Events, Verisoph

1913 to 1914 Mekatilili wa Menza and the Giriama uprising 0 cit. The Giriama woman leader Mekatilili wa Menza rallied resistance to British demands for labor and taxes by invoking Mijikenda tradition, the sacred kaya forest shrine, and binding oaths. She drew authority from custom and the ancestors rather than from any colonial office. The British deported her and attacked the kaya, but she became a lasting symbol of coastal Kenyan resistance. politics / religion / society ●●

c. 1913 The Mumbo cult in western Kenya 5 cit. The Mumbo cult, traced in oral tradition to a Luo man named Onyango Dunde who said a serpent deity rose from Lake Victoria and spoke to him, promised that Europeans and their religion would vanish. It rejected Christianity, taxes, and colonial authority and spread among Luo and Gusii communities. The colonial government treated it as subversive and moved repeatedly to suppress it. politics / religion / society ●●

1913 to 1915 William Wade Harris and the Harrist revival 0 cit. The Liberian Grebo prophet William Wade Harris walked through the Ivory Coast and Gold Coast preaching, baptizing, and calling people to burn their traditional charms, and tens of thousands converted in one of West Africa's largest mass movements. He founded an African-led Christianity outside missionary control. Wary of his influence, the French authorities expelled him back to Liberia in 1915. politics / religion / society ●●

1913 The Kikuyu missionary conference debates Protestant unity 0 cit. Protestant missions meeting at Kikuyu in 1913 proposed a federation to coordinate their work and share communion, a plan that provoked a sharp controversy in the wider Anglican Communion. The Anglican bishop of Zanzibar accused the organizers of heresy for worshipping with non-episcopal churches. The episode showed how missions cooperated on the ground in Kenya even as their home churches quarreled over doctrine. religion ●

August 1913 Mekatilili wa Menza Defies Arthur Champion 0 cit. At a public meeting in August 1913 the administrator Arthur Champion demanded Giriama men for labour and closer submission to the government, and the elderly Mekatilili wa Menza rose to refuse him. She rallied the Giriama, especially the women, and administered binding oaths at the sacred settlement of Kaya Fungo against cooperating with the colonisers. Arrested that October and exiled far away to Kisii, she became the enduring symbol of Giriama resistance, her story carried largely through oral tradition. politics / religion / war ●●●

1913 The Giriama rise under Mekatilili and are crushed 0 cit. The Giriama leader Mekatilili wa Menza rallied her people against British demands for taxes, forced labour, and porters, administering unifying oaths and invoking the authority of the sacred kaya elders. In her famous confrontation with the officer Arthur Champion she used the fowl and feather challenge to defy British power. The British crushed the 1913-14 rising, burned the sacred Kaya Fungo, killed scores, fined the Giriama, and deported Mekatilili to distant Gusii country, from which she is said to have walked home. politics / religion / society / war ●●●

August 1913 Mekatilili binds the Giriama with oaths 0 cit. Mekatilili wa Menza drew on the ritual authority of the kaya, the sacred Giriama forest centre and its elders, to rally resistance in 1913. At meetings she and elders like Wanje wa Mwadorikola led people in binding anti-British oaths, using the kifudu women's rite to hold them to it. The oaths committed Giriama not to give their labour or pay the taxes the colonial state demanded. It was religious and political power used together. politics / religion ●●●

1914 Maserati's logo is the trident of the Roman god Neptune 0 cit. The Italian carmaker, founded in Bologna in 1914, took its trident logo from the statue of Neptune, the Roman sea god, in the city's central fountain. economy / religion / technology ●●

1914 FTD's emblem is the messenger god Mercury 0 cit. The florist network, founded in 1910, took a running Mercury as its emblem in 1914. The winged messenger god fit a business that carried flowers across distances. economy / religion ●

1914 The Giriama Uprising and the Burning of Kaya Fungo 0 cit. The Giriama refusal to supply labour hardened into open revolt in 1913 and 1914, met with a military campaign that killed hundreds and drove people from their land. Colonial forces razed Kaya Fungo, the sacred forest shrine at the heart of Giriama religion and authority, and imposed a heavy collective fine and demands for carriers for the coming world war. Destroying the kaya was an attack on the community's very identity, meant to break the elders and the spirits who sanctioned resistance. economy / religion / war ●●

1915 AMORC founded by H. Spencer Lewis 0 cit. Harvey Spencer Lewis founded the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, known as AMORC, in 1915 as a mail-order teaching order presenting Rosicrucian lessons to a broad membership. It grew into one of the largest modern Rosicrucian bodies, later centered in San Jose, California. religion / society ●●●

