Gustav Adolf Day is celebrated in Sweden each year on 6 November. On this day only a special pastry, with a chocolate medallion of the king, is sold. Additionally, the day is also an official flag day in the Swedish calendar. In Finland, the day is celebrated as svenska dagen or ruotsalaisuuden päivä, “swedishness day,” and is a customary flag day. In both countries, November 6 is the name day for Gustav Adolf (9 December 1594–6 November 1632  O.S.), one of the few exceptional name days in the year.

1406 Pope Innocent VII (b. ca. 1336) died.

1538 Nicolaus Hausmann (b. ca. 1479), close friend of Martin Luther and reformer of Zwickau and Anhalt, died. [German Wikipedia article]

1672 Heinrich Schütz (b. 6 October 1585, Köstritz, Saxony), German composer of church music, died.

1789 Pope Pius VI (1717–1799) appointed Father John Carroll (1735–1815) as the first Catholic bishop in the United States.

1801 Christian Gregor, hymnist, died (b. 1 January 1723, Dirsdorf, Silesia). He became a teacher in Herrnhut in 1742 and later a director of music in the Moravian Brethren’s congregation at Herrnhag (1748) and at Zeist (1749). In 1753 he returned to Herrnhut as treasurer of the Brethren’s Board of Direction. He was ordained diaconus in 1756, presbyter in 1767 and bishop of the Brethren’s Church in 1789. [The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G. Polack (Saint Louis: CPH, 1942): 513]

1804 Benjamin Hall Kennedy, American educator and hymn translator, was born at Summer Hill, near Birmingham, England (d. 6 April 1880).

1850 Charles Meineke (b. 1782), German-born American church organist who wrote the tune GLORIA PATRI, died. He emigrated from Germany to England in 1810, after which he immigrated to America in 1822. For eight years he was organist at Saint Paul Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. Meineke published several volumes of hymns during his life.

1853 The first Chinese Presbyterian Church in the U.S. organized in San Francisco, California on this date.

1860 The Advent Christian Association  formally organized at Worcester, Massachusetts on this date. They were separatists from the main body of Adventists.

1863 A. T. (Archibald Thomas) Robertson, American Baptist New Testament scholar, was born near Chatham, Virginia (d. 24
September 1934).

1865 Walter Grenville Whinfield, composer, was born.

1876 The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Saxony organized on this date. Pastor Friedrich Carl Theodor Ruhland (1836–1879) was the first president.

1876 James Nicholson (b. ca. 1828), Irish-born American Methodist layman and hymnist, died.

1893 Peter I. Tchaikovsky (b. 7 May 1840), Russian composer, died.

1915 Sylvanus Stall (b. 18 October 1847), Lutheran pastor and author, died.

1917 The agreement to form the United Lutheran Church in America was adopted by the United Synod of the South at Salisbury, North Carolina.

1935 Billy Sunday (b. 19 November 1862), American Presbyterian revivalist, died.

1977 The Barnes Lake Dam burst in Toccoa Falls, Georgia, releasing a flood of water that destroyed the campus of Toccoa Falls College. Thirty-eight students and instructors lost their lives in the tragedy.

1983 A new 64-minute film, entitled, “Martin Luther—Heretic”, starring Jonathan Pryce, had its premiere in St. Louis on this date. Produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation and co-produced by Concordia Publishing House, the film centered on the period of Luther’s life from his first years as a monk until his return from his imprisonment at the Wartburg Castle.