Events, Verisoph

1916 Trojan condoms are named for the warriors of ancient Troy 0 cit. The Trojan condom brand, introduced in the United States in 1916, is named and pictured after the warriors of ancient Troy from the Trojan War of Greek legend. economy / religion / war ●●

1917 Ambrosia is named for the food of the gods 0 cit. The English creamery Ambrosia, founded in Devon in 1917, is named after ambrosia, the food of the gods in Greek mythology. culture / economy / religion ●

1917 All Saints Cathedral foundation laid in Nairobi 0 cit. The foundation stone of All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi's Anglican cathedral, was laid in 1917, with construction proceeding in phases and finishing in 1962. Popular local accounts note that a Freemason oversaw aspects of the building's construction, reflecting how deeply Masonic membership was embedded in Nairobi's small colonial professional class. This is a case where individual Masonic involvement in a building project is documented anecdotally, distinct from any claim that the cathedral itself carries Masonic symbolism. culture / religion ●

c. 1918 The Aladura praying churches in Nigeria 0 cit. The Aladura, meaning 'owners of prayer' in Yoruba, arose around the 1918 influenza pandemic when prayer groups turned to healing and prophecy outside the mission churches. They stressed divine healing, dreams, and visions and rejected both European medicine and traditional charms. Independent and African-led, they built a Christianity on Yoruba terms rather than on those set by the colonial missions. culture / religion / society ●●

1918 The Alliance of Protestant Missionary Societies forms 0 cit. The main Protestant missions in Kenya joined in 1918 to form the Alliance of Protestant Missionary Societies, a body to coordinate their work and speak to government with one voice. It lobbied on African education, land, and labor, and it later founded shared schools. The Alliance gave the missions organized influence over colonial policy on African affairs. politics / religion ●

1919 Olympus cameras are named for Mount Olympus 0 cit. The Japanese optical company, founded in 1919, took the name Olympus after Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods. It mirrored the firm's first brand Takachiho, a sacred peak of Japanese myth. economy / religion / technology ●●

1919 Aurora pens are named for the Roman goddess of dawn 0 cit. The Italian fountain-pen maker Aurora, founded in Turin in 1919, is named after Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn. culture / economy / religion ●

c. 1919 Enoch Mgijima and the Israelites 0 cit. The prophet Enoch Mgijima founded the Israelites, a millenarian church whose followers gathered on land at Ntabelanga to await the end of days. They refused to disperse or to recognize the authority of the state over their holy ground. Their stand set up the confrontation that would end in the Bulhoek massacre. politics / religion / society ●●

1920 Yogananda brings yoga to America 0 cit. Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in the United States and founded the Self-Realization Fellowship, teaching kriya yoga and meditation. His 1946 Autobiography of a Yogi became a lasting bestseller and drew many Westerners toward Indian spiritual practice. culture / religion ●●●

c. 1920 E. W. Kenyon bridges New Thought and faith healing 0 cit. Preacher and writer E. W. Kenyon blended New Thought ideas about positive confession with Pentecostal faith healing. Scholars widely see him as the key link who passed metaphysical ideas into what became the Word of Faith movement. religion ●●

1920 Mazda is named after the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda 0 cit. The Japanese automaker, founded in 1920, drew its name from Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of light and wisdom. The name also echoes founder Jujiro Matsuda's surname. economy / religion / technology ●●●

c. 1920 Crowley, 'the wickedest man in the world' 0 cit. Crowley sets up an Abbey of Thelema in Sicily and leads the occult order the OTO, earning tabloid infamy as 'the wickedest man in the world'. His system of magick shaped Wicca, chaos magic, and the counterculture that followed. culture / religion ●●●

c. 1920 Rav Kook weaves mysticism into modern Jewish thought 0 cit. Abraham Isaac Kook, first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Mandate Palestine, drew on Kabbalah to build a sweeping mystical philosophy that embraced modernity, science, and the return to the land. His work showed that the mystical strand could speak to the modern world rather than retreat from it. culture / religion ●●

