397 Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan, church father, leader, teacher and liturgist, died (b. ca. 338).

636 Isidore, Spanish scholar and archbishop of Seville, died (b. ca. 560).

896 Pope Formosus, whose brief papal reign (6 October 1891 until his death) was troubled and whose remains were exhumed and put on trial in the notorious Cadaver Synod, died (b. 816).

1292 Pope Nicholas IV died. He was born Girolamo Masci on 30 September 1227, and served as pope from 1288 until his death.

1492 Ambrosius Blarer, an influential reformer in southern Germany and northeastern Switzerland, was born (d. 6 December 1564).

1523 Katharina von Bora (1499–1552), Martin Luther’s future wife, and eleven others escaped from a convent.

1541 Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) was elected the first General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).

1603 Aegidius Hunnius, orthodox Lutheran theologian, died (b. 21 December 1550).

1643 Simon Episcopius, an Arminian proponent, died in Amsterdam, Netherlands (b. 8 January 1583).

1655 The statue known as the Infant Jesus of Prague was solemnly crowned by command of Cardinal Harrach.

1687 James II (1633–1701) issued a Declaration of Indulgence allowing full liberty of worship in England.

1718 Benjamin Kennicott, English churchman and Hebrew scholar, was born (d. 18 September 1783).

1742 Charles Wesley (1707–1788) preached his famous sermon “Awake, thou that sleepest” to the University of Oxford.

1748 William White, American patriarch of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born in Philadelphia (d. 17 July 1836).

1862 Ernest W. Shurtleff, American Congregational pastor, missionary and student chaplain, was born in Boston (d. 24 August 1917, Paris, France).

1868 William Chalmers Burns, Presbyterian missionary to China and translator, died in Newchwang, China (b. 1 April 1815).

1889 Asa Mahan (b. 9 November 1800), American Congregational clergyman and philosopher, died.

1918 Louis W. Dorn, pastor in Illinois and professor at Concordia College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, died (b. 15 October 1865).

1922 Benjamin Bosse, a member of the Missouri Synod Board of Directors and leader of the Lutheran Laymen’s League, died (b. 1 November 1874).

1968 Civil rights leader and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee (b. 15 January 1929).