604 Saint Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury and the missionary who brought the Gospel to England, died.

1232 Pope Gregory IX (ca. 1143–1241) sent the first Inquisition team to Aragon, Spain. Gregory had organized the Inquisition and turned it over to the Dominicans the year before.

1647 Massachusetts enacted a law forbidding any Jesuit or Roman Catholic priests from entering Puritan jurisdictions. First-time offenders would be banished; second-time offenders could face execution.

1647 Alse Young (sometimes cited as Achsah Young or Alice Young) was hanged as a witch, the first such execution in Massachusetts.

1664 Increase Mather (1639–1723) became minister of Boston’s Second Church, a position he held until his death fifty-nine years later.

1700 Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, German reformer and founder of the Moravian Church as well as a pioneer of ecumenism and mission work and a hymnist, was born in Dresden, Germany (d. 9 May 1760).

1708 Johann Friedrich Ruopp, hymnist, died in Halle. He was born at Strassburg, Alsace-Lorraine (date unknown). While a theological student at Halle, he became a Pietist. He was appointed deacon of Lampertheim; in 1692 he became pastor at Gottesweiler, near Strassburg. He united with his colleagues, and in 1704 with Johann Friedrich Haug, in an attempt to spread a “Living Christianity.” On 27 February 1694 he was driven from his charge and took refuge at Halle, where he became adjunct of the theological faculty and inspector at the orphanage. [The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G. Polack (Saint Louis: CPH, 1942): 570]

1773 Hans G. Nageli, Swiss author of the hymn tune DENNIS, was born in Wetzikon near Zurich (d. 26 December 1836).

1808 The Fifth (U.S.) General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church concluded in Baltimore, Maryland. The three-week conference had ordained William McKendree (1757–1835) the first American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

1811 William Hunter, American Methodist clergyman, was born in County Antrim, Ireland (d. 18 October 1877, Cleveland, Ohio).

1812 August Friedrich Crämer was born in Klein-Langheim, Bavaria. He began his studies in 1830 at the University of Erlangen (d. 3 May 1891).

1823 Francis Bottome, hymnist, was born (d. 29 June 1894).

1839 Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696–1787) was canonized.

1845 Delegates from three elderships of the Churches of God in North America (Winebrennerians) met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to form the “General Eldership of the Church of God in North America.”

1850 The Wisconsin Synod of the Lutheran church was organized in Granville, Wisconsin.

1852 Michael H. Pankow, leader of German Evangelical Lutheran District Synod of Nebraska, born in Lebanon, Dodge County, Wisconsin.

1858 The United Presbyterian Church of North America was formed by the merger of the Associate and the Associate Reformed
Presbyterian churches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1863 Shailer Mathews, American Baptist educator, was born in Portland, Maine (d. 23 October 1941, Chicago).

1868 Ivar Daniel Ylvisaker, president of the North Dakota District of Norwegian Lutheran Church, born in Trondheim, Norway (d. 5 March 1926).

1901 The first Missouri Synod baptism in India took place.

1914 The first Missouri Synod Lutheran school opened in China at Sha Pu Kai Chapel in Hankow.

1924 The Methodist Episcopal Church repealed its ban on dancing and the theater.

1925 Ernest DeWitt Burton (b. 1856), American Baptist educator, died.

1935 John Conrad Strasen, vice-president of the Missouri Synod, died at Milwaukee, Wisconsin (b. 7  November 1853, Collinsville, Illinois). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1876 and served as pastor of First Lutheran Church (Omaha, Nebraska) from 1876 to 1879. He was then pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church (Milwaukee) from 1879 until his retirement in 1924. He was secretary of the Wisconsin District from 1885 to 1888, president from 1894 to 1900, vice-president from 1903 to 1908 and vice-president of the synod from 1908 to 1914.

1937 Adolf William Meyer, president of Saint John’s College (Winfield, Kansas) from 1895 to 1927, died (b. 20 July 1860).