On January 4, 1254, Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer William of Rubruck was granted the priviledge of an audience at the great Mongol Möngke Khan in his court in Karakorum.
On October 27, 1466, Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian Desiderius Erasmus Roterdamus, also known as Erasmus of Rotterdam was born. He was the dominant figure of the early-16th-century humanist movement.
On November 13, 354 A.D., Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine was born. He was bishop of Hippo Regius located in the Roman province of Africa. As an early Christian theologian his writings are considered very influential in the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. Among his most important works are City of God and Confessions, which continue to be read widely today. Why should you read a book that is more that 1,600 years old? Well, simply because it is a very original autobiographical source that gives us a unique view of the everyday living in the late Roman Empire and early Christianity. Augustine has written his Confessions to give us the chance to live with him through his very personal process of change from paganism to Christianity. And this really is worth while reading, because Augustine writes in a rather open way about his personal feelings and experiences. But, let's first take a look on Augustine's biography.
On August 17, 1586, German theologian, author, and mathematician Johann Valentin Andreae was born. He claimed to be the author of the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459 (1616, Strasbourg, the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz), one of the three founding works of Rosicrucianism, a philosophical secret society said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreutz. Rosicrucianism holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm."