1248 Construction of the Cologne Cathedral began.

1464 Pope Pius II, who attempted to begin a crusade against the Turks, went to the rendezvous city of Ancona, Italy, fell ill and died on this day before the rest of his allies arrived (b. 18 October 1405).

1591 François de La Noue, French Huguenot captain, died (b. 1531, Nantes).

1707 Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719) dedicated the first Lutheran church in India.

1727 William Croft, composer, died at Bath, England (bapt. 30 December 1678).

1810 Samuel Sebastian Wesley, composer, was born in London, England (d. 19 April 1876).

1824 Hugh Wilson, composer, died at Duntocher, Scotland (b. 1766).

1848 Sarah Flower Adams, English devotional writer and hymnist, died in England (b. 22 February 1805).

1880 The Cologne Cathedral was completed, 632 years to the day after it was begun.

1893 Arthur E. Diesing was born in Detroit, Michigan (d. 28 January 1970, Orlando, Florida). He graduated from the Missouri Synod’s Addison, Illinois, teachers seminary in 1912 and later earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He served as a teacher in Carlinville, Quincy and Elgin, Illinois, and as a professor at his alma mater (which had relocated to River Forest, Illinois, as Concordia Teachers College—now Concordia University Chicago) from 1923 to 1957.

1900 Carl Leonard Folke, founder of the LCMS radio station in Beirut, Lebanon, was born.

1914 Ewald Justus Otto, pastor, was born (d. 17 July 1987). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1939. In 1940 he founded Our Redeemer Lutheran Church (Quincy, Illinois), where he served as pastor until his retirement in 1982. He served as chairman of the Saint Louis seminary’s Board of Control (Regents) from 1973 to 1986.

1919 The Lutheran Deaconess Association was organized at Fort Wayne, Indiana.

1936 Richard C. H. Lenski, Ohio Synod theologian, author of homiletic expositions and Luther exegete, died (b. 14 September 1864, Greifenberg, Prussia).

1971 John Bajus, Slovak Synod pastor and hymn translator, died in Norridge, Illinois (b. 5 April 1901, Raritan, New Jersey). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1925 and served parishes in Granite City, West Frankfort, Staunton and Chicago (Norridge), Illinois. He was first vice-president of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1949 to 1959 and a member of its board of directors. He was also the synod’s archivist from 1949 to 1969, a member of the synod’s committee for merger with the Missouri Synod, editor of the  Courier, director of the Slovak Lutheran Hour and a member of the Synodical Conference Hymnology Committee.

1975 Adolph Brux died. In 1923 he went to India as a missionary to Muslims. Soon after his arrival, however, he became involved in a controversy because he joined in prayer with non-Lutheran Christian missionaries and was recalled to the United States. In 1935 the Missouri Synod Board of Appeals ruled that he should be allowed to return to India, but the synod’s foreign mission board
refused to send him. Brux resigned from the ministry and from the synod. In 1967 the synod resolved in convention to apologize to Brux.