Brazil

In 1500 the Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabral, on landing at the newly discovered thousands of miles across the ocean, built a wooden cross and together with his crew they knelt before it and kissed it. This was to demonstrate to the natives their veneration for the cross. Cabral named this new land, “Vera Cruz”, meaning “True Cross”, though others are calling it ‘Brazil’ after the brazilwood found on the coast.

The Reverend Dr Thomas Bray (1658 – 1730) was an English clergyman. Henry Compton, Bishop of London, appointed him in 1696 as his commissary to organize the Church of England in Maryland, and he was in that colony in 1699–1700. Whilst out there he organised a scheme with four laymen for establishing parish libraries in England and America, out of which grew the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Its object was to encourage Christian education and literature in both Britain and America.
Bray took a great interest in colonial missions, especially among the Native Americans and in 1702 he founded the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to provide a ministry to English settlers in North America after becoming aware, whilst touring Maryland, of the weakness of the Church of England in the American colonies.

Boys Brigade

In Great Britain in 1883, a successful Christian businessman, William Smith, decided to work towards “the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom among boys”. The movement he formed later became known as the Boys’ Brigade, which founded its first branch in America four years later.

Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was an Anglo-Irish chemist and physicist who is best known for formulating Boyle's law in 1662, which says that the pressure of gases varies inversely with the volume. An eager Christian, Boyle was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac and spent much of his private wealth on promoting the study of the Bible. As a director of the East India Company, he encouraged Christian missionary work in the Far East.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day is traditionally celebrated on 26 December. A British tradition, going back many centuries It was only made an official holiday in 1871. Also known as St. Stephen's Day, it was customarily a time for giving to the poor. The name comes partly from the metal boxes kept in churches to collect money for the needy. On the day after Christmas Day these boxes were opened and the money shared among the poor people of the parish.
In the United Kingdom it became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas.

The Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion took place in north China in 1900, the largest ever massacre of Protestant Christians. 188 Protestant missionaries plus their children and thousands of Chinese Christian converts were massacred and burnt alive by a fanatical occult sect. The cries of the Boxers- “Sha kuei-tzu” (“kill the devils”) could be heard along with the shrieks of the victims and the groans of the dying.

Antoinette Bourignon

Antoinette Bourignon (1616 –1680) was a Flemish mystic. Antoinette was born at Lille to a rich Catholic family with a facial deformity. Believing herself called to restore the pure spirit of the Gospel, she fled her French home and entered a convent. Antoinette gathered followers in Amsterdam and printed enthusiastic works. Her religious enthusiasm, peculiarity of views and disregard of all sects raised both zealous persecutors and warm adherents. Bourignonism proved to be especially popular in Scotland, sufficiently to call forth several denunciations of her doctrines in various early 18th century Presbyterian general assemblies.