February 25

1536 Berthold Haller, German-born Swiss reformer, died (b. 1492).

1536 Anabaptist Jacob Hutter (b. 1500) was tortured, whipped and immersed in freezing water (to mock baptismal practices), then doused with brandy and burned.

1570 Pope Pius V (1504–1572) excommunicated and deposed Protestant Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603), declaring her to be a usurper to the throne of England.

1591 Friedrich von Spee, hymnist, was born at Kaiserswerth, near Düsseldorf (d. 7 August 1635).

1634 Albrecht Eusebius Wenzel von Wallenstein, Roman Catholic general in the Thirty Years’ War, was assassinated (b. 24 September 1583).

1686 Abraham Calov, Lutheran theologian and champion of Lutheran orthodoxy in the 17th century, died (b. 16 April 1612 in East Prussia).

1723 Sir Christopher Wren, English architect, died (b. 20 October 1632, Wiltshire, England).

1796 Samuel Seabury (b. 30 November 1729), first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, died.

1831 Georg Schick, Missouri Synod professor at Fort Wayne and Saint Louis, was born in Homburg von der Höhe, Hessen-Homburg (d. 3 January 1915).

1835 Adolf Hönecke was born in Brandenburg (d. 3 January 1908).

1860 Chauncey Allen Goodrich, American clergyman, educator, and lexicographer, son-in-law of Noah Webster, died (b. 23 October 1790).

1862 Andrew Reed, English Congregational clergyman and hymnist, died in London (b. 27 November 1787).

1880 Johann Christoph Blumhardt, German Lutheran theologian, died in Boll, Germany (b. 16 July 1805). [German Wikipedia article]

1902 Oscar Cullmann, New Testament scholar, was born at Strasbourg, Germany (d. 16 January 1999).

1909 Carl Johann August Strasen, president of the Northwestern and Wisconsin Districts of the Missouri Synod, died (b. 30 May 1827 at Jürgenshagen, Mecklenburg-Schwerin).

1913 Eduard Louis Arndt (1864–1929), first LCMS missionary to China, arrived at Shanghai. Arndt laid the groundwork for the synod's mission in China when he helped found the Evangelical Lutheran Mission for China in 1912. The synod adopted this mission in 1917.

1921 Elizabeth Fedde, deaconess, died (b. 25 December 1850).

1940 Mary Mills Patrick (b. 10 March 1850), American missionary to Turkey, Greece and Armenia, died.

1957 William Frederick Arndt died at Cambridge, England (b. 1 December 1880).