TLW's Book of Mormonscope™ (Book of Mormon Historyscope) |
By T.L. Winslow (TLW), the Historyscoper™ |
© Copyright by T.L. Winslow. All Rights Reserved. |
Original Pub. Date: Aug. 25, 2017. Last Update: Mar. 22, 20022. |
Westerners are not only known as history ignoramuses, but double dumbass history ignoramuses when it comes to the 15-book 239-chapter 6,604-verse 268K-word (5,630 unique words) Book of Mormon and its history internal and external. Since I'm the one-and-only Historyscoper (tm), let me quickly bring you up to speed before you dive into my Master Historyscope.
"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." - Gen. 3:5
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." - Isaiah 14:12-15
"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." - Galatians 1:6-8
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
Mormonism is a uniquely American creation that has turned into the last refuge of the lily white race combined with a Looney Tunes cartoon, the richest religion in the U.S., which is always trying to disguise its near-treasonous origins by merging chameleon-like into the establishment. No matter how looney some of their beliefs are, Mormons are mainly a bunch of Dudley Do-Rights who don't lie, cheat, steal, swear, drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, smoke, do drugs, play around, or sin, at least when not protecting their lucrative church racket. Despite the sheer effrontery of claiming to have their own Bible, the cult always had no trouble gaining new followers, and today its grate wealth and powah make it essential for any Historyscoper to scope. There are currently 15M-16M Mormons worldwide, with 57% living outside the U.S., and only 30% regularly attending services; 84% are non-Hispanic white.
In 1745 B.C.E. (Tammuz 1) Joseph (d. -1636) (Heb. "remover", "increaser") (Gen. ch. 30) is born to 91-y.-o. Jacob (Israel) (b. -1836) (11th of 12 sons), becoming known for his Coat of Many Colors; he ends up receiving the right of the firstborn (Deut. 21:17) (a double portion of the inheritance), rising to grand vizier, and fathering two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh (W of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, incl. the Plain of Sharon), which become the most prominent tribes; in modern times the Latter-Day Saints claim to be of the tribe of Ephraim.
In 722 B.C.E. in the 6th year of Hezekiah of Judah (2 Ki. 18:10), after a 3-year siege Samaria is conquered (2 Ki. ch. 17) by the Assyrians under king (since -727) Shalmaneser V, who is assassinated, allowing his successor Sargon II (Sharru-Kin) (-763 to -705) ("legitimate king", "god made firm the king") to claim credit after the Assyrian army withdraws to secure his succession, Israel revolts again, and he returns to finish them off in -720.
In 720 B.C.E. Assyrian king Sargon II reconquers Samaria after another revolt; the 27,290 members of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, incl. King Hoshea are carried away like foam upon the water to Harran; the depopulated land is slowly settled by Aramaic-speaking Assyrians, and the Samaritan Religion is born; Jerusalem is strengthened with a great influx of refugees; after the time of Nehemiah, the Hebrew language dies out, and Aramaic, the language of the Aramean internat. land traders becomes the universal language of the civilized Western world by the time of Darius I the Great; of the original Twelve Tribes, only the depleted 2-tribe (Judah and Benjamin) S kingdom of Judah is left (along with some Levites, the landless priest-class 13th tribe), and Judah only has seven more kings to go before their royal line is kaput (Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah); later speculators trace the lost tribes to the British Isles, North Am., South Am., India (the Manashe Tribe in Manipur and Mizoram in E India), Abyssinia, Afghanistan, China, Japan, Africa, and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; the proof that the Tribe of Dan migrated W is their naming of the Danube, Dnieper, and Denmark?; in the 18th cent. the Anglo-Israelite Theory, that they are the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon peoples makes it easier for Jews to immigrate; did they go to Japan, as indicated by similar ceremonies?; some Scots claim that they are the lost tribes, and that the Stone of Scone (pr. SKOON) is really the Beth-El (Jacob's Pillow) in Genesis; the Book of Mormon claims that they migrate to North Am., quoting Bible prophet Isaiah (Heb. "Jehovah is salvation"); "From the isles of the sea, from those parts beyond the sea into which they were carried captive" (Is. 24:24) (maybe to the British Isles?).
