328 Athanasius (ca. 293–373) was elected bishop of Alexandria, where he would suffer many attacks and be forced into exile five times.

793 Vikings attacked the monastery at Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the northeast coast of England. The date is often considered the first event of the “Viking Age.”

1191 King Richard I (“the Lionhearted,” 1157–1199) of England arrived at the besieged Palestinian port city of Acre (Acco) during the Third Crusade (1189–1192).

1290 The death of Beatrice (b. 1266), the woman he had worshiped from afar, caused Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) to begin philosophic studies that no doubt influenced his eventual production of his great Christian epic poem The Divine Comedy.

1536 Following Henry VIII’s Declaration of Supremacy, English clergy drew up the Ten Articles of Religion, the first articles of the Anglican Church since its break from Roman Catholicism.

1612 Hans Leo Hassler, musician, hymn writer and composer, died (b. 26 October 1564).

1660 Laurentius Laurenti, hymnist, was born in Husum, Schleswig (d. 29 May 1722).

1727 August Hermann Francke, German Lutheran pietist pastor, welfare worker, educator and philanthropist, died (b. 22 March 1663, L¸beck).

1794 French revolutionaries replaced Christianity with a deistic religion honoring a trinity of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.” They renamed churches “Temples of Reason,” and a new calendar announced a ten-day week and holidays commemorating events of the revolution. The “reign of terror” followed, with some 1,400 people losing their heads. Napoleon recognized the church again in 1804, then proceeded to imprison Pope Pius VII.

1810 Robert A. Schumann, German religious composer, was born at Zwickau, Saxony (d. 29 July 1856).

1824 Adoniram Judson (1788–1850) was taken captive and tortured in Burma. He was held for several months, and Ann Judson (1789–1826)
undermined her health attempting to rescue him.

1837 Alexander Merensky, missionary to Transvaal, South Africa, was born in Panten, Germany (d. 1918).

1838 Lutheran immigrants under August Ludwig Christian Kavel (1798–1860) left Prussia for Australia.

1845 Franconians sent by Wilhelm Löhe (1808–1872) to Michigan arrived in New York with Friedrich August Craemer.

1847 The Wittenberg Synod was organized by eight pastors formerly belonging to the English Synod of Ohio (East Ohio).

1850 TheodorOehler, director of Basel Missions, was born in Tuebingen, Wuerttemberg (d. 15 June 1915).

1883 Saint John Lutheran Church, the first English-speaking Lutheran church in Minneapolis, was organized by George H. Trabert (1843–1930), hymn translator.

1885 Henry Downton, hymnist, died in Hopton, England (b. 12 February 1818, Shropshire, England).

1913 Charles A. Briggs (b. 15 January 1841), American clergyman and biblical scholar, died.

1917 Norwegian Lutherans not willing to join the new Norwegian Lutheran Church of America for conscience’s sake met in Saint Paul, Minnesota (through June 11). A temporary organization was effected, a periodical founded and a regular meeting was called for the next year, when the Norwegian Synod of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded. This body later changed its name to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

1921 The LCMS Colorado (now Rocky Mountain) District opened its first convention.

1955 Johannes Astrup, Norwegian missionary to South Africa, died in South Africa (b. 3 December 1872).

1959 Rees Edgar Tulloss, president of Wittenberg College (Springfield, Ohio), died (b. 26 July 1881 near Leipsic, Ohio).

1978 After nearly 150 years of discrimination against African Americans, the president of the Mormon church, Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), issued a new policy that stated: “All worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color.”