A Century of Ministry: Mennonite Church

Programs in Context, 1897-1997 (See also the accompanying narrative)

1897
Ø William McKinley inaugurated as U.S. President
Ø First Mennonite African-American members
Ø Severe famine in India
Ø George Lambert publicizes Indian famine
Ø Paradise women's sewing circle organized
1898
Ø Noah Byers becomes principal of Elkhart Institute
Ø First Mennonite General Conference session
Ø U.S. declares war on Spain over Cuba
Ø Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium and polonium
1899
Ø First missionaries sail to India
Ø Philippines demand independence from U.S.
Ø First magnetic recording of sound
1900
Ø First women's sewing circle
Ø First young people's literary societies
Ø William McKinley, 25th President of the U.S., reelected
Ø Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams
1901
Ø First Old People's Home, Rittman, Ohio
Ø U.S. President William McKinley assassinated
Ø Ragtime jazz develops in U. S.
Ø J. P. Morgan organizes U. S. Steel Corporation
1902
Ø Church and Sunday School Hymnal published
Ø U.S. acquires perpetual control over Panama Canal.
Ø Beatrix Potter: Peter Rabbit, children's stories.
1903
Ø Elkhart Institute becomes Goshen College
Ø Alaskan frontier is settled
Ø Orville and Wilbur Wright fly a powered airplane
Ø First teddy bears designed; named for Theodore Roosevelt
1904
Ø Theodore Roosevelt wins U.S. Presidential election
Ø Work begins on the Panama Canal
Ø Helen Keller graduates from Radcliffe College
1905
Ø Mennonite Board of Education formed
Ø Albert Einstein formulates Special Theory of Relativity;
Ø Ty Cobb begins baseball career with the Detroit Tigers
1906
Ø Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities formed
Ø Albert Schweitzer: The Quest of the Historical Jesus
Ø French Grand Prix motorcar race first run
Ø San Francisco earthquake kills 700
1907
Ø Oklahoma becomes 46th state of the U.S.
Ø Mother's Day established
Ø First daily comic strip , Mr. Mutt later, Mutt and Jeff
1908
Ø Mennonite Publishing House established
Ø Gospel Herald, Words of Cheer, Story Friends begin
Ø Union of South Africa established
Ø The Ford Motor Company produces the first Model T
1909
Ø Hesston Academy and Bible School established
Ø Christian Monitor published
Ø U.S. explorer Robert E. Peary reaches the North Pole
Ø Beginning of Plastic Age
1910
Ø The "week-end" becomes popular in the U.S.
Ø Father's Day first celebrated in Spokane, Wash.
1911
Ø Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa stolen
Ø Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Marie Curie
1912
Ø Arizona and New Mexico become states of the U. S.
Ø S.S. Titanic sinks with missionary Annie Funk aboard
1913
Ø Federal income tax introduced in the U. S.
Ø Mahatma Gandhi arrested
1914
Ø World War I begins
Ø Panama Canal opened
1915
Ø Fundamentalism emerges in the Mennonite Church
Ø Efforts to establish Conscientious Objector position
Ø Henry Ford develops a farm tractor
Ø First transcontinental telephone call
Ø Margaret Sanger jailed for book on birth control
1916
Ø Life Songs #1 published
Ø Woodrow Wilson reelected President of U.S.
Ø Carl Sandburg: Chicago Poems
1917
Ø Eastern Mennonite School opens
Ø Mission field opens in Argentina
Ø Canada passes the Military Service Act
Ø Bobbed hair as ladies' hair fashion
1918
Ø Ex-Czar Nicholas II and family executed
Ø Daylight saving time introduced in America
Ø World-wide influenza epidemic strikes
1919
Ø Prohibition amendment ratified
Ø Canada's first general strike in Winnipeg
Ø Jack Dempsey , U.S. heavyweight boxer, takes the world championship from Jess Willard
1920
Ø Youth's Christian Companion first published
Ø In Paris the League of Nations comes into being
Ø 19th Amendment gives American women right to vote
1921
Ø Takashi Hara, Premier of Japan, assassinated
Ø Mackenzie King elected Prime Minister of Canada
Ø Radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh transmits the first regular radio programs in the U.S.
