431 Nestorius was officially condemned by the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus.

1073 Antony of the Caves, founder of Russian monasticism, is commemorated.

1086 Canute (Knud) IV, also known as Canute the Saint, king and patron saint of Denmark, was killed by his subjects (b. ca. 1043).

1509 John Calvin, reformer, was born (d. 27 May 1564).

1629 The first non-Separatist Congregational Church in America was established in Salem, Massachusetts. It was founded by Francis Higginson (1588–1630) and Samuel Skelton, two newly arrived ministers from England.

1682 Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, the first German Lutheran missionary to India, was born in Pulsnitz, Saxony (d. 23 February 1719).

1793 John C. F. Heyer, Lutheran missionary from America to India, was born in Helmstedt, Germany (d. 7 November 1873).

1811 Benjamin F. Baker, American editor of choir and chorus books, was born (d. 1889).

1826 John George Lochman, president of the General Synod, died (b. 2 December 1773).

1834 Friedrich Reinhold Eduard Preuss, professor at Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) who later became a Roman Catholic, was born in Koenigsberg, Prussia (d. 17 July 1904).

1849 August Lawrence Graebner, professor of history at Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis), was born in Frankentrost, Michigan (d. 7 December 1904).

1851 The California Wesleyan College was chartered in Santa Clara, California, under Methodist auspices. It was named the University of the Pacific in 1852, transferred to San Jose, California, in 1871, merged with Napa College of Napa, California, in 1896, and was renamed the College of the Pacific in 1911. The main campus moved to Stockton, California, in 1924, and the college readopted the name University of the Pacific in 1961.

1863 Clement Clarke Moore (b. 15 July 1779), American writer and educator, died. He is best remembered as the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (“Twas the Night Before Christmas”) in 1823.

1872 The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America was organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1880 Arthur Johann Conrad Brunn, vice-president of the Missouri Synod, was born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 27 August 1949).

1888 Eduard Thurneysen, Swiss Protestant theologian, was born at Wallenstaat, Switzerland (d. 21 August 1977).

1897 John H. Baden, mission leader and editor, died (b. 20 December 1823).

1901 Karl Heinrich Christian Plath, Lutheran promoter of missions, died in Berlin, Germany (b. 1829).

1908 Phoebe Palmer Knapp (b. 9 March 1839), active American lay Methodist, died.

1924 Christian Johann Albrecht, founder of Martin Luther College (New Ulm, Minnesota), died (b. 13 July 1847).

1925 Jury selection began in the trial of John T. Scopes (1900–1970), a trial over teaching evolution that would define and motivate the Fundamentalist movement, in Dayton, Tennessee.