On 7 October 1567, the first translation into Welsh of The New Testament was published.

 A history of the key events in the lead up to the publication of the New Testament in Welsh;.

1516 Erasmus published the Greek text of the New Testament

1522, Martin Luther  began to translate the Bible into German.

1526 William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English but was killed in 1536 before being able to complete the whole Bible.

1539 Miles Coverdale edited a new translation of the English Bible, ‘The Great Bible', under the patronage of Archbishop Cranmer and the government of Henry VIII.

1549  Under Edward VI, it was deemed that all acts of public worship were to be conducted in English instead of Latin.

1563 Elizabeth I introduced legislation which required all churches in Wales to have Welsh translations of the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible alongside the English versions. Welsh became the first non-state language of Europe to be used to convey the word of God after the Reformation.

 The translation of the New Testament into Welsh, produced by William Salesbury followed in 1567.  Salesbury, was the principal translator, but worked with Richard Davies (Bishop of St David's) and Thomas Huet (Precentor of St David's) to prepare the translation from the original Greek. 

Salesbury was born in about 1520 in the parish of Llansannan, Conwy and educated at Oxford University, where he studied Hebrew, Greek and Latin and also became familiar with the then banned writings of  Martin Luther and William Tyndale as well as the technology of printing.  As a convinced Protestant, he had been obliged to spend most of the reign of  Mary I, 1553–1558, in hiding. 

However, his translation although in hindsight, a monumental achievement was at the time not universally well received.  The main fault was not the translation itself, which was excellent, it was the confusing layout of the text that Salesbury used, as he was determined to show the Latin word origins and also included several different words for the same meaning and put dialect alternatives in the margins.  This resulted in a text that was difficult to read and there were reports of it being agony to listen to the clergymen struggling to get through the service.

His translation was subsequently superseded by a translation of the whole Bible by Bishop William Morgan in 1588.  

Born on this day 1839 near Tregynon, Montgomeryshire

Morgan Jones - American railroad builder, credited with helping to open the semiarid and largely unoccupied Texas plains

A boyhood fascination with the railroads resulted in him leaving the family farm aged 19, to seek his fortune in railroad construction.  After serving a seven-year apprenticeship with the Cambrian Railway Company, he sailed to the United States in 1866, where he was  immediately made a foreman of a construction crew and was involved in forming the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.

During the next five decades, Jones built a reputation for meeting seemingly impossible construction deadlines in organising hundreds of miles of railroads in Texas, which were laid without federal or state land subsidies, which made him a local hero and he is credited with helping to open up the semi-arid and largely unoccupied Texas plains. 

Born on this day 1778

Vice Admiral, Sir Charles Paget, one of the Pagets of Plas Newydd on Anglesey 

Paget was an active captain of the Royal Navy during The French Revolutionary Wars 1792- 1802 and The Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815.  He attained the rank of Vice Admiral in 1837 in charge of North American and West Indian Waters. 

His career was also notable for his noble action in saving seven hundred enemy crew members lives when he happened upon a disabled French ship, during a rough storm, towing the stricken ship to safety with his ships anchor.

Paget was MP for Caernarvon Boroughs and appointed Groom of the Bedchamber during the reign of King William IV.   Paget died of yellow fever, which is caused by the bite of female mosquitoes, on board HMS Tartarus in 1839.  

For action on 7th-8th October 1918, John (Jack) Henry Williams, was awarded the Victoria Cross.  He is the most decorated Welsh non-commissioned officer of all time.

Williams was born in Nantyglo, Monmouthshire in 1886 and in November 1914, he gave up his work as a colliery blacksmith, to enlist in the 10th Battalion, South Wales Borderer.  He was promoted to Sergeant in January 1915.

His citation for the Victoria Cross:

"For most conspicuous bravery, initiative and devotion to duty on the night of 7th - 8th October 1918, during the attack on Villers Outreaux, when, observing that his company was suffering heavy casualties from an enemy machine gun, he ordered a Lewis Gun to engage it, and went forward, under heavy fire, to the flank of the enemy post which he rushed single-handed, capturing fifteen of the enemy"

When his prisoners realised that Williams was acting alone, they turned on him and gripped his rifle. However, Williams then bayonetted five of them, which resulted in them surrendering for the second time

His medal ceremony for the VC, DCM, MM and Bar from King George V,  was the first time that the same man had been decorated four times on the same day and during the presentation one of the wounds in his arm opened resulting in him receiving medical attention before he could leave the palace.  His grave and memorial are at Ebbw Vale Cemetery.