1089 Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, scholar and church reformer, died (b. ca. 1010).

1403 German university masters attacked John Wycliffe‘s (ca. 1320–1384) reform-minded doctrines, which had spread to their nation by way of Jan Hus (ca. 1370–1415) and others.

1533 English reformer Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), Archbishop of Canterbury, declared King Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn valid, having earlier approved his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

1577 Jacob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz and others finished a draft of the Formula of Concord and submitted it to Elector August of Saxony.

1611 Martin Rinkart (1586–1649) began work as diaconus of Saint Anne’s Church in Eisleben.

1663 Joseph Alleine (1634–1668), non-conformist Puritan preacher, was thrown into prison because he continued to preach after the Act of Uniformity required him to step down. His book Alleine’s Alarm is a Puritan classic.

1698 The cornerstone of “Old Swedes” Church in Wilmington, Delaware, was laid.

1779 Thomas Moore, Irish Catholic lawyer, poet and hymnist, was born in Dublin (d. 25 February 1852).

1789 Bernhardt S. Ingemann, hymnist, was born in Thorkildstrup on the island of Falster (d. 24 February 1862).

1835 Annie Sherwood Hawks, American Baptist homemaker and hymnist, was born in Hoosick New York (d. 3 January 1918).

1836 Thomas B. Pollock, hymnist, was born (d. 15 December 1896).

1869 Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, German Lutheran theologian and author, died (b. 20 October 1802).

1898 The Shroud of Turin was first photographed by Secundo Pia in Turin’s cathedral where it had rested for 320 years.

1903 John Henry Wilbrandt Stuckenberg, professor at Wittenberg College (Springfield, Ohio), died (b. 6 January 1835).

1907 Henry Vetter, home missionary in Minnesota, died (b. 25 August 1842, Rosswein, Saxony). He studied at Friedrich Brunn’s preparatory school at Steeden and then emigrated to the U.S. in 1869 to finish his studies for the ministry at Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis). He was responsible for founding many congregations in Minnesota.

1937 Alfred Adler, Jewish convert to Christianity, neurologist and psychiatrist, died in Aberdeen, Scotland (b. 7 February 1870) while on a speaking tour.

1939 George Carl Schroedel, professor at Saint John’s College (Winfield, Kansas), died (b. 21 August 1878, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1902 and served as pastor at Hurley, Manawa and Wausau, Wisconsin. In 1924 he joined the Saint John’s faculty as professor of Latin, serving until his death. He was also treasurer of the college and president of the Lutheran Children’s Friend Society of Kansas for a number of years.

1949 A Communist party congress in Czechoslovakia declared its right to educate children in  atheistic Leninism regardless of their parent’s religious views.

1954 The words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill to that effect.

1959 The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America, forming the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

1959 The Lutheran Church in Portugal was established from Brazil.

1968 George Walter Gaertner died at Oakland, California (b. 17 August 1893, Evanston, Illinois). He worked much of his life as a missionary to the deaf and the deaf-blind, first in Seattle and then in Oakland, California. For a time he also taught at Concordia College in Oakland. From 1950 to 1964 he served as the regional counselor for the LCMS Board of Missions to the Deaf.

1987 Walter E. Brauer, pastor and professor, died in Valparaiso, Indiana.