742 Charlemagne, founder of Holy Roman Empire, was born (d. 28 January 814).
1118 Baldwin I of Jerusalem, one of the leaders of the First Crusade and King of Jerusalem, died (b. ca. 1058).
1272 Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, Holy Roman Emperor and leader of the Sixth Crusade, died (b. 5 January 1209).
1521 Martin Luther set out to appear at the Diet of Worms to be questioned about his writings.
1524 At the age of forty Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli (b. 1 January 1484) publicly married the widow Anna Reinhard. Their marriage lasted until his death in the Battle of Kappel on 11 October 1531.
1634 Karl F. Lochner, hymnist, was born in Nuernberg (d. 25 February 1697).
1640 Paul Flem(m)ing, hymnist, died (b. 1606 [1609?], Hartenstein, Germany).
1657 Jean-Jacques Olier, French catholic priest and founder of the Society of Saint-Sulpice, died (b. 20 September 1608).
1758 Johann Balthasar König, composer, was buried (b. 28 January 1691, Waltershausen near Gotha, Germany).
1791 Friedrich Wilhelm Barthel (d. 24 July 1859) was born in Rosswein, Saxony. He was the first treasurer of the LCMS.
1845 Theodor Halvarson Dahl, president of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church in America, was born in Baastad, Norway (d. 18 January 1923).
1860 George Milligan, Scottish biblical scholar, was born in Fife, Scotland (d. 1934). He taught at Glasgow University from 1910 to 1932. In 1926 he was elected the first chairman of the Scottish Sunday School Union. Most of his published writings were on New Testament language. His “magnum opus” was The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1914-1930), co-edited by James Hope Moulton.
1877 Martin F. Walker, a professor at Concordia Collegiate Institute (Bronxville, New York) and president of the English District, was born in York, Pennsylvania (d. 12 July 1967).
1877 Mordecai Ham, American evangelist of the early 20th century, was born at Scottsville, Kentucky (d. 1 November 1961, Louisville, Kentucky).
1891 The California Synod was organized in San Francisco. The General Synod had begun its work in California in 1886 through Rev. O. C. Miller. The German pastors at first contemplated a separate synod but finally united with the California Synod. With the General Synod it joined the United Lutheran Church in America in 1918.
1894 William D. Longstaff (b. 26 November 1822), English philanthropist and hymnist, died.
1910 Friedrich von Bodelschwingh Sr., founder of the Bethel Institute at Bielefeld, Germany, died (b. 6 March 1831). [German Wikipedia article]
1914 The Assemblies of God was organized at an eleven-day constitutional convention that began on this date in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
1928 Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, American cardinal and archbishop of Chicago, was born (d. 14 November 1996).
1940 A Commission on War Service was organized by Canadian Lutherans.
1952 Samuel Marinus Zwemer, Reformed missionary to Arabia, died (b. 12 April 1867, Vriesland, near Holland, Michigan).
1976 Four district presidents were removed from office by Missouri Synod president J. A. O. Preus II (1920–1994). The four district leaders were Herman Frincke (Eastern District), Harold Hecht (English), Rudolph P. F. Ressmeyer (Atlantic) and Robert J. Riedel (New England). The 1975 synodical convention at Anaheim had authorized Preus to vacate the office of any district president who did not comply with synodical directives on the ordination and placement of improperly endorsed ministerial candidates (graduates of Concordia Seminary in Exile). Preus was to vacate the offices sixty days before the respective district’s convention.
2005 Pope John Paul II died. He was born Karol Józef Wojtyła on 18 May 1920, and served as pope from 1978 until his death.