1789 – Jared Sparks was born in Willington, Connecticut. In 1819, he accepted a call to the ministry of the Unitarian Church in Baltimore, Maryland, and William Ellery Channing preached his ordination sermon, “Unitarian Christianity.” As a professor of ancient and modern history at Harvard, he was the first to teach nonecclesiastical history in any American college. He succeeded Edward Everett as president of Harvard University. He was also the first to publish the writings of George Washington. Read more about Jared Sparks.