Speaking of ass-wipe? In 600 B.C.E. the Plates of Brass, containing the five books of Moses and "a record of the Jews from the beginning... down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah" are brought from Jerusalem to America by the people of Lehi (a descendant of Joseph) in a ship, and find the new land called Bountiful to have "the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat" (1 Nephi 18:25); but first Lehi's sons (by Sariah) Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi "take the daughters of Ishmael to wife", then Nephi's brothers rebel against him, and Nephi ends up building the ship and becoming the first Columbus, beginning an official chronicle called the Large Plates and Small Plates, which are destroyed in 385 C.E. - all according to the Mormons - wake me up when September ends?
About 279 B.C.E. Nephite prophet-king Mosiah I and his refugee people leave the Land of Nephi and settle with the people of Zarahemla in Central Am., who all become known as the Nephites.
On Apr. 3, 33 C.E. (Fri.) (3:00 p.m.) there is a lunar eclipse; astronomers Colin J. Humphreys and W.G. Waddington claim that Jesus Christ was crucified on this day - could it be, no? Liar, Lunatic or Lord? The entire future of the Western and half of the Eastern world is changed by what allegedly happens to one man in a backwater of the Roman Empire about this time? This job's a dead end; you can do better girlfriend? Jesus Christ starts the year E of the Jordan River (John 10:40-42), preaching in Perea and other cities on a slow walk toward Jerusalem, stopping in Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-46), then after skirting Jerusalem he goes through Samaria, back through Perea, where he foretells his death and resurrection for a 3rd time (Matt. 20:17-19, Mk. 10:32-34, Luke 18:31-34), passes through Jericho, healing two blind men, then visits Zacchaeus (Matt. 20:29-34, Mt. 10:46-52, Luke 18:35-19:28); six days before Passover he arrives in Bethany (John 11:55-12:1), has a feast at the house of Simon the Leper, is annointed by Mary of Bethany (Matt. 26:6-13, Mt. 14:3-9, John 12:2-11), then on Nisan 9 (Palm Sunday) finally makes his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1-11, 14-17; Mk. 11:1-11, Luke 19:29-44, John 12:12-19), cursing a barren fig tree on Nisan 10 (Matt. 21:18-19, Mk. 11:12-17, Luke 19:45-46); on Nisan 11 the barren fig tree is found withered (Matt. 21:19-22, Mk. 11:20-25), and he has fun in the Temple of Jerusalem, overturning the moneychanger's tables, then retreating to the Mount of Olives; on Nisan 12 the Jewish leaders plot his death, and cut a deal with traitor disciple Judas (Yehuda) Iscariot, the one who keeps the money bag; on Nisan 13 (Thur.) after praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (Aramaic "olive oil press") at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:43-4), Jesus of Nazareth (Christ) (b. -7 to -2?) (clean shaven or bearded?) (single or married?) (does he or doesn't he?) (swings both ways or what?) is betrayed with a kiss by his disciple Judas Iscariot for 30 pieces of silver (the kiss is to tell him apart from disciple James the Lesser, brother of Matthew, who allegedly looks a lot like Jesus but isn't as good a kisser?), and taken to the Jewish high priests, who can't stand his blasphemous jive honky mouth and spit on him and slap the faker, then hand him over the Romans, talking Pontius Pilate into having him flagrantly scourged with flagrums (flagri) (2-3 thongs with bell-shaped thingies to cause pain?); then noting that Tiberius extended the law of laesa majestas (injured majesty) to include mere libelous words against the emperor under the definition of sedition, Pontius Pilate legally orders his execution (John 19:12-16), and he is crucified on a cross (hung on a stake?) at Cavalry Hill (Golgotha) (Lat. "calvariae locus" = Gr. "kranion topos" = Aramaic "Golgotha" = "place of the skull") outside Jerusalem on Passover, Nisan 14 (Fri.), where he gives up the ghost about 3 p.m. as the sky grows dark?; last words (KJV): "It is finished" (Gr. "Tetelestoi") (John 19:30); "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34); "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46); wealthy Jew (metals trade, dealing with Cornwall in Britain?) and secret Christian (member of the Sanhedrin) Joseph of Arimathea (owner of the Garden of Gethsemane?) requests his body from Pilate and places it in his own newly-dug tomb (Matt. 27:57-60), although by Roman law crucified criminals can't be buried but are to be left hanging for the birds and beasts to feast on; too bad (too good?), early on the morning of Nisan 16 (Sun.) his tomb is found empty, and his true believers begin seeing things, claiming to see him appear and disappear, not only to them, to everybody, since he immediately proceeds to give the absolute proof that he's the Son of God and that his conviction by human courts was overturned