History Focus September 25

Shroud shown to Public

For the first time in 400 years the public is shown the Shroud of Turin on September 25, 1933.

More than 25,000 believers pass by the Shroud of Turin as it was displayed to the public for the fist time in 400 years. The custodians of the cathedral at Turin in Italy removed the shroud from its urn and displayed it to the public. The clothe is a 14 foot long stained piece of cloth with the imprint of a man. It is believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus.

The cloth shows the imprint of a body both front and back. It also shows a clear picture of a man's face with his eyes closed. Scientific opinion is that the imprint is that of a man, but it has not yet been proven to be that of Jesus.

Sources: | On this Day| Microsoft(R) Encarta(R)

The last great Christian crusade.

(1396)

The Crusade ends in disaster at the hands of Sultan Bajazet I’s Ottoman army at Nicopolis, on September 25, 1396

The Crusades were a number of military expeditions undertaken by Western European Christians between 1095 and 1270. They were usually at the request of the pope, to recover Jerusalem and the other Palestinian places of pilgrimage known to Christians as the Holy Land from Muslim control.

By 1396, the majority of the more than 400 crusades were over. In 1385 Sigismund married Queen Mary of Hungary. Two years later he became the King of Hungary. In 1396 he led a great army of Crusaders from many parts of Europe against the Turks. The Turks, under the Ottoman sultan Bayazid I, inflicted a crushing defeat upon Sigismund's forces at Nicopolis, Bulgaria.

Upon the death of Holy Roman Emperor Rupert, Sigismund was elected to succeed him in 1411. He did not receive formal coronation at the hands of the pope until 1433. In 1414 Sigismund persuaded the antipope John XXIII to convoke the Council of Constance at which a longstanding dispute over the papal succession was settled and ecclesiastical reforms were instituted. The council also tried the Bohemian religious reformer John Huss and condemned and executed him as a heretic.

Sources: | Microsoft(R) Encarta(R)