1024 Hugh of Cluny, one of the most influential leaders of one of the most influential monastic orders of the Middle Ages, was born (d. 28 April 1109).

1213 John of England (1166–1216) signed the first Magna Carta.

1497 Pope Alexander VI (1431–1503) excommunicated Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), an Italian
Dominican priest and leader of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498. He was known for religious reform, anti-Renaissance preaching, book burning and destruction of what he considered immoral art. He vehemently preached against what he saw as the moral corruption of the clergy.

1553 Erasmus Alberus, pupil of Martin Luther, educator and hymnist, died (b. ca. 1500 in the Wetterau).

1553 Johannes Aepinus (Johann Hoeck), the first Lutheran superintendent of Hamburg, died at Hamburg (b. 1499). [German Wikipedia article]

1568 Battle of Langside: the forces of Mary Queen of Scots (1542–1587) were defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray (ca. 1531–1570), her half-brother.

1607 A group of 105 Anglicans landed at Jamestown, Virginia. With them was Chaplain Robert Hunt, who set up the first Anglican church in America. According to Captain John Smith, the group had daily common prayer morning and evening, two sermons each Sunday and communion every three months.

1638 Richard Simon, French Biblical critic, was born (d. 11 April 1712).

1655 Pope Innocent XIII was born (d. 7 March 1724).

1779 John Caspar Stoever Jr., early American Lutheran pastor, died (b. 21 December 1707, Luedorf).

1782 Henry Augustus Philip Muhlenberg, Lutheran pastor and congressman, was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (d. 11 August 1844).

1792 Pope Pius IX was born (d. 7 February 1878).

1810 Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken, second president of the Missouri Synod, was born in Verden, Hannover (d. 4 May 1876).

1812 John Sullivan Dwight, musician and hymn translator, was born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 5 September 1893).

1836 The Baptists withdrew from the American Bible Society to form a denominational Bible society of their own.

1839 William P. Mackay, Scottish physician and pastor, was born in Montrose, Scotland (d. 22 August 1885, Portree, Scotland).

1842 Arthur Sullivan, English composer, was born at Bolwell Terrace, Lambeth (London), England (d. 22 November 1900, London).

1850 Eric Jansson, the leader of a Swedish pietist sect that emigrated to the United States in 1846 and founded Bishop Hill, Illinois, died (b. 21 December 1808).

1870 Levi Franklin Gruber, Lutheran pastor, professor and lecturer, was born near Reading, Pennsylvania (d. 5 December 1941).

1871 Mons Olson Wee, Norwegian Lutheran professor, was born in Etne, Bremnes canton, Norway (d. 15 April 1942).

1896 Daniel Landsmann, LCMS missionary to Jews, died in New York City (b. 18 June 1836, Russia).

1917 The Virgin Mary was said to have appeared at Fatima, Portugal, to three shepherd children.

1925 Florida’s House of Representatives passed a bill requiring all public schools to conduct daily Bible readings.

1942 Martin Theodore Winkler, LCMS missionary to New Zealand, died (b. 24 November 1880, Stratmann, Saint Louis County, Missouri).

1946 The Lutheran Press, Obot Idim, Nigeria, was opened.

1954 Gustav Ernst Bergemann, president of the Wisconsin Synod, died in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (b. 1862). He was educated at Northwestern College (Watertown, Wisconsin) and the Wisconsin Synod seminary. He served at pastor in Bay City, Michigan, and Tomah and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He retired in 1947. He was a member of the synod’s Indian Mission Board, president of the old Wisconsin Synod from 1908 to 1917 and president of the Joint Synod of Wisconsin and Other States from 1917 to 1933.

1956 Good Shepherd Lutheran Home (Terra Bella, California) was dedicated.

1981 Ali Agca, a 23-year-old Turkish gunman, seriously wounded Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) in an assassination attempt in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome. Agca later converted to Christ when John Paul visited him in prison.

1989 Emil A. Heino died in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois) in 1934 and served as a pastor in Ely and Sebeka, Minnesota, and Ashtabula, Ohio. He was vice-president and president of the National Evangelical Lutheran Church, a Finnish heritage church body that merged with the Missouri Synod in 1964. He retired in 1984.