c. 1920 Catholic missions build a network of village schools 0 cit. The Catholic orders, chiefly the Consolata, Mill Hill, and Holy Ghost Fathers, built a dense web of village and outschools that taught reading, catechism, and basic trades. These schools drew large numbers of African children and competed with the Protestant missions for followers. The date marks the consolidation of the system rather than a single founding, so it is approximate. religion / society ●●

c. 1920 Missionaries open a campaign against female circumcision 0 cit. Through the 1910s and 1920s Protestant missionaries, among them Dr John Arthur and Marion Scott Stevenson of the Church of Scotland Mission, pressed harder against female circumcision, condemning it on religious, moral, and medical grounds. The documented driver was Christian and reforming zeal, sincere but paternalistic and Eurocentric, treating a Kikuyu institution as heathen and shameful. The medical concern about physical harm was real, but the manner of the campaign dismissed the meaning the rite held for the community. religion / society ●●

c. 1920 Each region gets its church, and the map hardens 0 cit. The carve-up mapped denominations onto peoples and places: Quakers among the Luhya at Kaimosi, Adventists and Catholics in Gusii, Methodists in Meru, Anglicans and Catholics among the Luo, and a crowded contest of Scots, Anglicans, the AIM, and the Consolata in Kikuyuland. Church membership became one more regional marker layered over ethnicity. religion / society ●●●

c. 1920 Islam spreads among the Digo of the south coast 0 cit. Some Digo near the Swahili coastal towns had been Muslim for generations, but the wider community largely converted to Islam in the 1920s through trade, Swahili contact and coastal networks. The Digo became the only Mijikenda group with a Muslim majority. Islam reshaped their law, schooling and daily custom while older kaya traditions persisted alongside it. culture / religion ●●

April 1921 Simon Kimbangu's healing ministry in the Congo 0 cit. Simon Kimbangu, a Baptist catechist, began healing the sick and preaching at Nkamba in 1921, and crowds abandoned work and mission churches to follow him. His movement, though Christian, was read by the Belgians as an African challenge to colonial and church authority. The Kimbanguist church he inspired grew into one of Africa's largest independent churches despite decades of persecution. politics / religion / society ●●●

24 May 1921 The Bulhoek massacre 0 cit. When Enoch Mgijima's Israelites refused police orders to leave their settlement, South African police opened fire and killed around 160 to 200 believers, most armed only with knobkerries and faith. The massacre showed how far the state would go against a religious community that would not submit. It became a lasting symbol of the violence at the heart of colonial and settler rule. politics / religion / war ●●

September 1921 Kimbangu arrested and sentenced to life 0 cit. Only months after his ministry began, the Belgians arrested Simon Kimbangu and a military court sentenced him to death for threatening state security. The king commuted the sentence to life, and Kimbangu spent thirty years in prison at Elisabethville until his death in 1951. The Belgians deported tens of thousands of his followers to break the movement, yet it survived underground and grew. politics / religion / society ●●

1921 Loreto Sisters open convent schools for girls 0 cit. The Loreto Sisters, a Catholic teaching order, arrived in Kenya in 1921 and founded convent schools that became leading institutions for girls' education. Their schools trained African and settler girls alike and helped open formal schooling to women at a time when it was scarce. They complemented the boys' schools run by the male orders and broadened the reach of Catholic education. culture / religion ●

1922 Lucifer Publishing Company is founded 0 cit. Alice and Foster Bailey founded the Lucifer Publishing Company to print Alice Bailey's esoteric books; in Theosophical usage the name referred to the light-bearer or morning star, not the devil. Critics later seized on the original name, but it was renamed within a few years and the organization has always described it as a reference to spiritual light. culture / religion ●●●

c. 1922 to c. 1996 The Magdalene laundries in Ireland 0 cit. Catholic religious orders in Ireland ran laundries where women and girls, many sent for being unmarried mothers or simply seen as troublesome, were confined and made to work without pay. The last one closed in 1996, and a 2013 state inquiry led the Irish government to issue a formal apology for the abuse and the state's role in it. politics / religion / society ●●●

