The conversion of the substance of the Eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Christ at consecration, with only the appearances of bread and wine still remaining.
Transubstantiation
Fact of the Day
After a crush killed 33 at the Bolton Wanderers' football ground in 1946, the bodies were lined up against the touchline and the game restarted, next to the bodies, within 30 minutes.
Quote of the Day
"The rights of man are made, not for counter-revolutionaries, but only for sans-culottes.
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~ Collot d'Herbois, French revolutionary
On This Day
38 BCE Octavian, soon to become Augustus, married Livia Drusilla,
395 Theodosius the Great died, leading to the permanent division of the Roman Empire into eastern and western empires.
1377 Pope Gregory XI arrived in Rome, officially ending the Avignon Papacy.
1562 The Edict of Saint-German was signed, allowing French Huguenots a degree of tolerance.
1648 Long Parliament passed the Vote of No Addresses, which broke off negotiations with King Charles I after the discovery that he was entering into an engagement with the Scots.
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie won the Battle of Falkirk Muir, their last notable victory of the Jacobite uprising.
1912 Robert Falcon Scott and his team reached the South Pole, only to find a Norwegian expedition had beaten them to it.
1945 Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, was captured by the Soviets. He was never seen again.
1945 The SS began the final evacuation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as the Soviets drew nearer. Thousands died on these 'death marches' towards the German interior.