399 Pope Siricius died.

1607 John Harvard, English-born clergyman known in the United States as a Massachusetts clergyman, despite having spent
less than eighteen months of his life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, after whom Harvard University was named, was born (d. 14 September 1638).

1609 Henry Dunster, English-American Puritan clergyman and educator and president of Harvard College, was born (d. 27 February 1659).

1657 William Derham, English minister, writer natural philosopher and the first man known to measure the speed of sound, was born (d. 5 April 1735).

1705 The Lutheran Mission to East India was founded.

1731 William Cowper, hymnist, was born at Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, England (d. 25 April 1800).

1789 A national Thanksgiving Day was observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.

1823 Sarah Borthwick Findlater, hymn translator, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland (d. 25 December 1907, Torquay, Devonshire, England).

1827 Ellen G. White, an American Christian leader whose prophetic ministry was instrumental in founding the Sabbatarian Adventist movement that led to the rise of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was born (d. 16 July 1915).

1842 The University of Notre Dame was founded.

1858 Katharine Drexel, Roman Catholic saint who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, was born (d. 3 March 1955).

1858 Israel Abrahams, one of the most distinguished Jewish scholars of his time, was born in London, England (d. 6 October 1925, Cambridge, England).

1864 Edward Higgins, 3rd General of The Salvation Army, was born (d. 14 December 1947).

1877 Joseph Getchell Binney (b. 1807), Baptist pastor, president of George Washington University and American Board (Congregationalist) missionary to the Karens in Burma, died on the S. S. Amarakoora near Ceylon while returning from a furlough.

1881 John Ludwig Krapf, missionary in Eastern Africa, died (b. 11 January 1810, Derendingen, near Tübingen, Germany).

1883 Evangelist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth (whose real name was Isabella Van Wagener) died in Battle Creek, Michigan. Sojourner Truth was born a slave in New York about 1797.

1901 Joseph Henry Thayer, American New Testament Greek lexicographer, died (b. 7 November 1828).

1909 Seward Hiltner, an early leader in pastoral psychology, was born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania (d. 19 November 1984).

1913 August Rohrlack, secretary of the Missouri Synod, died (b. 27 December 1835 at Neu-Ruppin, Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany).

1914 Edward Kremser (b. 10 April 1838, Vienna, Austria), Austrian chorister, died in Vienna.

1922 Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota (d. 12 February 2000).

1926 Louise Rathke, RN, first Missouri Synod deaconess, sailed for India.

1982 William C. Eifert, full-time executive secretary in the Alberta-British Columbia District from 1951 to 1969 and district president from 1930 to 1951, died. He was also active in the Lutheran Laymen’s League, including ten years as branch manager for the Lutheran Hour. A graduate of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis), he served a number of parishes in Alberta.