March 13

1452 Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1398–1468) began printing the Bible with his movable type printing process.

1479 Lazarus Spengler, reformer and hymnist, was born at  Nürnberg (d. 1479).

1800 Harvey Rexford Hitchcock, missionary to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts (d. 29 August 1855).

1804 James Waddell Alexander, American Presbyterian clergyman, English teacher and hymn writer was born (d. 31 July 1859, Sweetsprings, Virginia).

1815 Presbyterian medical missionary James Curtis Hepburn was born in Milton, Pennsylvania (d. 11 June 1911).

1856 Leander S. Keyser, a leading theologian of the General Synod, was born in Tuscarawas County, Ohio (d. 18 October 1937).

1864 Gustav Albert Andreen, Augustana Synod professor and historian, was born in Porter, Indiana (d. 1 October 1940).

1864 Frederick William (Wilhelm Friedrich) Koepchen was born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 8 September 1936, New York, New York). He attended Concordia College (Fort Wayne, Indiana) from 1878 to 1885 and graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1888. From 1890 to 1900 he served as pastor at Saint John Lutheran Church (Meriden, Connecticut) and from 1900 to 1936 at Saint Luke Lutheran Church (New York City). He was also a member of the Board of Control of Concordia Collegiate Institute (Bronxville, New York) and of the Church Extension Board of the Atlantic District for many years.

1921 G. Jesudason was ordained as the first indigenous Missouri Synod pastor in India at Vadasery.

1925 Austin Peay, the governor of Tennessee, signed into law the Butler Act, making it “unlawful for any teacher [in the state educational system] to teach any theory that denied the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible.” By July John Scopes was on trial for violating the legislation and the “trial of the century” had begun.

1943 William C. Kohn, president and professor at Concordia Teachers College (River Forest, Illinois), died (b. 2 June 1865 in Germany).