1220 Thomas Becket’s (ca. 1118–1170) shrine was dedicated in Canterbury and became a popular pilgrim attraction. He had been murdered by knights of the English king Henry II.

1572 Sigismund II of Poland, a ruler favorable to the Reformation, died (b. 1 August 1520).

1647 Thomas Hooker, colonial American pastor and Puritan leader, died (b. 5 July 1586).

1787 Henri A. C. Malan, hymnist, was born in Geneva, Switzerland (d. 18 May 1864).

1819 John Henry Philip Graebner was born in Burghaig, near Kalmbach, Bavaria (d. 27 May 1898).

1824 George Moulton Adams, Congregationalist pastor and writer, was born at Castine, Maine (d. 11 January 1906).

1842 Wilhelm Hermann Kowert, missionary to New Zealand and Illinois pastor, was born in Neukirchen, near Melle, Hannover, Germany (d. 9 April 1923).

1851 Charles A. Tindley, African American Methodist preacher, was born in Berlin, Maryland (d. 26 July 1933).

1858 Lewis Herman Schuh, Lutheran theologian, president of Capital University and educator, was born in Galion, Ohio (d. 29 September 1936).

1870 The First Vatican Council held its last general meeting.

1874 Popular New England preacher Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) demanded an investigation by his church into the charges of adultery brought by Theodore Tilton, who later sued Beecher for “alienating his wife’s affections.”

1878 Francis James Grimké (1852–1937), son of a slave, was ordained in the Presbyterian Church.

1903 The Nova Scotia Synod was organized at the 75th meeting of the Nova Scotia Conference of the Pittsburgh Synod.

1906 Arthur C. Repp was born in New York City (d. 16 October 1994). After graduating from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis), he became a pastor in San Antonio, Texas. In 1943 he was called by the Board of Christian Education of the Missouri Synod to become its executive secretary. He later joined the faculty of the Saint Louis seminary.

1929 The first convention of the Finnish Free Church was held in Lahti.

1932 Henry Eyster Jacobs, Lutheran theologian, author and educator, died (b. 10 November 1844).

1942 The Lutheran Women’s Missionary League was organized in Chicago.

1944 George Washington Truett (b. 6 May 1867), American Southern Baptist preacher, died.

1946 Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850–1917), founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, became the first American to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

2007 Pope Benedict XVI issued the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum (Of the Supreme Pontiffs) granting greater freedom for the celebration of the “Missal promulgated by John XXIII in 1962,” otherwise known as the Tridentine Mass, and the pre-Conciliar forms of the sacraments.