1923 Alice Bailey opens the Arcane School 0 cit. Alice Bailey, who said she received teachings from a Tibetan master, founded the Arcane School to train students in esoteric meditation and service. Bailey popularized the phrase New Age and her writings shaped much of the movement's later spiritual vocabulary. culture / religion ●●●

c. 1923 Colonial bans on the Kitawala and Watchtower churches 0 cit. Fearing the movement's message that colonial power would soon end, British and Belgian authorities repeatedly banned Kitawala and jailed or deported its preachers. In the Belgian Congo it was linked to unrest and driven underground. The crackdowns confirmed for many followers that the earthly rulers the movement condemned were indeed the enemy. politics / religion / society ●

1923 Missionary lobbying shapes the Devonshire White Paper 0 cit. When settlers and Indians in Kenya clashed over political rights, British missionary figures such as J.H. Oldham argued that African interests should come first. The 1923 Devonshire White Paper declared that Kenya was primarily an African territory and that African interests were paramount. The statement showed the reach of the missionary lobby, even though the settler state largely ignored the principle in practice. politics / religion ●●

3 March 1924 Abolition of the caliphate 0 cit. The Turkish Grand National Assembly under Ataturk abolishes the Ottoman caliphate, ending an institution dating to Muhammad's successors. Its absence reshapes debates about religious authority across the Muslim world. politics / religion ●●●●

c. 1924 to c. 1925 Saudi Conquest of the Hejaz 0 cit. Saudi forces defeated Sharif Hussein of the Hashemite dynasty and captured Mecca, Jeddah, and Medina. The conquest gave Ibn Saud control of Islam's two holiest cities. religion / war ●●●●

c. 1924 Lucifer Publishing is renamed Lucis 0 cit. The Baileys' publishing company was renamed Lucis Publishing Company in the mid-1920s, and the wider work became the Lucis Trust. Some sources date the change to 1924 and others to 1925, but the shift to the Lucis name is well documented. culture / religion ●●

10 July 1925 The Scopes trial over teaching evolution 0 cit. Teacher John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee law. The trial drew national attention to the clash between religion and science in public schools. religion / science ●●●

c. 1925 League of Militant Atheists Founded 0 cit. The Soviet state promoted mass atheism through an organized movement that attacked religion in schools, the press, and public life. Churches, mosques, and synagogues were closed and clergy were persecuted. politics / religion / society ●●●

July 1925 The Scopes trial tests teaching evolution 0 cit. In 1925 teacher John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee law. The trial became a national symbol of the fight over religion, science, and what schools may teach. religion / science ●●●

c. 1925 Witchcraft ordinances and the war on traditional religion 0 cit. Colony after colony passed witchcraft ordinances that criminalized witch-finding and, in effect, much of traditional religious practice. Officials cast diviners, healers, and priests as agents of superstition and fraud, stripping them of standing. By defining the old religion as crime, the colonial state gave itself a legal tool to suppress the very authorities who so often led resistance. politics / religion / society ●●

c. 1925 A sacred rite turned to politics 0 cit. Kikuyu political groups began to borrow the old oath for a new purpose, binding members to a shared political loyalty rather than settling a private dispute. The anthropologist Greet Kershaw and historians such as John Lonsdale describe this as a reworking of an existing ritual, not an invention from nothing. Turning a judicial oath into a pledge of unity gave early politics a force that ordinary organizing lacked. It also set a pattern that the Mau Mau oath would follow two decades later. culture / politics / religion ●●

c. 1925 Missions monopolise schooling, and education splits by region 0 cit. Because the missions ran nearly all African schools, the denominational map became an education map. Regions with dense, well-funded missions produced clerks, teachers, and an early elite; thinly served regions like the north and much of the pastoral country fell behind. The uneven reach of the missions helped set the regional inequality that still shapes Kenya. economy / religion / society ●●●

1926 Ernest Holmes and Religious Science 0 cit. Ernest Holmes published The Science of Mind and founded what became Religious Science, a New Thought body teaching that thought shapes reality and that God is an impersonal creative intelligence available to all. His system directly influenced later self-help and prosperity teaching. culture / religion ●●●