18 October 1915 House of the Temple Dedicated 0 cit. The House of the Temple was formally dedicated exactly four years after its cornerstone was laid. The building, modeled on the ancient Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, became the headquarters of the Scottish Rite's Southern Jurisdiction and one of the most architecturally elaborate Masonic buildings in the world. Its design drew on classical and ancient sources openly, as a stated architectural choice, not hidden symbolism. It still serves as a working Masonic library, museum, and administrative headquarters. culture / religion ●●

1915 Founding of AMORC, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis 0 cit. Harvey Spencer Lewis founded AMORC in the United States as a mail-order fraternal and mystical teaching organization using Rosicrucian symbolism. It is a well-documented modern organization that still operates today, offering correspondence courses in esoteric philosophy, though its claim of unbroken descent from the 17th-century Rosicrucians is not historically verifiable. religion / society ●

23 January 1915 John Chilembwe's rising in Nyasaland 0 cit. John Chilembwe, an American-educated Baptist minister, led an armed rising against British rule, protesting land dispossession, harsh plantation labor, and the drafting of Africans to fight in the First World War. His preaching fused Christian conviction with a demand for African dignity and justice. The revolt was quickly crushed and Chilembwe was killed, but he became a founding figure of Malawian nationalism. politics / religion / war ●●●

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 ●●

November 1925 Fascist Italy bans Freemasonry 1 cit. Mussolini's government outlawed Freemasonry in 1925, viewing the lodges as rival centers of loyalty. Members were purged and lodge property seized. politics / 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 ●●

24 June 1927 Codreanu founds the Legion of the Archangel Michael 1 cit. Corneliu Zelea Codreanu founds the Legion of the Archangel Michael, whose paramilitary wing becomes known as the Iron Guard. Blending Orthodox mysticism with violent antisemitism and ultranationalism, it grows into one of interwar Europe's largest fascist movements. politics / 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 ●●●

1928 Manly P. Hall publishes The Secret Teachings of All Ages 1 cit. Manly P. Hall released his large illustrated survey of Western esoteric traditions, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, in 1928. It presents Masonic symbolism alongside alchemy, Kabbalah, and mystery religions, and became a popular esoteric reference. culture / religion ●●●

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 ●●●

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 ●●

c. 1933 to c. 1945 Nazi persecution of Freemasons 1 cit. After 1933 the Nazi regime banned German lodges, seized their property, and treated Freemasons as enemies of the state. Thousands of Freemasons across occupied Europe were imprisoned or killed in the camps. politics / religion / war ●●●●

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 ●●●

1934 Moi enters Africa Inland Mission schooling at Kabartonjo 2 cit. In 1934 Moi was among the Sacho herdboys recommended for the Africa Inland Mission school at Kabartonjo. The mission-school route was his first major colonial tie: literacy, Christianity, discipline, and connection to the small educated African class that colonial officials could later recognize. 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 The Nazis appropriate Norse runes and symbols 2 cit. Nazi Germany adopts Norse and Germanic runes, such as the SS sig-runes and the sun-wheel, as symbols of a mythic Aryan past, and the Ahnenerbe institute mined the myths for propaganda. The theft still shadows Norse symbols, which modern white-nationalist groups continue to misuse. The symbols are ancient; this political use is a documented distortion. politics / 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 ●●●

1936 Moi is baptized Daniel at Kabartonjo 2 cit. At the Africa Inland Mission school Moi became Christian and adopted the name Daniel, with official Kenyan accounts placing the baptism in 1936. The conversion mattered politically because Moi later presented himself as a disciplined evangelical teacher and moral public figure. religion / society ●●

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 ●●

1938 Moi moves through Kapsabet mission and government schooling 1 cit. By the late 1930s Moi had moved from Kabartonjo to Africa Inland Mission schooling at Kapsabet and then to Government African School at Kapsabet. This placed him inside both mission and colonial-government education rather than inside independent African schooling or the forest-resistance world. 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 ●●●

c. 1939 Kibaki starts mission schooling in colonial Nyeri 2 cit. As a child, Kibaki entered the Catholic mission school world around Karima and Gatuyaini in Nyeri. The Presidential Library account says missionaries from Karima Mission were recruiting boys for schooling and that Kibaki was nominated by his father. This was the first institutional step in the route from rural Othaya into colonial-era education networks. religion / society ●●●