by the Supreme Court of Heaven to silence all skeptics by making his second triumphal entry into Jerusalem in front of multitudes, where he walks up to Pilate and kisses him on the pucker, er, he skips that and leaves the 3-D holographic Burial Shroud of Christ, which becomes hard to prove exists for the next millennium or more, but wows scientists in the 20th cent.?; meanwhile after Jesus II kind of sneaks around and only visits his own for awhile (if only he had gone back to Big J, imagine the high priest's face, er, maybe it's all a test for them stiff-necked Jews, who would have just sent him back to the Cross again and again and again, shut your mouth?), he gives his disciples the Great Commission (Mt. 28:18-20), then decides a wife and kids ain't worth it and retires from the flesh biz without having to be bitch-slapped and crooseefied again, and disappears into the sky on the 40th day of his new life (Ziv or Iyyar 25) at the Mount of Olives (Olivet) near Bethany (2 mi. ESE of Jerusalem) (home of his friend Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary) (Acts 1:9-12); meanwhile, wasting no time, the first crop of 120 Christians (Gk. "little Christs") and Jewish proselytes (from around the Roman empire?) gather in Jerusalem on Pentecost (Festival of Harvest) (Festival of Weeks) (Day of the First Ripe Fruits), 50 days after the Passover (Sivan 6), where they receive the "Holy Spirit", speak in tongues and launch the World Religion of Christi[ns]anity (Acts 1:13-15), the belief that he rose from da dead and only his shed blood is truly lifesaving, plus plus plus take a bath and sign right here and you're saved, don't ask for a corpse or a skeleton he flew the coop and is looking back at ya from Heaven (thank god, I'm so sick of New York?); meanwhile true-moneygrubbing-Jew traitor apostle Judas Iscariot buys the Aceldama (Akeldama) (Aramaic "hagel dema" = field of blood) (Matt. 27:7) S of Jerusalem with his 30 pieces of silver (which he returns?), then does a swan dive, "falling headlong, burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out" - Acts 1:18); seven qualified men are appointed as food distributors for the Christian Jewish congregation, the only non-Jew being Nicolaus of Antioch (Acts 6:1-6); the 11 remaining original apostles go out and preach the good news, and all are martyred (Stephen is stoned, Matthew is slain in Ethiopia, Mark is dragged through the streets until dead, Luke is hanged, Peter and Simeon are crucified, Andrew is crucified, Philip is crucified and stoned, James is beheaded, Barholomew is flayed alive, Thomas is pierced with lances, James the Less is thrown from the Temple of Jerusalem and beaten to death, Jude is shot to death with arrows, Matthias is stoned to death, Paul is beheaded) except John, who ends up in W Asia Minor and outlives the rest, reaching 100?; Peter goes to Gaul (Chartres), Britain (Cornhill), and Rome?; Matthew goes to Ethiopia and resides with an official converted by Philip?; Philip acompanies Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea et al. on a preaching mission to Gaul, with Lazarus and Mary remaining in Marseille, after which Philip sends Joseph of Arimathea with 12 disciples to Christianize Britain, founding a monastery at Glastonbury, and bringing the Holy Grail with him?; Matthias (one of the Seventy) goes to Armenia?; Jude Thaddaeus goes to Edessa and cures King Abigar with the Shroud (Mandylion)?; Simon and Jude go to Mesopotamia?; Andrew goes to Byzantium?; red-haired Mary Magdalene (of Magdala), Christ's wife, carrying his child and meant to run her hubby church is overthrown in a coup led by woman-hating, er, Peter, and flees to France with her red-haired daughter Sarah, carrying the sang real, the royal blood of Christ, and spawning the legend of the San Greal, or Holy Grail (Sang Real, or Royal Blood)? ("Witness the greatest coverup in history" - Dan Brown?) - ready or not, there I go? Jehovah prepares to quit sticking with the home team despite his long-time partiality, divorce his wife the Chosen People, take away their driver's licenses, make the mean nasty Romans destroy his former temple and priesthood, and get them dispersed out of their former land of milk and honey, where they will be forced to fend for themselves in a sea of goyim, but not right away, giving them 40 years to repent for what they did to his only begotten Son? The Jewish Temple will then no longer be needed, as the body of each believer is a temple, and the only sacrifice needed is the blood of the Lamb, sorry rabbi, kicks are for Trids? Yes, as a just God he must give them the customary 40, but funny how the first Gospels spring up after the Temple is destroyed, forever giving skeptics a platform to claim that Jeezy was all made-up afterwards when all the possible witnesses is kaput, and all the mean persecuting Jews iz taken care of, like magic, er, that would make it true, check back in 2,000+ years?
