February 11

731 Pope Gregory II died.

1141 Hugh of St. Victor, German philosopher and theologian whose eloquence and writings earned him fame and influence that far exceeded St Bernard's and that held its ground until the advent of the Thomist philosophy, died (b. ca. 1078).

1531 King Henry VIII  was recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.

1547 Johann Roh (Johann Horn), composer and editor of the Bohemian hymnal, died at Jungbunglau (b. ca. 1487, Taus [Domazlice], Bohemia).

1586 Elector August of Saxony, a Lutheran who was caught up in the Crypto-Calvinistic controversy, died (b. 31 July 1526).

1638 Swedish Lutherans arrived on the Delaware River.

1650 René Descartes (b. 31 March 1596), French scientist and philosopher, died.

1660 Wolfgang Christoph Dessler, hymnist, was born (d. 11 March 1722).

1717 William Williams, evangelist and hymnist, was born at Cefn-y-coed, Wales (d. 11 January 1791).

1739 Jacob van Buskirk, probably the first American-born Lutheran pastor, was born in Hackensack, New Jersey (d. 5 August 1800).

1790 The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) presented a petition to Congress calling for the abolition of slavery.

1799 Basil Moreau, French priest who founded the Congregation of Holy Cross from which three additional congregations were founded, namely the Marianites of Holy Cross, the Sisters of the Holy Cross and the Sisters of Holy Cross, was born (d. 20 January 1873).

1820 Thomas Haweis, composer and hymnist, died at Bath, England (b. 1 January 1734, Truro, Cornwall).

1821 Charles Augustus Hay, president of the General Synod, was born in York, Pennsylvania (d. 26 June 1893).

1826 Alexander MacLaren, English Baptist preacher and Bible expositor, was born in Glasgow, Scotland (d. 1910).

1831 George Dana Boardman Sr., Baptist missionary to India, died (b. 8 February 1801).

1836 Washington Gladden, a leading American Congregational church pastor and early leader of the Social Gospel movement, was born in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania (d. 2 July 1918).

1858 Fourteen-year-old French peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous (Saint Bernadette, 1844–1878) experienced her first vision of the Virgin Mary at the grotto of Massabielle outside Lourdes.

1871 Hugh Thomson Kerr, Canadian-born American Presbyterian clergyman, was born in Elora, Ontario (d. 27 June 1950).

1877 Theodore Ferdinand Karl Laetsch, professor at Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis), was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (d. 29 December 1962).

1881 Concordia College (Conover, North Carolina) was chartered.

1888 James G. Small (b. 6 February 1817), pastor in the Free Church of Scotland, died.

1889 The Meiji Constitution guaranteed religious liberty in Japan.

1899 Henry Lewis Baugher Jr., Lutheran educator, died in Philadelphia (b. 6 August 1840).

1905 Pope Pius X (1835–1914) published the encyclical Vehementer Nos, which denounced the proposition that the state should be separated from the church as "a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error."

1917 Carl A. Heckmann was born in Abilene, Texas (d. 29 June 1989, Austin, Texas). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1940 and served as a pastor in Navasota, Texas; as a chaplain in the U.S. Army; and as a pastor in Navasota, Eden and Menard, Texas. He served the Texas District on its Stewardship Committee, as a stewardship counselor and as district president.

1923 Everette W. Meier was born in Palmer, Kansas (d. 30 October 1993, Alliance, Nebraska). A 1950 graduate of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis), he served as a professor at Saint John’s College (Winfield, Kansas) and from 1967 to 1986 as a pastor in Freeman, Gregory, Dixon and Edgemont, South Dakota; Chadron, Nebraska; and Alma Center, Wisconsin. He was chairman of the Editorial Committee of the German Theological Reader; archivist of the Kansas District (1951–1953); a circuit counselor in the South Dakota District (1967) and a zone counselor for the LWML (1979–1983). He retired in 1986.

1929 The Vatican City was created as an independent sovereign state within Rome, Italy. The Lateran Treaty was signed by Mussolini and the Holy See to effect such sovereignty. At a mere 109 acres, it became the smallest nation in the world.

1937 Ernst Heinrich Klotsche, General Synod professor, died (b. 7 August 1875, Elstra, near Kamenz, Saxony, Germany).

1978 Ralph C. Schultz was inaugurated as the seventh president of Concordia Collegiate Institute (Bronxville, New York). Schultz was a graduate of Concordia Teachers College (River Forest, Illinois). He received music degrees from Cosmopolitan School of Music and Cleveland Institute of Music. Schultz earned his doctor of sacred music degree from Union Theological Seminary. Schultz joined the Bronxville faculty in 1961.

1979 A major building addition to Concordia Historical Institute was dedicated. The addition provided new display, research, storage and work areas, including a stack area with five levels for the storage of manuscript and archival materials.