Adventist News Networks weekly segment on Seventh-day Adventist history (http://news.adventist.org/)
Dr. David Trim:
Welcome to this week in Adventist history. On March 19, in 1872, Joseph Bates died at the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, Michigan. His theological understanding of the Sabbath and the Sanctuary and his zeal for health reform, were exceptionally influential. With James and Ellen White, Bates was one of the three chief founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which probably would not have come into existence without him.
On March 20 in 1840: the first issue of the Millerite journal, "Signs of The Times" was published, under the editorship of Joshua V. Himes.
On March 22 in 1949, the first Seventh-day Adventist baptism in Tuvalu, in the South Pacific, took place when 7 candidates prepared by Tavita Niu were baptized. Niu was the first Seventh-day Adventist missionary to the small island country of Tuvalu, and he had begun work there two and a half years earlier, in October 1946.
On March 23, in 1907, in the city of Rangoon, the first Adventist Church in Myanmar was organized by missionary G. B. Thompson, with 23 members.
Also on March 23, but 22 years later, in 1929, the legendary missionary Gus Youngberg baptized eight people, in the first public Seventh-day Adventist baptism to take place in Batakland, Indonesia.
That was this week in Adventist history.