555 Pope Vigilius died in Syracuse on his way back to Rome after attending the fifth church council.

1099 The armies of the First Crusade reached the walls of Jerusalem.

1526 Johannes (Hans) Luther, first son of Martin Luther, was born (d. 27 October 1575).

1576 The “Torgau Book”, a forerunner of the Formula of Concord that was based on Andreae’s “Six Christian Sermons” and was eventually revised into the Bergen Book that became part of the Formula of Concord, was completed. Written by Jakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, David Chytraeus and others, it was the compilation of the Maulbronn Concord and the Swabian-Saxon Concord.

1749 Christian Streit, Lutheran chaplain in the Revolutionary War, was born near Germantown, New Jersey (d. 10 March 1812).

1753 German Lutheran settlers arrived in Nova Scotia and founded Lunenburg.

1825 David Elliott Campbell, martyred Presbyterian missionary to India, was born in Pennsylvania (d. 13 June 1857).

1842 The Gossner Mission Society received royal sanction.

1843 Protestant mystic Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin, died (b. 20 March 1770). [German Wikipedia article]

1861 Johannes Reinhard, who helped organize the General Synod, died (b. 14 March 1776).

1863 Franz Xavier Gruber, Austrian church organist and composer of “Silent Night” (STILLE NACHT), died in Hallein, Upper Austria (b. 25 November 1787).

1865 Juergen Ludwig Neve, Lutheran professor and author who wrote a history of Lutheranism in America, was born in Silesia, Germany (d. 12 August 1943).

1882 The Concordia Synod of Pennsylvania and Other States was organized by a group of pastors who had withdrawn from the Ohio Synod because of the controversy on election and conversion.

1888 Carl Albert Gieseler was born in Racine, Wisconsin (d. 13 January 1965, Valparaiso, Indiana). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1913 and served as a pastor in Detroit, Michigan, from 1913 to 1924. He was a professor at Saint John’s College (Winfield, Kansas) from 1924 to 1927 and at Valparaiso University from 1948 to 1965.

1907 Conrad Vetter, a home missionary in Kansas, died (b. 28 March 1835, Ebsdorf, Kurhessen, near Marburg). Educated in Marburg, he taught from 1862 to 1865 in a school for troubled boys in Schladen, Hannover. Desiring to serve the Lord, he turned to the training school of Pastor Louis Harms at Hermannsburg. In 1866 he emigrated to the U.S. and entered the practical department of the Missouri Synod’s seminary in Saint Louis, completing his studies in December 1867. He served parished in Warrenton, Missouri; Calhoun County, Illinois; Osage Bluff, Missouri; and Atchison, Kansas, the latter from 1883 until his death. He was active as a circuit visitor, member of the district missions commission, chair of the commission on support and of the Eastern Kansas Pastoral Conference.

1913 Ohio-born Methodist evangelist George Bennard (1873–1958) introduced his hymn “The Old Rugged Cross” for the first time at one of his special evangelistic meetings in Pokagon, Michigan.

1913 Albert G. Huegli was born in Detroit, Michigan (d. 18 October 1998). A 1936 Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) graduate, he served from 1944 to 1969 as an assistant professor and dean at Concordia Teachers College (River Forest, Illinois) and as vice-president and president of Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, Indiana). He retired in 1978.

1934 The first Wycliffe Bible Translators linguistics training course was offered at Camp Wycliffe in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas. This study lasted three months. Since then Wycliffe has trained thousands and maintains one of the largest Protestant missions in the world.

1943 Carl Ackermann, Lutheran professor and college president, died (b. 12 September 1858).

1955 Martin Ilse Sr., pioneer institutional missionary, died at Cleveland, Ohio (b. 21 September 1870, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). He graduated from Concordia College (Fort Wayne, Indiana) in 1889 and from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1892. Until 1922 he served as pastor at Saint John Lutheran Church (Collinswood, Ohio). During that time he also founded institutional missions in Cleveland and helped in the formation of the Midwest Institutional Pastors Conference, the Cleveland Deaconess Association and the Lutheran Nurses Association.

1996 The first permanent home for the Lutheran Library for the Blind was dedicated at Concordia Publishing House on this date. The library was begun in 1939 by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis student Frederick Graepp. The library officially became part of the LCMS in 1941. It was moved to Chicago in 1944, then back to St. Louis and finally to CPH.