What Happened on This Day in History?
On July 16, 1251 - a date celebrated by the Carmelite Order but actively doubted by modern historians - Saint Simon Stock reportedly had a vision of the Virgin Mary who handed him a scapular (a piece of cloth worn over the shoulders) and promised salvation to all who wore it faithfully. The Carmelites built an entire devotional tradition around this event that endures to this day.
Why It's Strange
The entire theological and devotional framework of the Brown Scapular, worn by millions of Catholics worldwide for centuries, rests on a single vision that even the Catholic Church's own historians admit probably never happened on this date and may have been invented entirely.