In 34 C.E. according to the Book of Mormon, the risen Jesus Christ visits America to plant Christianity among the Nephites, while the Great Apostasy begins in Jerusalem, where the true faith of Christ is corrupted and its leaders corrupted or killed, ending with Joseph Smith's First Vision in 1820; after a fierce storm and major earthquake that destroys Zarahemla (which is rebuilt later in this cent.), Jesus appears at the temple in Bountiful, and preaches a version of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) that follows the King James version but doesn't jive with the original Greek, making it "the Achilles heel of the Book of Mormon"?
In 331 C.E. 42K Nephites under Gen. Mormon (Egyptian for "more good"?) defeat 44K Lamanites under King Aaron.
In 346 C.E. a 30K-man Nephite army defeats a 50K-man Lamanite army.
In 350 C.E. the Nephites make a treaty with the Lamanites and the their allies the Gadianton Robbers, giving them the land northward up to "the narrow passage which led into the land southward", while the Lamanites get the land southward (Mormon 2:28-9); the peace lasts until 360.
In 363 C.E. the Nephites attack the Lamanites and are repulsed, allowing the Lamanites to take the city of Desolation on the narrow passage on the border with the land of Bountiful on the S.
In 364-66 C.E. the Lamanites attack the city of Teancum and are repulsed, allowing the Nephites to retake the city of Desolation.
In 367 C.E. the Lamanites reconquer the city of Desolation, and attack Teancum, taking many women and children to use as sacrifices to their gods, pissing-off the Nephites and causing them to drive the Lamanites out of their land, causing Gen. Mormon to lament "the horrible scene of the blood and carnage which was among the people, both of the Nephites and of the Lamanites" (Mormon 4:11).
In 375 C.E. after eight years of peace, the Lamanites attack the Nephites, and the tide turns in their favor (Mormon 4:16-18).
In 380 C.E. Gen. Mormon gathers an army on Hill Cumorah to attack the Lamanites.
In 385 C.E. after Nephite leader Gen. Mormon abridges the Large Plates of Nephi, the evil dark-skinned pagan Lamanites defeat the holy white-skinned Christian Nephites somewhere in America, killing 230K (23 groups of 10K) and leaving only 24, incl. Mormon and his son Moroni 2, who is the sole survivor by 400. :)
Digging holes and planting trees, or, wake-n-stake? In 421 C.E. Moron, er, Mormon's son Moroni 2, last of the Nephite prophet-historians seals the sacred records known as the Book of Mormon (inscribed on gold plates) ("the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim") in a stone box and hides them "up unto the Lord" in a hole in the ground in Hill Cumorah, then returns as a resurrected angel to visit lucky prophet Joseph Smith in his bedroom on the night of Sept. 21, 1823 and tell him where to dig them up on a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, N.Y. conveniently located near his home, and after being prevented for four years by the angel, he finally does it on Sept. 22, 1827, and in just three more years the great news is pub. to an ungrateful world; of course, the world never sees the gold plates, because Moroni takes them back and goes poof after leaving Smith with the copyright and leadership of the dupes, er, new church - that, yes, right store, right price, just what you're looking for at a mighty nice price, the original Elvis and the gold record?
In 975 C.E. the first known record of a person with the surname Smith (OE "metalworker") is Ecceard Smith of County Durham, NE England.
