1531 Johannes Oecolampadius, German-born Swiss (Basel) reformer, died (b. 1482 at Weinsberg, Württemberg, Germany).
1572 John Knox, Scottish preacher and reformer, died in Edinburgh (b. ca. 1514).
1703 Justus Falckner (1672–1723), one of the pioneers of Lutheranism in America who came to America in 1700 as a land agent, was ordained as pastor at the first Lutheran ordination in America.
1713 Junipero Serra, Spanish Franciscan missionary to America, was born in Majorca, Spain (d. 28 August 1784).
1771 Methodist Francis Asbury (1745–1816) began preaching in America. For the next forty-five years, he was the main figure in establishing the Methodist Church in the United States.
1800 Henry K. Oliver, composer, was born at Beverly, Massachusetts (d. 12 August 1885).
1824 Johann F. Bading, president of the Wisconsin Synod and of the Synodical Conference, was born at Rixdorf, near Berlin (d. 24 May 1913).
1860 George Croly (b. 17 August 1780), Irish clergyman and hymnist, died.
1865 A. S. (Arthur Samuel) Peake, English Methodist Bible commentator, was born in Leek, England (d. 19 August 1929). [Bautz Kirchenlexikon article]
1872 Hermann Adam Bentrup, missionary to the deaf, was born at California, Missouri (d. 29 October 1948, Chattanooga, Tennessee).
1880 Martin Theodore Winkler, LCMS missionary to New Zealand, born in Stratmann, Saint Louis County, Missouri (d. 13 May
1942).
1883 Frederick Albert Hertwig, vice-president of the Missouri Synod, was born at Effington, Minnesota (d. 29 June 1960, Detroit, Michigan). He was educated at Concordia College (Saint Paul, Minnesota), Concordia College (Fort Wayne, Indiana) and Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis). He served as pastor of Bethlehem (1908–1918) and Gethsemane (1918–1960) Lutheran churches in Detroit. He held several positions in the Michigan District, including first vice-president from 1925 to 1944, and served as chairman of the Michigan School Defense campaigns (1920–1927), defending freedom of education. He served the Missouri Synod as a member of the Pension Fund (1938–1944); a member of the Board of Directors (1944–1946); second, third and fourth vice-president (1946–1956); first vice-president of the Synodical Conference (1946–1947); a member of the Advisory Committee on Doctrine and Practice for six years and chairman of the Fiscal Conference (1949–1956). In 1951 he received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois).
1888 Paul Fred Martin Koehneke was born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 15 February 1956, Milwaukee). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1910 and served as a pastor in Hand Hills, Alberta (1910–1915), and Dodge Center (1915–1918) and Rushford, Minnesota (1918–1923). He was a professor at Concordia College (Milwaukee) beginning in 1923. He chiefly taught religion and German and also served as registrar and secretary of the faculty. He served on several district and Missouri Synod boards, including as chairman of the synod’s Board of Appeals.
1895 Karl Hugo Hahn, missionary to African Hereros, died (b. 18 October 1818 at Riga, Latvia).
1902 The state of Wisconsin granted a charter to the fraternal benefit society that became Aid Association for Lutherans (AAL).
1903 John Adam Detzer, an advisory pastor at the 1847 founding convention of the Missouri Synod, died (b. 1817).
1965 The Lutheran Social Service Center, Taipei, Taiwan, was dedicated.
1982 E. George Pearce, president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England since its formation in 1954, died (b. 23 February 1917).
1986 Leslie Frerking, president of the Southeastern District of the Missouri Synod from 1959 to 1963, died in Charlotte, North Carolina (b. 3 September1907, Corder, Missouri). He graduated from Saint Paul’s College (Concordia, Missouri) and Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis). Sent as a missionary to the southeast U.S. by the English District, Frerking was one of five leaders who
pioneered the formation of the district in the late 1930s, founding more than a dozen LCMS churches in the Carolinas and Georgia. One was Ascension Lutheran Church (Charlotte, North Carolina), where he was pastor from 1931 until his retirement in 1972. He was very active in race relations work in the southeast.