690 Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, died (b. 602).

1692 Giles Corey (b. ca. 1621) was pressed to death after refusing to plead in the Salem witch trials.

1697 Valentin Alberti, German Lutheran theologian, died (b. 15 December 1635, Lähn, Silesia). [German article from Bautz Kirchenlexikon]

1729 The Westminster Confession of Faith was adopted by American Presbyterians at the Synod of Philadelphia.

1745 Ernst Salomon Cyprian, Lutheran theologian and writer, died (b. 22 September 1673, Ostheim, Franconia). [German article from Bautz Kirchenlexikon]

1799 Samuel Preiswerk, hymnist, was born in Ruemlingen, canton of Basel, Switzerland (d. 13 January 1871, Basel). He studied at Basel, Tübingen and Erlangen and became preacher at the orphanage in Basel in 1824. In 1829 he became tutor in Hebrew at the Basel Mission House; in 1830 pastor at Muttenz; in 1834 professor of Old Testament exegesis at the Evangelical Seminary in Geneva; in 1843 pastor of Saint Leonard’s Church in Basel and in 1859 antistes, the highest dignitary at the cathedral (The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G. Polack [Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1942]: 562–63).

1804 Elling Eielsen was born in Norway (d. 10 January 1883).

1811 Orson Pratt, a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, was born (d. 3 October 1881).

1839 A group of Saxon laity in Perry County, Missouri, issued their Protestation to C. F. W. Walther and the other clergy, addressing problems with the relationship between the clergy and the congregations in the aftermath of the deposition of Martin Stephan.

1853 Baptist missionary pioneer J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) set sail from England for China, sent by the Chinese Evangelization Society.

1865 Charles Theodore Benze, professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary (Mount Airy [Philadelphia], Pennsylvania) from 1915 to 1936, was born (d. 3 July 1936).

1900 Clarence A. Walworth, hymn translator, died (b. 30 May 1820, Plattsburg, New York).

1905 Thomas John Barnardo, English philanthropist and founder and director of homes for destitute children, died (b. 4 July 1845 in Dublin, Ireland).

1906 California Concordia College, Oakland, opened.

1908 Carl Elof Lund-Quist, Lutheran World Federation president, was born in Lindsborg, Kansas (d. 26 August 1965).

1945 William J. Danker (1914–2001)was installed as the first LCMS missionary to Japan.

1971 William F. Albright (b. 24 May 1891), American Methodist archeologist, died.

1982 Karl L. Barth was inaugurated as the eighth president of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis). Barth, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native, had served for twelve years as president of the South Wisconsin District. He entered the parish ministry after graduating from the Saint Louis seminary in 1947. He served from 1974 to 1981 as chairman of the Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations.

1993 Lorenz C. Wunderlich died (b. 14 February 1906). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1927 and served congregations in Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. He served on the Missouri Synod’s hymnody commission, its commission for review of publications and its appeals and adjudication committee. He also served the Kansas District as treasurer and the Saint Louis seminary as a member of the faculty and registrar. He was the author of The Half-Known God, a book on the Holy Spirit.