With Catholic indulgences, crime does pay? The papal quest for filthy lucre finally reaps public reaction, creating the Protestant schism? On Oct. 31, 1517 (Wed.) (Halloween or All Hallows' Eve) German Roman Catholic Augustinian friar Martin Luther (1483-1546), after becoming sick of the indulgences peddled by Dominican friar Johann Teufel, er, Johann Tetzel (1465-1519) et al., and convinced that 1517 marks the end of the Babylonian Captivity of the Congregation, nails his Ninety-Five (95) Theses (Disputation on the Power of Indulgences) (written in Latin) to the door of the Wittenberg Palast (Palace) (Castle) Church in Saxony on the Elbe River (known for housing 5K+ holy relics, which he detests), arguing against indulgences and other Roman Catholic Church abuses, starting out pulling his punches then within a few years claiming that the pope is the Antichrist, "and his seat is that of Satan himself", and that "The treasures of indulgences are nets with which they now fish for the wealth of men", igniting the already-smoldering Protestant Reformation (he could have picked a more PC date than Halloween?); he really just sent them to Mainz archbishop Albert of Brandenburg that day, then posted them on the church door sometime in mid-Nov.?; his offer of a public debate is declined, but his theses are soon translated from Latin to German and pub., causing the German middle and merchant classes, who are already chafing at Italian efforts at domination to rise to his support in reaction to the fugging Fuggers (successor to the Medicis) and other papal bankers who are draining Germany of gold for Rome with this holy racket (the Fuggers are behind the loans made by Albert of Brandenburg to the pope); the big revelation to Luther that gave him strength was from the Bible, incl. the Seven Trumpets in Rev. Ch. 8, and Rev. 13:5, where it says that the Antichrist will rule the world for 42 mo., which he turns into 1260 years instead of days, setting year 1 in 539 C.E., and claiming that Christ will therefore return in the year 1799, thus it's time to get started whipping things up? - the wildlife experience, more than a museum?
In 1611 C.E. English King (1603-25) James I (1566-1625) (ed.) pub. the King James (Authorized) Version of the Holy Bible (66 books), commissioned in 1604 (lucky that the 1605 Guy Fawkes Plot to replace the govt. with Roman Catholics didn't succeed), with the work divided between 47 translators (47 Anglicans, 0 Puritans, 0 Roman Catholics, 0 Separatists) in six committees with 15 rules to follow, using ancient mss. for reliability, and deliberately preserving ambiguities, e.g. Romans 5:12: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (can mean that all men die because of sin, and/or that all men sin because they are under God's judgment of death); most of the language is William Tyndale's, but without the pesky marginal notes challenging the divine right of kings; James I's planned royal authorization of the final work never happens?; the intent is to make "of many good translations one principal good one", according to translator Miles Smith (1554-1624) in Preface to the Translation; it takes its place beside the Bishops' Bible (official vers. for use in Anglican churches, original ed. 1568, revised ed. 1602) (basic source for the King James Bible?), the Geneva Bible (1575) (known for Calvinist-slanted footnotes dissing the divine right of kings, always translating the word king as tyrant), and the 1582 Rheims trans. of the 5th cent. Roman Catholic Vulgate; too bad, the King James Bible is initially universally panned, and the Puritans continue to use the Geneva Bible, causing Charles I to ban it in 1644, leading to the Puritans taking over the govt. and beheading him in 1649, later realizing the superiority of the KJV; translator Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), master of Pembroke College, Cambridge U. is appointed bishop of Winchester in 1619, becoming the mentor of Reformed Roman Catholicism in the post-Reformation Anglican Church, and the translator of the 23rd Psalm; Thomas Bilson (1547-1616), bishop of Winchester oversees the final edit and printing; the notes on the trans. process are stored in Whitehall, and are destroyed in the 1598 Whitehall Fire; in modern times the Ruckmanists (Ruckmanites), founded by Am. Baptist pastor Peter Sturges Ruckman (1921-2016) claim special divine inspiration for the translators, even though they were govt. employees told what to do by the hardly saintly king, and explicitly deny special inspiration; a case of disguised Am. WASP racism?; Psalm 46 features word 46 from the beginning "shake" and word 46 from the end "spear", and of course William Shakespeare (b. 1564) is 46 the first part of this year; a tribute, or did he translate it? - it's a pajama people special?
