Two dates to note for March 12:
In 604, Pope Gregory I, or "Gregory the Great", died. He launched a missionary movement to convert the British Isles to Christianity beginning in 596, urged by a need to prepare the world for Judgment Day.
In 1837, "Zion" John Ward died. He had been imprisoned for two years after an 1832 blasphemy trial in Derby. Ward preached on behalf of Joanna Southcott, a prophetess who had died in 1814 claiming to be carrying the Messiah (she was not pregnant). More generally, Ward insisted Jesus would be returning to earth in the first half of the 1830s.
