Mission founded by C. I. Scofield, editor of the Scofield Reference Bible; The Scandinavian Alliance (now The Evangelical Alliance Mission) founded; Methodist Charles Gabriel writes missionary song "Send the Light"
1897 - Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. begins work in Venezuela
1899 - James Rodgers arrives in Philippines with the Presbyterian Mission; Central American Mission enters Guatemala
1900 - American Friends open work in Cuba; Ecumenical Missionary Conference in Carnegie Hall, New York (162 mission boards represented); 189 missionaries and their children killed in Boxer rebellion in China
1901 - John Diaz goes to Cape Verde Islands; Maude Cary sails for Morocco; Disciples of Christ open work in northern Luzon (Philippines); Oriental Missionary Society founded by Charles Cowman (his wife is the compiler of popular devotional book Streams in the Desert)
1902 - Swiss members of Christian Missions in Many Lands enter Laos; California Yearly Meeting of Friends opens work in Guatemala
1906 - The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) opens work in Venezuela with T. J. Bach and John Christiansen
1907 - Harmon Schmelzenbach sails for Africa; Presbyterians and Methodists open Union Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines; Bolivian Indian Mission founded by George Allen
1908 - Gospel Missionary Union opens work in Colombia with Charles Chapman and John Funk
1910 - C.T. Studd establishes Heart of Africa Mission (now called Worldwide Evangelization Crusade); Edinburgh (Scotland) Missionary Conference
1935 - Dr. Frank C. Laubach, American missionary to the Philippines perfects the "Each one teach one" literacy program, which was used worldwide to teach 60 million people to read in their own language.
1938 - West Indies Mission enters Dominican Republic; Church Missionary Society forced out of Egypt; Madras World Missionary Conference held; Dr. Orpha Speicher oversees construction of Reynolds Memorial Hospital in central India
1940 - Marianna Slocum begins translation work in Mexico
1943 - World Gospel Mission (National Holiness Missionary Society) enters Honduras; 5 missionaries with New Tribes Mission martyred
1945 - Mission Aviation Fellowship formed; Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) founded; Evangelical Foreign Missions Association formed by denominational mission boards
1946 - First Inter-Varsity missionary convention (now called "Urbana"); United Bible Societies formed; Missionary Aviation Fellowship purchases its first aircraft, a 1933 four-place Waco biplane
1947 - Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society begins work among the Senufo people tribe in the Côte d'Ivoire
1948 - Alfredo del Rosso merges his Italian Holiness Mission with the Church of the Nazarene, thus opening Nazarene work on the European continent; Don Owens goes to Korea
1949 - Southern Baptist Mission opens work in Venezuela
1950 - Paul Orjala arrives in Haiti; radio station 4VEH, owned by Oriental Missionary Society, starts broadcasting from near Cap Haitien, Haiti
1954 - Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities opens work in Cuba
1955 - Donald McGavran publishes Bridges of God; Dutch missionary "Brother Andrew" makes first of many Bible smuggling trips into CommunistEastern Europe
1956 -Edward McCully, Peter Fleming, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderian and Nate Saint die in Ecuador at the hands of Auca Indians on the Curaray River; Assemblies of God open work in Senegal
1958 - Rochunga Pudaite completes translation of Bible into Hmar language (India)
1959 - Radio Lumiere founded in Haiti by West Indies Mission (now World Team)
c. 1960 - Kenneth Strachan starts Evangelism-in-Depth in Central America
1963 - Theological Education by Extension movement launched in Guatemala by Ralph Winter and James Emery
1964 - In separate incidents rebels in the Congo kill missionaries Paul Carlson and Irene Ferrel as well as brutalizing missionary doctor Helen Roseveare; Carlson is featured on December 4 TIME magazine cover.
1966 - Red Guards destroy churches in China; Berlin Congress on Evangelism; Missionaries expelled from Burma; God's Smuggler published
1971 - Gustavo Gutierrez publishes A Theology of Liberation
1973 - Church of the Nazarene enters Indonesia and Portugal; first All-Asa Mission Consultation convenes in Seoul, Korea with 25 delegates from 14 countries; founding of American Society of Missiology
1974 - Ralph Winter talks about "hidden" or unreached peoples at Lausanne Congress of World Evangelism
1975 - Nazarene missionaries Armand Doll and Hugh Friberg imprisoned in Mozambique
1976 - U.S. Center for World Mission founded; 1600 Chinese assemble in Hong Kong for the Chinese Congress on World Evangelization; Islamic World Congress calls for withdrawal of missionaries; Peace Child appears in Reader's Digest.
1977 - Evangelical Fellowship of India sponsors the All-India Congress on Mission and Evangelization
1979 - Production of JESUS film commissioned by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ; Mother Teresa awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1980 - Philippine Congress on Discipling a Whole Nation; LCWE Conference in Pattaya
1981 - Colombian terrorists kidnap and kill Wycliffe Bible Translator Chet Bitterman
1982 - Third World Theologians Consultation in Seoul; story on "The New Missionary" makes December 27 cover of TIME magazine; Andes Evangelical Mission (formerly Bolivian Indian Mission) merges into SIM (formerly Sudan Interior Mission)
1984 - STEM (Short Term Evangelical Mission teams) ministries founded by Roger Petersen
1986 - Entire Bible published in Haitian Creole
1987 - Second International Conference on Missionary Kids (MKs) held in Quito, Ecuador
1988 - Wycliffe Bible Translators complete their 300 New Testament translation (Cotabato Manobo language of the Philippines)
1995 - Nazarene missionary Don Cox abducted in Quito, Ecuador
1999 - Radical Hindus murder veteran Australian missionary Graham Stewart Stains and his two sons as they are sleeping in a car in eastern India.
2000 - Unidentified militants detonated two bombs in a Christian church in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, killing seven persons and injuring 70 others. The church was founded by a Korean-born U.S. citizen, and most of those killed and wounded were Korean.
2001 - Six masked gunmen shot up a church in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, killing 15 Pakistani Christians.
2002 - Militants threw grenades into the Protestant International Church in Islamabad, Pakistan, during a church service. Five persons were killed and 46 were wounded.