In 1650 after founding the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626, Portuguese-born Dutch rabbi Manasseh ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro) (1604-57) pub. The Hope of Israel, which argues for readmission of Jews to England, from which they had been expelled since the days of Edward I Longshanks (1290), with the killer argument that until Jews live in all lands Christ won't return, claiming that the Native Ams. were survivors of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and that the discovery of America is a sign of the coming Messianic era; tr. into English in 1652, arousing interest and helping convince Oliver Cromwell to readmit them in 1656.
In 1650 English divine Thomas Thorowgood (1600-69) pub. the bestseller Jewes in America, or, Probabilities that the Americans are of that Race in London, reviving the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel theory for Native Ams., citing the case of Aaron Levi AKA Antonie Monterinos, who returned to Amsterdam from Brazil in 1644 and told Manasseh ben Israel that he had met reps of the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes in South Am. who claimed descent from Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Israel and the tribes of Reuben and Joseph; "The Indians do themselves relate things of their Ancestors suteable to what we read in the Bible... They constantly and strictly separate their women in a little wigwam by themselves in their feminine seasons... They hold that Nanawitnawit (a God overhead) made the Heavens and the Earth"; "The rites, fashions, ceremonies, and opinions of the Americans are in many things agreeable to the custom of the Jewes, not only prophane and common usages, but such as he called solemn and sacred"; in 1652 Sir Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704) pub. Americans No Jewes in London, disputing Thorowgood, who responds with a rev. 1660 ed., with the soundbyte: "that those Indians are Judaical, made more probable by some Additional... learned conjectures of Reverend Mr. John Eliot, known as the Apostle to the Indians"; Thorowgood's theory makes fans of Elias Boudinot, Cotton Mather, and William Penn.
In 1663 Widford, Hertforshire, England-born Puritan missionary John Eliot (1604-90), known as the Apostle to the Indians pub. The Holy Bible Containing the Old Testament and the New Translated into the Indian Language and Ordered to be Printed by the Commissioners of the United Colonies in New England in Cambridge, Mass., a tr. of the Geneva Bible into Algonquian (Natick), becoming the first Bible printed in North Am.; the first English Bible in North Am. isn't pub. until 1782, and the first Hebrew Bible until 1814.
On June 24, 1717 (feast of St. John the Baptist) the Premier (Mother) Grand Lodge (Orient) of England (London) (Westminster) is established in London at the Goose and Gridiron Ale House in St. Paul's Churchyard from the union of four London Craft lodges; Mother Kilwinning Lodge (Number 0) in Scotland claims to date from 1140; official Freemasonry is born, building men instead of churches; the trademark is the square and compass; the Masonic Tenets are Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth; the three degress are entered apprentice, fellow craft, and master mason; there are three degrees, three candles, three knocks on the door, three stages of life, three principal numbers, all because Plato taught the Trinity (1+2=3); passwords: Boaz (1st degree), Jachin (2nd degree), Mahabyn (3rd degree); the first gift given to a Freemason is a white leather apron, which is buried with him at death; the York Rite has 10 higher degrees: four Royal Arch degrees, three Cryptic Mason degrees, three Chivalric orders, ending with the Knights Templar Order; in the early years a man with a sword guards the doors; non-Freemasons get suspicious that the Freemasons are using mind control on them, and found the Mad Hatter fraternity, wearing aluminum foil hats?
In 1769 an ed. of the King James Bible is pub. that ends up in the home of the Joseph Smith Sr. family; no surprise, it contains peculiar wording that finds its way into the Book of Mormon, incl. the use of the words "dragons" and "satyrs" in 2 Nephi 23:21-22, proving it wasn't divinely inspired?
In 1775 County Antrim, Ireland-born Indian trader James Adair (1709-83) pub. The History of the American Indians... Containing an Account of their Origin, Language, Manners, Religious and Civil Customs, reviving the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel theory for Native Ams., pointing out their division into tribes, worship of a great spirit like Jehovah, notions of a theocracy, ablutions, and uncleanness, cities of refuge, and practices as regards divorce and raising seed to a deceased brother.
