1218? Peter Waldo, founder of “Poor Men of Lyon,” died (b. ca. 1140).

1521 Martin Luther entered Worms to appear before the Diet with Lazarus Spengler from Nuernberg, one of the Lutheran representatives.

1529 Louis de Berquin (b. 1490), French Protestant humanist, translator of Luther’s writings into French and a leader of the Huguenots, was burned at the stake for heresy.

1743 Georg Konrad Rieger, a German Pietist preacher, died (b. 7 March 1687, Cannstatt [or Kannstatt], near Stuttgart).

1796 Joseph Swain (b. 1761), hymnist, died.

1829 Carl Gläser, composer, died (b. 4 May 1784).

1846 Frederich Gottlob Kuegele was born in Columbiana, Columbiana County, Ohio (d. 1 April 1916). He was elected as the first president of the newly formed English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri and Other States in 1888, holding that office until 1899.

1858 Johann Flierl, who served 44 years as a missionary in New Guinea, was born in Oberpfalz, Germany (d. 30 September 1947).

1879 Saint Bernadette Soubirous (b. 7 January 1844) died in Nevers, France.

1904 Merrill C. Tenney, American Baptist New Testament scholar, was born (d. 1985). In addition to his several scholarly writings, Tenney was dean of the Wheaton College Graduate School in Illinois from 1947 to 1971.

1916 The first baptism of African Americans in connection with the mission work of the Lutheran Synodical Conference in Alabama took place.

1927 Pope Benedict XVI was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger in Marktl Am Inn, Germany. He served as pope from 2005 until 2013, when he resigned, the first pope to do so since Gregory XII in 1415. He died 31 December 2022.