459 After spending thirty-six years on top of a pillar praying, fasting and occasionally preaching, Simeon Stylites died (traditional date; b. ca. 390).

1192 The Third Crusade, which had the mission of retaking Jerusalem (which had fallen to Muslim general Saladin in 1187), ended with the signing of a treaty.

1661 Georg Böhm, organist and composer who taught J. S. Bach, was born in Hohenkirchen, Thuringia (d. 18 May 1733).

1752 The Gregorian calendar was adopted in England.

1784 English clergyman Thomas Coke (1747–1814) was consecrated the first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church by founder John Wesley.

1809 Lydia Baxter, hymnist, was born (d. 22 June 1874, New York City).

1842 Johannes Deinzer, an assistant to J. K. W. Loehe, was born in Germany (d. 25 January 1897).

1842 Johann Friedrich Zucker, a missionary of the Leipzig Mission Society in India, was born in Breitenau, Bavaria (d. 13 September 1927).

1858 Theodor Carl Friedrich Gruber, a Saxon immigration leader, died (b. 28 August 1795).

1872Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, Danish Lutheran leader, died (b. 8 September 1783, Udby, Zealand, Denmark).

1884 Frank C. Laubach, American Congregational missionary and linguistic pioneer, was born in Benton, Pennsylvania (d. 11 June 1970).

1902 The organizational meeting of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church was held at Connellsville, Pennsylvania (through September 4).

1945 The Lutheran Hour was begun in Australia.

1973 English philological scholar, novelist and devout Catholic J. R. R. Tolkien died (b. 8 January 1892).

1976 Luther A. Weigle, noted Christian educator and ecumenist, died in New Haven, Connecticut (b. 1880). Weigle chaired the planning committee that led to the formation of the National Council of Churches (NCC) in 1950 and also chaired the NCC committee that produced the Revised Standard Version of the Bible in 1952.