1922
Ø Gandhi sentenced to six years imprisonment
Ø Mussolini forms Fascist government
Ø Louis Armstrong joins Joe "King" Oliver's band
1923
Ø Goshen College closes
Ø Foster Hewitt's Hockey Night in Canada first broadcast
Ø Centers of Tokyo and Yokohama destroyed by earthquake
1924
Ø S.C. Yoder becomes president of "new" GC
Ø Calvin Coolidge wins U. S. presidential election
Ø All Blacks, New Zealand rugby football team, make undefeated tour of Britain
1925
Ø Plain clothing results from revival movements in the East
Ø Sunday School Junior Quarterly published
Ø United Church of Canada founded
Ø John T. Scopes trial
1926
Ø Fascist German youth Hitlerjugend founded
Ø Kodak produces the first 16mm movie film
1927
Ø Church Hymnal published
Ø Charles A. Lindbergh flies nonstop New York to Paris
Ø Airplanes first used to dust crops (in Canada)
Ø Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs for the Yankees
1928
Ø Greenwood (Delaware) Mennonite School opened
Ø First Disney Mickey Mouse films
Ø Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly across Atlantic
1929
Ø Name of Serbo-Croat-Slovene Kingdom changed to Yugoslavia
Ø U.S. Stock Exchange collapsed on Oct. 28
1930
Ø First Young People's Meetings & Sunday eve. services
Ø Haile Selassie crowned emperor of Ethiopia
Ø Grant Wood: American Gothic
1931
Ø Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Pulitzer Prize
Ø Hattie T. Caraway elected first woman in U.S. Senate
1932
Ø Milo Kauffman becomes president of HC
Ø Maude Buckingham Douglass begins mission in Ozarks
Ø Spanish language services begin in Chicago
Ø FDR wins U.S. presidential election
Ø Amelia Earhart, first woman to fly solo across Atlantic
Ø The Lindbergh baby is kidnapped
1933
Ø Frances Perkins elected first woman cabinet member
Ø The first concentration camps built in Germany
Ø Starvation in U.S.S.R. reaches disastrous proportions
1934
Ø F.B.I. shoots John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1
Ø Bank of Canada founded
1935
Ø Vacation Bible School movement begins
Ø A.J. Metzler becomes publishing agent
Ø Mennonite Church appoints Stewardship Committee
Ø President Roosevelt signs U.S. Social Security Act
1936
Ø Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan
Ø Floods sweep Johnstown, PA.
1937
Ø Commission for Christian Education formed
Ø Spanish mission in South Texas begins
Ø U. S. Supreme Court rules in favor of minimum wage law for women
Ø Amelia Earhart lost on Pacific flight
1938
Ø Life Songs #2 published
Ø U.S. Supreme Court rules that University of Missouri Law School must admit Negroes
Ø 40-hour work week established in the U.S.
1939
Ø Stewardship Committee uses the phrase mutual aid
Ø Britain, France and Canada declare war on Germany
Ø Nylon stockings first appear
1940
Ø Mennonite camping begins
Ø New mission opened in Bihar, India
Ø Congress passes Selective Service Act
Ø Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
1941
Ø Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor
Ø First Civilian Public Service Camp opens, Grottoes, Va
Ø Joe DiMaggio hits safely in 56 consecutive games, establishes a major league record
1942
Ø Mennonite high schools begin
Ø Civilian Public Service begins
Ø The murder of Jews in the Nazi gas chambers begins
Ø The first computer developed in the U.S.