1926 Alliance High School opens as the flagship mission school 0 cit. The Protestant missions opened Alliance High School at Kikuyu in 1926 as the first secondary school for Africans in Kenya, run jointly through the missionary alliance. It educated much of the country's future African leadership, producing teachers, civil servants, and politicians. The school embodied both the promise and the limits of mission education under colonial rule. religion / society ●●

c. 1927 1921 to 1927 softening of penalty language in the endowment 0 cit. Between 1921 and 1927, the LDS Church modified the endowment ceremony to remove explicit spoken descriptions of the three penalties, which had depicted methods of execution including throat-slitting, heart removal, and disembowelment, replacing the wording with the phrase "rather than do so, I would suffer my life to be taken." The physical gestures accompanying the penalties, closely resembling gestures found in Masonic degree ritual, were retained unchanged at this stage. religion ●●

March 1928 Founding of the Muslim Brotherhood 0 cit. Schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna founds the Muslim Brotherhood as a religious and social reform society. It becomes the model for modern Islamist movements across the Middle East. politics / religion ●●●

2 October 1928 Founding of Opus Dei 0 cit. Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei, a Catholic organization teaching that ordinary work and daily life can be a path to holiness. It later became a personal prelature and drew both influence and controversy. religion / society ●●●

11 February 1929 Lateran Treaty 0 cit. Treaty between Italy and the Holy See creating the sovereign State of Vatican City and settling the Roman Question. It defined church-state relations in Italy. diplomacy / politics / religion ●●●

11 February 1929 Formation of Vatican City 0 cit. no story The Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy creates Vatican City as an independent state, resolving the Roman Question. politics / religion ●●●

29 March 1929 Ikhwan Revolt and the Battle of Sabilla 0 cit. Ibn Saud crushed a rebellion by Ikhwan factions who opposed his accommodation with Britain and modern technology. The battle broke the Ikhwan as an independent military force. religion / war ●●●

August 1929 The 1929 Palestine Riots 0 cit. Disputes over the Western Wall in 1929 sparked violence in which Arabs killed Jews in Hebron and Safed, and British forces killed Arab rioters. The events deepened the communal conflict. religion / society ●●

11 February 1929 Lateran Treaty creates Vatican City 0 cit. Italy and the Holy See settled the Roman Question by creating the independent state of Vatican City. The treaty ended nearly sixty years of dispute and restored the pope as a sovereign, though over a tiny territory. politics / religion ●●●●

c. 1929 The Female Circumcision Crisis and Independent Schools 0 cit. A campaign by Protestant missionaries against female circumcision provoked a sharp Kikuyu backlash defending the practice as central to custom and initiation. The dispute drove many Kikuyu to break with mission churches and build an independent schools and churches movement outside colonial and missionary control. These independent institutions became centers of cultural assertion and nationalist sentiment, and the colonial government later closed many of them during the Emergency as suspected Mau Mau breeding grounds. culture / religion ●●

1929 The Female Circumcision Crisis Splits the Kikuyu 0 cit. In 1929 the Church of Scotland Mission demanded that its members and teachers renounce female circumcision, a central Kikuyu initiation rite, forcing a choice between the mission and the custom. The clash split Kikuyu society, driving many to found independent schools and churches free of missionary control while others stayed loyal to the mission. The divide between the mission-aligned and the defenders of tradition ran along much the same line that would later separate loyalists from Mau Mau. culture / religion / society ●●

1929 The female circumcision controversy and the church revolt in Kenya 0 cit. When Protestant missions demanded that members renounce female circumcision, a practice bound up with Kikuyu initiation and identity, many broke away rather than abandon their custom. The split fed the growth of independent African churches and independent schools that stayed free of missionary control. The clash tied the defense of tradition to the rising nationalism that would later feed the fight for independence. politics / religion / society ●●

1929 The female-circumcision crisis splits the Kikuyu from the missions 0 cit. In 1929 the Church of Scotland Mission and other Protestant bodies demanded that African members renounce female circumcision, a practice deeply tied to Kikuyu initiation and identity. Thousands of Kikuyu left the mission churches and schools in protest, and the dispute became a rallying point for cultural and political resistance. The crisis exposed how far the missions were seen as agents of an alien order, not just teachers of a faith. culture / religion / society ●●●

