September 16: Today in Christian History

September 16, 681: 

This day, the Third Council of Constantinople adjourns, having settled the Monothelite controversy in the Eastern Church. The Council proclaimed the orthodox belief of two wills in Christ: divine and human, condemned as heretics, the Monothelites, who believed Christ had only "one will," 

September 16, 1498: 

Tomas de Torquemada, the first Spanish Inquisitor General, dies. He burned over 2,000 victims, tortured thousands more, and immolated as many as 40 percent of those accused in some areas.

September 16, 1672: 

Puritan Anne Bradstreet, America's first noteworthy poet, dies. Anne Bradstreet was raised in a strict Puritan home, and the contexts of many of her poems are clearly influenced by her Puritanism. Many scholars, such as Ann Stanford and Elizabeth Wade White, have noted the strong impact that Puritanism had on Bradstreet's writing. 

Her earliest extant poem, "Upon a Fit of Sickness, Anno. 1632," written in Newtown when she was 19, outlines the traditional concerns of the Puritan—the brevity of life, the certainty of death, and the hope for salvation: O Bubble blast, how long can'st last?

September 16, 1810: Cry of Dolores

Early on the morning of September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo Costilla summoned the largely Indian and mestizo congregation of his small Dolores parish church and urged them to take up arms and fight for Mexico’s independence from Spain. His El Grito de Dolores, or Cry of Dolores, which was spoken—not written—is commemorated on September 16 as Mexican Independence Day.

September 16, 1863

Robert College opened its doors in Constantinople with Cyrus Hamlin as its first President. Hamlin -- educator, inventor, architect and missionary -- had gone to Turkey as a missionary in 1838 where he worked with the Armenian minority and established Bebek Seminary to train young men to become pastors and teachers among the Greeks and Armenians living in Turkey.