1943
Ø The Anabaptist Vision speech by H. S. Bender
Ø Mission in the Argentine Chaco begins
Ø Allied round-the-clock bombing of Germany begins
1944
Ø J.D. Graber: "Every church an outpost"
1945
Ø Mennonite Mutual Aid founded
Ø James Lark ordained first African-American minister
Ø U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Ø V.E. Day ends war in Europe
1946
Ø UN General Assembly holds its first session
Ø Electronic brain built at Pennsylvania University
1947
Ø Five missionaries go to China
Ø Mennonite Community magazine published
Ø U.S. airplane first flies at supersonic speeds
Ø Jackie Robinson becomes first Black major league baseball player
1948
Ø Gandhi assassinated
Ø The Jewish state comes into existence,
Ø Harry S. Truman elected President of the U.S
1949
Ø First missionaries go to Japan
Ø Medical and Burial Aid Plans introduced
Ø First church bulletins printed
Ø Apartheid established in South Africa
1950
Ø Elizabeth H. Bender begins translating the Mennonitisches Lexikon for Mennonite Encyclopedia
Ø I-W men in cities start urban congregations
Ø First missionaries go to Belgium
Ø North Korea invades South Korea
1951
Ø Ontario Mennonite Bible Institute founded
Ø General Mac Arthur relieved of Far East command
Ø Color television is first introduced
1952
Ø Mennonite foundation founded
Ø First missionaries to Alaska and England
Ø The Revised Standard Version published
1953
Ø First missionaries to France and Israel
Ø Songs of the Church published
Ø Dag Hammarskjold elected Sec-Gen of the UN
Ø Queen Elizabeth II crowned
Ø Popular song: Doggie in the Window
1954
Ø Mennonite Automobile Aid begun
Ø First missionaries to Brazil and Uruguay
Ø Segregation by color in schools ruled unconstitutional
Ø Roger Bannister runs a mile in 3.59.4
1955
Ø Blacks in Montgomery boycott segregated city buses
Ø Sugar Ray Robinson wins world boxing championship
1956
Ø Nelson Kauffman, sec'y for home missions and evangelism
Ø Intercollegiate athletic programs begin at MC colleges
Ø Martin Luther King emerges as civil rights leader
Ø Fidel Castro plots to overthrow Fulgencio Batista
1957
Ø Menno Insurance Service provides brokered products
Ø First missionaries to Ghana and Nepal
Ø U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik I and II, first earth satellites
Ø John Diefenbaker becomes Canadian Prime Minister
1958
Ø Catastrophe Aid Fund set up
Ø Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries formed
Ø MBM begins Student Services
Ø U.S. establishes NASA
1959
Ø MBM begins work in Nigeria
Ø Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba
Ø Hawaii becomes 50th state of the U.S.
1960
Ø Mennonite Secondary Education Council formed
Ø Congregational decision-making shifts to laity
Ø 1963 Confession of Faith
Ø JFK elected President of the U.S.
1961
Ø Herald Press Bible School Series published
Ø Life Plans, assistance for survivors of the deceased
Ø Eastern Mennonite Seminary begins
Ø Berlin Wall constructed
1962
Ø The Association of Mennonite Elementary Schools
Ø Second Vatican Council opens in Rome
Ø The Trans-Canada Highway is completed
1963
Ø Mennonite Retirement Trust established
Ø Civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama
Ø J FK assassinated
1964
Ø Rosedale Bible Institute relocates to Irwin, Ohio
Ø Conrad Grebel College opened
Ø MPH names all stores Provident Bookstores
Ø Escalation of war in Vietnam
Ø Nobel Peace Prize: Martin Luther King
1965
Ø Charismatic movement begins
Ø Draft resisters movement
Ø Power blackout; increase in birth rate nine months later
1966
Ø Mennonite Mutual Aid Association begins operations
Ø Jim Ryun, sets world record for mile run of 3.51.3
1967
Ø Canada celebrates centennial
Ø Anti-war demonstration at Lincoln Memorial
Ø Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team wins the Stanley Cup
1968
Ø SST becomes standard curriculum at GC.
Ø The MBM initiates High-Aim program
Ø WITH magazine for youth published
Ø Martin Luther King, Jr. and RFK assassinated
1969
· "Black Manifesto" calls for reparations
Ø Mennonite Hymnal published
Ø Minority Ministries Council organized
Ø Urban-Racial Council formed
Ø First U.S. troops withdrawn from Vietnam
Ø Apollo 11 lands lunar module on the moon, July 20
1970
Ø First Mennonite woman, Emma Richards, ordained
Ø Student protests; four killed at Kent State University
1971
Ø Mennonite Church Reorganization
Ø Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries created
Ø "Pentagon Papers" appear in The New York Times
1972
Ø EMS consultation on the Holy Spirit
Ø Israeli Olympic athletes held hostage in Munich
Ø Prime Minister Trudeau's Liberal Party wins popular vote
Ø Managua, Nicaragua, earthquake kills 10,000
1973
Ø Churchwide Thrust on Education
Ø Goshen College sponsors Holy Spirit festivals
Ø Herald Press Omnibus Bible School materials published
Ø Watergate hearings
Ø Militant American Indians occupy Wounded Knee
1974
Ø Nixon resigns
Ø Streaking becomes a fad in the U.S.