1929 Dr John Arthur demands a loyalty oath renouncing female circumcision 0 cit. In 1929 the Church of Scotland Mission, led by Dr John Arthur, required its members, teachers, and church workers to sign a declaration renouncing female circumcision and the Kikuyu Central Association, a pledge Kikuyu called the kirore. Those who refused were suspended from church and school. Arthur's motive is documented as religious conviction against a practice he judged harmful and sinful, but the ultimatum forced people to choose between their church and their community and lit the crisis. politics / religion ●●●

1929 The mass exodus from mission churches and schools 0 cit. Rather than sign the oath, thousands of Kikuyu walked out of the mission churches and pulled their children from mission schools, and Protestant congregations and classrooms emptied across the highlands. The break was deepest where the demand was harshest, and it severed many families from the missions that had schooled them. The exodus turned a disciplinary rule into a movement for African-run churches and schools. religion / society ●●●

1929 The Vatican discourages clergy from joining Rotary 0 cit. The Roman Curia issued an instruction advising Catholic clergy not to take part in Rotary, part of a wider Church wariness of Rotary from the 1920s onward. Church officials linked the clubs to Freemasonry and to a secular, relativist outlook they saw as a rival to Catholic teaching. The concern was strongest in Spain and parts of Latin America and Italy. politics / religion ●●

c. 1929 Africans break away and found their own churches 0 cit. When the Church of Scotland Mission demanded members renounce female circumcision, tens of thousands of Kikuyu walked out, and the split hardened into independent churches and schools, the African Independent Pentecostal Church and the Kikuyu independent and Karing'a school movements. Across Kenya, mission rigidity and rivalry drove a wave of African-led churches asserting their own authority. politics / religion / society ●●●

1929 The 1929 female circumcision crisis 0 cit. In 1929 Protestant missionaries, led by the Church of Scotland Mission, demanded that converts renounce female circumcision. Many Kikuyu saw this as an attack on the initiation that made them a people, and thousands left the mission churches to found independent churches and schools. The clash hardened African resistance and fed the later nationalist movement. politics / religion / society ●●●

1929 The female circumcision crisis of 1929 0 cit. In 1929 Protestant missions, led by the Church of Scotland, demanded that their members renounce female circumcision, a central Kikuyu initiation rite. The demand split churches and schools and drove many Kikuyu to set up their own independent churches and schools. At its heart the clash was about who controlled women's bodies and Kikuyu custom, the missions or the community. It hardened anti-colonial feeling and fed the nationalism that followed. religion / society ●●

2 November 1930 Coronation of Haile Selassie and the birth of Rastafari 0 cit. Ras Tafari is crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. In Jamaica, preachers influenced by Marcus Garvey hail the coronation as the fulfillment of prophecy, and the Rastafari movement takes shape around his divinity. religion / society ●●●●

July 1930 Nation of Islam founded 0 cit. Wallace Fard Muhammad founds the Nation of Islam among Black migrants in Detroit, blending Islamic themes with Black nationalism. Under Elijah Muhammad it grows into a significant American religious movement. religion / society ●●

1930 The missionary Hulda Stumpf is murdered amid the crisis 0 cit. Hulda Stumpf, an American missionary of the Africa Inland Mission at Kijabe, was killed in January 1930 during the height of the female-circumcision dispute. Her death was widely linked to the bitter conflict over the practice, though the case was never fully solved. It marked how violent the clash between mission demands and Kikuyu custom had become. religion / society ●

3 January 1930 The murder of Hulda Stumpf at Kijabe 0 cit. Hulda Stumpf, an elderly American missionary of the Africa Inland Mission, was killed in her house at Kijabe, and some accounts tie the murder to the circumcision controversy and suggest she was mutilated during the attack. The case was never solved and no motive was proven, so the link to the crisis remains an inference drawn by some observers rather than an established fact. It stood as the most violent episode of a bitterly charged year. religion / society ●●