On May 1, 1776 Jesuit-trained anti-Jesuit former Bavarian canon law prof. Johann Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) of the U. of Ingolstadt (who got his job in 1773 after the Jesuits were suppressed by Pope Clement XIV) founds the secret Order of the Illuminati ("the Very Perfectibles") in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, with five members, allegedly secretly backed by German Jewish big brain internat. banker Mayer Amschel de Rothschild (1744-1812), with the alleged aim of the destruction of Christendom and the Christian order of Europe by dividing and conquering and playing one nation off against the other via internat. bank financing et al., with the ultimate goal of the establishment of a New World Order (NWO), and which is behind the Am. Rev., French Rev., European revs. of the 19th cent., U.S. Civil War, Russian Rev., League of Nations, and United Nations (9/11?); deciding to work inside the Freemasons, the membership is up to 54 in 1779, branching through Europe and attracting Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Mozart; after it is suppressed on June 22, 1784, its few thousand members are exterminated from C Europe, but either it goes totally underground and keeps growing, or it generates one heck of a myth?; the Columbian Faction of the Illuminati is strong in North Am.?
About 1790 the Second Great Awakening begins in the U.S., ramping up about 1800 and peaking in the 1820s, increasing membership in Baptist and Methodist congregations by millions before fizzling by 1840; the Holiness movement, that a second work of grace leads to Christian perfection, whose roots are in Methodism gets a big boost; in 1817-25 the burned-over district of W. N.Y. between the Erie Canal and the Finger Lakes incl. the Palmyra, N.Y. area hosts several camp revival meetings, and 12-y.-o. Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44) gets religion, attending church classes and reading the King James Bible, getting interested in Methodism and engaging in religious folk magic with family members incl. parents and maternal grandfather, who report visions and dreams from God; Smith's education never incl. history, philosophy, lit., or science, just the Bible and popular historical moose hockey?; the burned-over district goes on to spawn religious nonconformist sects. incl. Latter Day Saints, Millerites, Adventists, Internat. Bible Students (Jehovah's Witnesses), the table-rapping Fox Sisters, Shakers, and Oneida Society, and social radicals incl. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Fourierist utopian Socialist movement, the Skaneateles Community, and Walter Rauschenbusch, leader of the Social Gospel.
Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on? In 1793 Thetford, Norfolk, England-born Am. Founding Father Thomas "Tom" Paine (1737-1809) pub. The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (1794, 1795, 1807); bestseller in the U.S. written just before being thrown into prison in France, pub. with the help of his friend Joel Barlow; a rabble-rousing Rationalist Deist attacks the divine origin of the Bible, becoming the Infidel's Bible, setting the 19th cent. up for secularism and belief in scientific progress as a replacement religion for Christianity, with pithy soundbytes incl.: "Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man"; "One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests"; "I do not believe in the creed professed... by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church"; "The story of the whale swallowing Jonah... borders greatly on the marvelous, but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale"; "It is wrong to say that God made rich and poor; he made only male and female, and gave them the whole earth for their inheritance"; he gets widely accused of being an atheist, when actually he attacks atheism in the book and supports Deism, but the bigoted religious reaction (which incl. most of his old Am. friends, incl. Washington) causes his place in the pantheon of Am. Founding Fathers to get tainted, and later the infidels strike back by attempting to paint all the U.S. Founding Fathers (incl. Bible-thumping Washington) as Deists and overdo separation of church and state? - was Paine their "rabbit", writing what they all believed but couldn't openly express, or was he just out on a limb, too extreme but holding onto the Founding Father main trunk for support? The work has an effect on all Bible-thumpers, making them want to either replace the Bible or make up a new one that corrects the seeming glaring gaps, such as lack of awareness of the existence of America, fertilizing the ground for Mormonism?
In the late 1790s after being excommunicated by his local Congregationalist church in 1789, Nathaniel Wood Sr. founds the New Israelites sect in Middletown, Rutland County, Vt., which practices polygamy (spiritual wifery) and divination, believes in perfectionist immortalism, and believes they are descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and possess power of revelation through dowsing (divining) rods (a cover for counterfeiting?), going on to get into the Wood Scrape on Jan. 14, 1802 when he predicts the imminent arrival of a Destroying Angel, causing the militia to be called out, after which he flees to Ellisburg, Jefferson County, N.Y.; Joseph Smith Sr., father of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith Jr. becomes a member, along with Mormon Church co-founder Oliver Cowdery, who may be a co-author of the Book of Mormon because the original ms. is in his handwriting?