1975
Ø Latin Concilio founded
Ø Congregational leadership crisis recognized
Ø MBCM produces Life Planning material
Ø Tony Campolo speaks at youth convention for the first time
1976
Ø MBM begins Deaf Ministries
Ø Black Council organized
Ø More-with Less Cookbook published
Ø The U.S. celebrates bicentennial
Ø Legionnaires disease kills 29 in Philadelphia
1977
Ø MPH produces Foundation Series
Ø Energy crisis
Ø French is adopted as the official language of Quebec
1978
Ø MBE begins Hispanic Ministries program at GC
Ø Camp David peace accord
Ø The world's first test tube baby born
1979
Ø Sharing Fund established
Ø James and Rowena Lark Award established
Ø Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first woman prime minister.
Ø Three Mile Island nuclear accident
Ø 1980
Ø MWC: Ron Sider call for action (CPT)
Ø God's Managers (Bairs)
Ø Oh, Canada adopted as Canadian national anthem
Ø Mount St. Helens erupts
1981
Ø MBM Health and Welfare Committee disbands
Ø 53 U.S. hostages are released from Iran
Ø Sandra Day O'Connor appointed to the Supreme Court
Ø 1982
Ø African-American Mennonite Association (AAMA) founded
Ø Paul Gingerich becomes MBM president
Ø MMA initiates Wellness program
Ø Canada gets her own Constitution
Ø 1983
Ø EMS established Center for Evangelism and Church Planting.
Ø Reagan calls the U.S.S.R. "an evil empire."
Ø Terrorists in Lebanon blow up the U.S. Embassy
1984
Ø EMC&S recognized as churchwide educational institution Brian Mulroney and Progressive Conservatives sweep elections
Ø Trivial Pursuit developed by a Canadian entrepreneur
1985
Ø Hispanic Mennonite Convention forms
Ø Pax World Fund, mutual funds introduced
Ø Vision 95 adopted at Ames, IA
Ø Gorbachev general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party
Ø South Africa declares a state of emergency
1986
Ø MBE develops Theological and Pastoral Education Council
Ø Desmond Tutu is elected Archbishop of South Africa
Ø U.S. space shuttle Challenger explodes
Ø More than 60,000 U.S. farms are sold or foreclosed
1987
Ø J. Robert Ramer becomes MPH publisher
Ø United Native Ministries Council forms
Ø ShareNet Employer Plan for businesses
Ø Iran-Contra scandal
Ø U.S. microwave oven sales reach a record 12.6 million.
1988
Ø MMA health underwriting guidelines revised
Ø MBCM produceses Blueprint for Youth Ministry
Ø George Bush wins the U.S. presidential election
1989
Ø Living in Faithful Evangelism (LIFE) project
Ø Come and See Bible School series
Ø Tiananmen Square protest
Ø The tanker Exxon Valdez worst U.S. tanker spill

1990
Ø Congregational Discipling Vision adopted
Ø Lynn Miller: Firstfruits Living
Ø East and West Germany reunite
Ø Nelson Mandela released from prison
1991
Ø Pastorate Project results shared
Ø Soviet Congress surrenders power
Ø Operation Desert Storm against Iraq
Ø Rodney G. King beating
1992
Ø MMA adopts guide for responding to the health care crisis
Ø Journeys With God released
Ø Reforms give legal equality to black South Africans.

1993
Ø Donella Clemens becomes first woman moderator
Ø Branch Davidian cult destroyed in Waco, Texas
Ø The worst flooding in U.S. history
1994
Ø Stanley Green becomes MBM president
Ø Jubilee Sunday school curriculum released
Ø Nelson Mandela becomes South Africa's first black president
Ø Film: Schindler's List
1995
Ø Orville Yoder becomes MBE president
Ø Vision: Healing & Hope adopted
Ø Mennonite Yearbook lists 92 women in cong. leadership
Ø Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective adopted
Ø Federal building in Oklahoma City bombed
1996
Ø Shirley H. Showalter chosen to be president of Goshen College
Ø Believers Church Commentary, tenth volume printed
Ø MMA introduces Affinity Life plans
Ø Bill Clinton is re-elected President of the United States
Ø TWA Flight 800 exploded killing all 230 people aboard.
1997
Ø Dwight McFadden, Jr., first African-American moderator
Ø Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, 35th volume
Ø 280 Herald Press books translated to date
Ø MMA introduces Medical Savings Accounts
Ø Orlando 97