386 Nestorius, the first patriarch of Constantinople, was born in what is now Maras, Turkey (d. ca. 451).

1228 Stephen Langton, greatest of the medieval archbishops of Canterbury, died (b. ca. 1150).

1441 Jan van Eyck (b. ca. 1385), Flemish painter, died.

1530 The Confessio Tetrapolitana was rejected by the Estates at the Diet of Augsburg. Four south German cities (Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen and Lindau), which could not subscribe to Article X of the Augsburg Confession, submitted their own statement drawn up by the Sacramentarians Bucer and Capito. In its statement on the Lord’s Supper, their document sought for an intermediary position that could unite the conflicting views of Luther and Zwingli.

1553 Albrecht of Brandenburg (1522–1557) and Moritz (Maurice) of Saxony met in the Battle of Sievershausen in L¸neburg. Albrecht was defeated, but Moritz was killed.

1677 Johann Scheffler (Angelus Silesius), hymnist, died (b. 25 December 1624).

1706 Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719) and Heinrich Pluetschau, the first Lutheran missionaries to India, arrived in Tranquebar.

1838 Sir Robert Grant, English lawyer, politician and hymnist, died (b. 1779).

1838 Philip P. Bliss, American Gospel singer and hymn writer, was born in Clearfield, Pennsylvania (d. 29 December 1876).

1855 Philip Pusey, hymn translator, died in England (b. 25 June 1799).

1864 August Schlechte, co-founder of city and institutional mission work in the Missouri Synod, was born at Strasburg, Illinois (d. 20 April 1920). He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois) in 1890 and served as a pastor at Bleeker, New York, and Mishawaka and Woodland, Indiana, before beginning institutional mission work in Cook County, Illinois, in 1901, where he served until his death. He wrote a history of Lutheran city and children’s mission work in Illinois in 1912.

1884 Johann Peter Lange (b. 10 April 1802), German Reformed theologian and exegete, died.

1896 William Cameron Townsend, American missionary-linguist, was born (d. 23 April 1982).

1907 James McGranahan (b. 4 July 1840), American sacred music artist, died.

1925 The cornerstone was laid at Collegio Concordia, Crespo, Argentina.

1936 George A. Romoser, president of Concordia College (Bronxville, New York), died (b. 14 December 1870).

1948 The EKD (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland) was organized in Eisenach (through July 15).

1978 Adolph A. Obermann, charter member of the Missouri Synod’s Board of Support and Pensions, died in Springfield, Missouri. He was elected to the board in 1938 immediately following the synod’s adoption of a formal pension plan. He served as member and secretary of the board until 1962. A graduate of Concordia Teachers College (River Forest, Illinois), Obermann served Lutheran schools in the Chicago and Saint Louis areas until retirement in 1970.