253 (or 254) Origen, Greek church father, is commemorated (b. ca. 185).

1418 The Council of Constance was concluded, having first convened on 5 November 1414. This conclave ended the Great Schism within the Roman Catholic Church by deposing three rival popes (John XXIII elected at the Council of Pisa, Gregory XII elected in Rome and Benedict XIII elected in Avignon, France). The council also condemned and executed the two Bohemian reformers, John Huss in 1415 and his close friend and disciple, Jerome of Prague, in 1417.

1529 A union of Protestant princes against the Second Diet of Speyer was created; a recess of the diet was proclaimed.

1541 Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the Spanish church reformer who founded the Roman Catholic religious order the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1534, was elected its first general by the members of the order.

1610 Pope Alexander VIII was born (d. 1 February 1691).

1724 Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, was born in Königsberg, Prussia, where he remained all his life (d. 12 February 1804).

1801 Elijah Coleman Bridgman, missionary to China, was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts (d. 2 November 1861, Shanghai, China).

1859 Friedrich Pfotenhauer, fifth president of the Missouri Synod, was born in Altencelle, Hannover, Germany (d. 9 October 1939, Chicago, Illinois).

1864 The motto “In God We Trust” first appeared on U.S. coinage, being struck on a bronze two-cent piece.

1877 Karl Heinrich Ferdinand Ludwig Pamperrien, Lutheran missionary to India, was ordained at Rudolstadt (1845–1926).

1897 Walter Henry Ellwanger was born in New Middleton, Indiana (d. 15 December 1982). In 1928 he graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis). He served as a pastor in Chillicothe, Missouri; with the Lutheran City Mission in Saint Louis; and in Waymansville, Indiana. From 1945 to 1967 he was the president of the Alabama Lutheran Academy and College (Selma, Alabama).

1900 Henry William Behrens, South African missionary, died (b. 13 February 1827, Hermannsburg, Germany).

1906 Elmer Arthur Kettner, Missouri Synod editor and author, was born in Elgin, Illinois (d. 24 September 1964).

1960 The constituting convention of The American Lutheran Church was held through 24 April.

1978 Edgar H. Aufdemberge, professor at Concordia College (Bronxville, New York) from 1962 to 1978, died in Tuckahoe, New York (b. 4 May 1922, Omaha, Nebraska). Aufdemberge joined Concordia’s staff in 1962 after previous service as a teacher at parishes in Kentucky and New York. He was also serving as a member of the Missouri Synod’s Board of Parish Education at the time of his death.

1981 Ground was broken on this date for the construction of the new world headquarters building for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in Kirkwood, Missouri.