January 28

814 Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, died (b. ca. 742).

1077 The excommunication of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1050–1106), was lifted.

1521 The Diet of Worms opened. The meeting was convened to question Martin Luther on his writings.

1533 Paul Luther, third son of Martin, was born the night of 28/29 January (d. 8 March 1593).

1547 Henry VIII of England died (b. 28 June 1491).

1573 Articles of the Warsaw Confederation were signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland.

1581 King James VI (1566–1625) of Scotland (who in 1603 became King James I of England) signed the second Scottish Confession of Faith.

1666 The University of Lund, Sweden, was founded.

1691 Johann Balthasar König, composer, was baptized at Waltershausen (near Gotha), Germany (d. 2 April 1758, Frankfurt am Main).

1768 John Wainwright, composer, was buried at Stockport, England (baptized 14 April 1723, Stockport, Cheshire, England).

1769 Thomas Middleton, first Anglican bishop of Calcutta, was born at Kedleston, Derbyshire, England (d. 1822).

1826 John George Butler, chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and a hospital chaplain in the Civil War (appointed by Abraham Lincoln), was born in Cumberland, Maryland (d. 2 August 1909).

1830 Guido Herman Fridolin Verbeck, Reformed missionary to Japan, was born in Zeist, Holland (d. 10 May 1898).

1834 Sabine Baring-Gould, Anglican clergyman, writer, noted composer, hymnist and hymn translator, was born in Exeter, England (d. 2 January 1924, Lew Trenchard, Devonshire, England).

1841 Sir Henry Morton Stanley, explorer and missionary to Africa, was born in Denbigh, Wales (d. 10 May 1904).

1856 Reuben A. Torrey, American Congregational evangelist, was born in Hoboken, New Jersey (d. 26 October 1928).

1865 John Jacob Fredrick Schinnerer, president of the Michigan District of the Missouri Synod, was born in Willshire, Ohio (d. 1 May 1950, Detroit). He was a graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois) in 1887 and served as a pastor in Ocheyedan, Iowa, and Arcadia, Amelith and Detroit, Michigan. He also served as vice-president of the district before being elected president.

1896 Joseph Barnby (b. 12 August 1838), musician and English church chorister, died.

1916 Mihkel Soovik was born in the Caucasus (Georgia), Russia. He entered the Missouri Synod ministry by colloquy in 1950 and served as a pastor in Seabrook, New Jersey. He also was a professor as Concordia Senior College (Fort Wayne, Indiana) and Concordia College (Ann Arbor, Michigan). He retired in 1984.

1923 Lauritz Larsen, president of the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America, died (b. 28 November 1882, Decorah, Iowa).

1955 The Theodore Doederlein Memorial Clinic in Ambur, India, was dedicated.