2 November 1930 Ras Tafari is crowned Emperor Haile Selassie 0 cit. On the death of Empress Zewditu, Ras Tafari was crowned emperor and took the throne name Haile Selassie, meaning Power of the Trinity. The lavish coronation drew foreign royalty and press attention. Far away in Jamaica, some read the crowning of a Black African king as the fulfilment of prophecy, and the Rastafari movement took its name from him. politics / religion ●●

c. 1930 Critics argue Rotary is a Masonic front contested 0 cit. Some Catholic and, later, evangelical writers, along with anti-Masonic authors, went further than the Church's caution and argued that Rotary was in effect an arm or front of Freemasonry. This is a claim made by those authors, not a documented feature of Rotary, which has no ritual, oath, or masonic governing structure. The overlap in early membership and shared fraternal language is what such critics point to. religion / society ●

5 December 1931 Demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour 0 cit. Soviet authorities dynamited Moscow's largest cathedral as part of the campaign against religion, intending to build a Palace of Soviets that was never completed. The site later became an open-air swimming pool. politics / religion ●●

23 September 1932 Founding of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 0 cit. Ibn Saud merged his territories into the unified Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The new state was an absolute monarchy grounded in Wahhabi Islam. politics / religion ●●●●●

1932 Alice Bailey founds World Goodwill 0 cit. Alice Bailey founded World Goodwill as an activity of the Lucis Trust to promote right human relations and world service. World Goodwill later became the vehicle through which the Trust engaged with the United Nations. politics / religion ●●

20 July 1933 Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany 0 cit. The Holy See signed a concordat with Adolf Hitler's government, protecting Church rights in Germany in exchange for Catholic withdrawal from politics. The agreement remains debated for lending the new Nazi regime early legitimacy. politics / religion ●●●

1934 Canon began as Kwanon, named for a Buddhist deity 0 cit. The Japanese camera maker's first camera in 1934 was called Kwanon, after Kannon, also known as Guanyin, the Buddhist deity of mercy. The name was soon anglicized to Canon. economy / religion / technology ●●●

1934 Independent schools and churches break from the missions 0 cit. In the wake of the circumcision crisis, Kikuyu founded their own bodies, the Kikuyu Independent Schools Association and the Kikuyu Karing'a Educational Association, along with independent churches such as the African Independent Pentecostal Church. These ran schools and worship free of missionary control and kept Kikuyu customs. The movement built an African-led alternative to mission education and helped shape later nationalist leadership. politics / religion / society ●●●

1935 Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah 0 cit. Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah presented the Tree of Life as a practical map for spiritual development to a general readership. It became a standard modern handbook of the Hermetic tradition. culture / religion ●●●

c. 1935 Independent African churches break from the missions 0 cit. Alongside the schools, Kikuyu founded independent churches such as the African Independent Pentecostal Church and the African Orthodox Church, worshipping as Christians while keeping their own customs and clergy. They gained African ordinations from outside the established missions and grew into lasting institutions. The split gave the community a Christianity it governed itself, born directly from the oath crisis. religion / society ●●

August 1936 Founding of the World Jewish Congress 0 cit. Jewish delegates from 32 countries hold a first plenary assembly in Geneva, founding the World Jewish Congress as a permanent representative body of Jewish communities amid rising Nazi persecution. diplomacy / politics / religion ●●

1936 Argus cameras are named for the hundred-eyed giant of Greek myth 0 cit. The Argus camera brand, launched in Michigan in 1936, borrows the name of Argus Panoptes, the hundred-eyed all-seeing giant of Greek myth. economy / religion / technology ●

1936 Jack Parsons: the occultist who helped found JPL 0 cit. Jack Parsons, a self-taught genius of rocket propulsion, co-founds what becomes NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory while devoutly practicing Crowley's Thelemic magic. Rocket science and ceremonial magick sat side by side in the same brilliant, reckless mind. religion / science ●●●

14 March 1937 Mit brennender Sorge condemns Nazism 0 cit. Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical, read from German pulpits, that attacked the racism and idolatry of the Nazi state. It was a rare open Church criticism of the regime. politics / religion ●●

1937 Tolkien builds Middle-earth from Norse myth 0 cit. J.R.R. Tolkien, a scholar of Old Norse, draws on the Eddas for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: the very name Middle-earth is the Norse Midgard, and Gandalf and the dwarves come straight from the Prose Edda. Modern fantasy is steeped in the Norse world. culture / religion ●●●

