February 8

356 For the third time since the Council of Nicea in 325, Athanasius (ca. 293–373) went into exile. The defender of orthodoxy was out of favor as Arianism, a heresy condemned at the council, ran rampant throughout the Empire. He would be exiled twice more before he died.

1250 Robert I of Artois, French crusader, was killed in Egypt during the Seventh Crusade of his brother, Louis IX of France (b. 1216).

1587 Mary Queen of Scots (b. 8 December 1542) was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England.

1692 A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony suggested that two girls in the family of the village minister may be suffering from bewitchment, leading to the Salem witch trials.

1693 The College of William and Mary was founded in Williamsburg, Virginia, under Anglican auspices for the purpose of educating Anglican clergymen. It is the second oldest (after Harvard) institution of higher learning in America.

1705 Franz Heinrich Christoph Meyer, organist and composer, was born in Hanover (d. 1767). His father and grandfather had been castle church organists, and he succeeded his father in the position in 1734. His own two sons followed him in the same capacity. He was commissioned to provide the new tunes for the enlarged edition of the Hannoverisches Kirchengesangbuch in 1740. [The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G. Polack (Saint Louis: CPH, 1942): 545]

1801 George Dana Boardman Sr., Baptist missionary to India, was born in Livermore, Maine (d. 11 February 1831).

1833 Johann Heinrich Brockmann, Wisconsin Synod missionary and member of the Wisconsin Synod Indian Mission Board, was born in Bergen, near Celle (d. 20 January 1904).

1841 The congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church (Saint Louis) called C. F. W. Walther (1811–1887) to succeed his brother, Otto Herman, as pastor.

1848 Adam Dan, Danish Lutheran pastor and author, was born in Odense, Denmark (d. 6 May 1931).

1851 James Alexander Haldane (b. 14 July 1768), Scottish evangelist, died.

1864 William Herman Theodore Dau, theologian on the faculty of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) and president of Valparaiso University, was born in Lautenberg, Pomerania (d. 21 April 1944, Berkeley, California).

1865 Lewis Edgar Jones, American YMCA director, was born in Yates City, Illinois (d. 1 September 1936, Santa Barbara, California).

1878 Martin Buber, Jewish religious philosopher, was born in Vienna, Austria (d. 13 June 1965).

1878 Frederick Samuel Wenger, professor at Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois) was born in Bern, Switzerland (d. 11 July 1963).

1936 James H. Fillmore (b. 1 June 1849), American clergyman in the Christian Church, died.

1940 Edwin Heyl Delk, American Lutheran clergyman and author, died (b. 15 August 1859, Norfolk, Virginia).

1948 The Missouri Synod seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was dedicated.

1949 Cardinal József Mindszenty of Hungary was sentenced to life imprisonment for treason.

1958 Rudolph H. C. Meyer died. He was born in 1881 and graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1904. He served parishes in Elmore, Ohio (1904–1909); Detroit, Michigan (1909–1925); and Saint Louis, Missouri (1925–1958). He was the secretary of the Board of Directors of Concordia Publishing House from 1926 to 1950, chairman of the Church Extension Board of Michigan from 1915 to 1925, chairman of the Mission Board of the Western District from 1945 to 1951 and editor of The Lutheran Witness of the Western District from 1936 to 1956.