1937 Japan's Ministry of Education Publishes Kokutai no Hongi 0 cit. Japan's Ministry of Education issued Kokutai no Hongi (Cardinal Principles of the National Entity), a state-sponsored text promoting emperor worship, self-sacrifice, and military duty as the core of Japanese national identity. It was distributed widely in schools as part of a broader state effort to fuse Shinto ideology, imperial loyalty, and military expansion into official doctrine. The text is a documented example of state-driven militarist ideology in Imperial Japan during the lead-up to the Pacific War. religion / war ●●

1938 The Mercury car brand is named for the Roman messenger god 0 cit. Edsel Ford launched the Mercury car brand in 1938, naming it after Mercury, the swift Roman messenger god, to convey speed and dependability. economy / religion / technology ●●

1938 The chapter on initiation and irua 0 cit. One chapter defended irua, the initiation rite that included female circumcision, a practice missionaries were then trying to stamp out. Kenyatta argued it was central to Kikuyu identity and law and should not be judged by outside standards. The defence made the book contentious then and remains one of its most criticised passages today. culture / religion / society ●●

1939 to 1945 Pius XII and the Church during the Second World War 0 cit. Pope Pius XII led the Church through the war and the Holocaust, avoiding open condemnation of Nazi genocide while the Vatican sheltered some refugees. His silence remains one of the most debated questions in modern Church history. politics / religion / war ●●●

1 March 1940 Franco's Spain represses Freemasonry 0 cit. Franco's regime passed the Law for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism in 1940, making membership a crime. Many Spanish Freemasons were imprisoned, exiled, or executed. politics / religion ●●

1941 Gershom Scholem founds academic Kabbalah studies 0 cit. With Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem established the scholarly study of Kabbalah as a serious field of history. His research reshaped how both scholars and the public understood the tradition. religion / science ●●●●

c. 1941 Parsons is initiated into the Ordo Templi Orientis 0 cit. Parsons joined the Agape Lodge, the California branch of Aleister Crowley's occult order the Ordo Templi Orientis. He embraced Crowley's religion of Thelema and its motto, Do what thou wilt. religion ●●●

1941 Gershom Scholem revives the study of Kabbalah 0 cit. With Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem overturned the rationalist dismissal of Kabbalah and established it as a serious field of history. His scholarship restored the mystical tradition to the center of the Jewish story and reframed the long dialogue between reason and mysticism. religion / science ●●●

c. 1942 Parsons becomes leader of the Agape Lodge 0 cit. Parsons took over leadership of the Agape Lodge of the OTO after Wilfred Talbot Smith stepped aside. He ran its rituals from his home on South Orange Grove Avenue. religion ●●●

September 1943 Stalin Restores the Patriarchate 0 cit. During the war Stalin eased persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church and allowed the election of a new patriarch, seeking wartime unity and legitimacy. The church remained closely watched and controlled by the state. politics / religion ●●●

c. 1943 Parsons turns his home into a bohemian occult commune, the Parsonage 0 cit. Parsons rented rooms in his large house to artists, writers and fellow occultists, creating a countercultural household known as the Parsonage. It became a hub for Thelemites and science fiction figures in wartime Pasadena. culture / religion ●●

1943 The Holocaust destroys Salonica's Jews 0 cit. Under German occupation the Jews of Salonica were deported to Auschwitz between March and August 1943, around fifty thousand people, and roughly nine in ten were murdered. Ladino-speaking communities across the Balkans were annihilated in the same years. One of the oldest and greatest Sephardic worlds was wiped out almost completely. religion / society / war ●●●

c. 1943 Mass Oathing Begins at Olenguruone 0 cit. To bind their community in resistance, the Olenguruone settlers took a unity oath, and crucially they extended it beyond adult men to women and children, breaking with the traditional Kikuyu practice reserved for elders. This mass oathing, used to enforce solidarity against eviction and government rules, is widely seen by historians as the direct forerunner of the Mau Mau oath that spread a decade later. When the settlers were finally evicted around 1949 and 1950, they carried the oath and its methods back into the crowded reserves. politics / religion / society ●●●

c. 1943 Elijah Masinde and Dini ya Msambwa 0 cit. Elijah Masinde was a Bukusu leader who founded the religious movement Dini ya Msambwa in the early 1940s in western Kenya. The movement mixed worship rooted in Bukusu tradition with open opposition to colonial rule, the kipande pass, and the loss of African land. The British banned it and jailed Masinde repeatedly, deporting him to Lamu in 1948 and once committing him to a mental hospital. After independence he was detained again for years and released in 1978. He died in 1987. politics / religion ●●

1945 to 1989 The Church under communism 0 cit. Communist governments across Eastern Europe suppressed the Church, jailing clergy such as Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary and restricting worship. The Church became a center of resistance to state atheism. politics / religion / society ●●●

c. 1945 The Great Invocation and the UN 0 cit. Lucis Trust supporters promote a prayer called the Great Invocation and have long linked their work to UN ideals of peace and goodwill. The prayer is a Lucis Trust text, not a UN document, and the connection is one of shared vocabulary about world unity rather than official endorsement. politics / religion ●

c. August 1945 L. Ron Hubbard moves into the Parsonage 0 cit. Navy officer and pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard came to live at Parsons's house after the war. The two men became close friends and collaborators in Parsons's magical work. religion ●●●

January 1946 Parsons performs the Babalon Working with L. Ron Hubbard 0 cit. Parsons carried out a series of Thelemic sex magic rituals meant to invoke a goddess he called Babalon and produce a magical child. Hubbard took part as his scribe and psychic seer during the ceremonies. religion ●●●●

c. February 1946 Marjorie Cameron arrives and is identified as the Scarlet Woman 0 cit. Artist Marjorie Cameron appeared at the Parsonage during the ritual period, and Parsons believed she was the elemental woman he had summoned. She became his partner and later his wife. culture / religion ●●●

c. July 1946 Hubbard leaves with Parsons's savings and his partner Sara Northrup 0 cit. Parsons, Hubbard and Sara Northrup formed a company called Allied Enterprises to buy and resell yachts. Hubbard took much of Parsons's money and Northrup, whom he soon married, and a legal fight followed that cost Parsons most of his savings. religion ●●●●

1946 The Babalon Working 0 cit. Parsons and the future Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard perform the Babalon Working, a series of rituals meant to incarnate a goddess on earth. The strange episode links the birth of American rocketry to the occult and to Scientology. culture / religion ●●●

c. 1947 Oral Roberts and the healing revivals 0 cit. Oral Roberts led large tent healing revivals and pioneered religious television, later teaching a doctrine of seed-faith giving in which donations are expected to bring a greater return. He was a central figure in spreading prosperity and healing teaching across America. economy / religion ●●●

1947 Ajax cleanser is named after the Greek warrior Ajax 0 cit. Colgate-Palmolive launched its Ajax cleanser in 1947, naming it after Ajax, the powerful Greek warrior of the Trojan War, to suggest strength against dirt. economy / religion / war ●●

1947 "Mormonism and Masonry" published defending the restoration view 0 cit. Latter-day Saint author E. Cecil McGavin published "Mormonism and Masonry," one of the earliest book-length treatments of the relationship from within the Church. McGavin argued that any similarities between the endowment and Masonic ritual reflected the restoration of ancient temple ordinances rather than direct copying, an interpretation that would remain the Church's general position in later official statements. The book went through further editions in following years as the topic continued to draw interest from both Church members and outside historians. religion ●

c. 1 January 1947 Helen John placement launches Indian Placement program 0 cit. A Navajo teenager, Helen John, requested and received permission to live with a local Latter-day Saint family in Richfield, Utah, so she could attend school. Her informal placement became the template for what grew into the Church's Indian Student Placement Program, which placed Native American children with Latter-day Saint foster families during the school year. religion / society ●●

23 August 1948 Founding of the World Council of Churches 0 cit. Representatives of 147 churches from 44 countries meet in Amsterdam to found the World Council of Churches, the main worldwide body of the ecumenical movement, based in Geneva. diplomacy / religion ●●●