In 1801 the Cane Ridge Revival in Cane Ridge (near Paris), Bourbon County, Ky. (named by Daniel Boone after seeing bamboo growing there) in the Camp Ridge Meeting House (built 1791) (largest 1-room log cabin in North Am.) and attended by 20K is led by 18 Presbyterian ministers and several Methodist and Baptist preachers, esp. Port Tobacco, Md.-born Barton Warren Stone (1772-1844), who in 1804 leaves the Presbyterian Church and founds the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (New Lights) (Stoneites) back-to-the-1st-century movement, growing to 12K members by 1830 and forming the backbone of the Am. Restoration Movement, a form of Christian Primitivism (Restorationism) that has roots going back to Martin Luther.
On Dec. 23, 1805 Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44) is born in Sharon, Vt. (15 mi. N of White River junction along the Vt.-N.H. state line) to Topsfield, Mass.-born teacher-shopkeeper-farmer (Freemason) Joseph Smith Sr. (1771-1840) and Gilsum, N.H.-born Lucy Mack Smith (1775-1856), the 5th of 11 children, 9 of whom survive childhood; he receives only three years of formal schooling outside of study of the family King James Bible.
On Sept. 7, 1809 after being infused with the Enlightenment of John Locke at the U. of Glasgow, seeing his Presbyterian credentials suspended before emigrating to the U.S. in 1807, County Down, Ireland-born Scottish Presbyterian minister Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) pub. The Declaration and Address of the Christian Assoc. of Washington in Washington, Penn., which becomes the founding document of the Christian Assoc. of Washington, which seeks to simplify Christianity to a common form that everybody can agree on, based on the Bible alone, with the motto: "Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; and where they are silent, we are silent"; on May 4, 1811 after trying to avoid becoming a church, then being refused fellowship with the Pittsburgh Synod of the Presbyterian Church, it goes congregational, founding the Brush Run Church in Brush Run, Penn., soon going Baptist and joining the Redstone Baptist Association in 1815-24, switching to the Mahoning Baptist Association in 1824; on Jan. 1, 1830 after rejecting the name "Christian Baptist", his County Antrim, Ireland-born son Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) founds The Millennial Harbinger mag. in Bethany, W. Va. (until 1870), claiming to help readers handle the approaching Millenium, founding the Restoration Movement (Campbellism), which seeks "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament"; on Mar. 2, 1840 the Va. legislature charters Bethany College in Bethany, Va. (modern-day W. Va.), with Alexander Campbell as pres. #1, becoming the oldest higher ed. institution in W. Va., becoming the birthplace of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity; meanwhile in 1832 the Campbellites and Stoneites join in fellowship with a handshake, becoming known as the Stone-Campbell Movement and calling themselves the Church (Disciples) of Christ.
In 1809 the pseudo-Biblical work The First Book of Napoleon, the Tyrant of the Earth is pub. in London by "Eliakim the Scribe, a descendant of a modern branch of the Tribe of Levi; a rabbi dedicated in the Christian schools of the sons of the prophets", "in the 5813th year of the world, and 1809th year of the Christian era", calling Napoleon a tyrant, who proclaimed himself a worshiper of the idol, went into the land of Egypt and threatened Palestine and Jerusalem, then returned, destroyed the first idol, and led the armies of the Gauls to overwhelm and oppress the kings and princes of the earth to punish them for their wicked ways, causing the oppressed to cry for relief; the true source of the Book of Mormon?; the real author is Scottish solicitor Michael Linning (1774-1838).
In spring 1820 after reading a passage in the New Testament admonishing those who lack wisdom to seek it from a divine source, 14-y.-o. Joseph Smith Jr. prays out loud for the first time in his life and receives his First Vision in the Sacred Grove in Manchester, N.Y., in which an evil power attempts to overcome him until he is rescued by two shining personages, which turn out to be Jehovah and Jesus, who tell him that all existing churches teach corrupted doctrines, becoming the basis of the Mormon beliefs that Jehovah has a body and that Mormonism is the only path to salvation; "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me"; one spoke Joseph's name, pointed to the other, and said, "This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"; too bad, he doesn't mention it until June 1830, and changes the dates and other details, embellishing it as he goes, making it pure historical fiction, while the LDS Church turns it into their #1 founding dogma?
In 1822-23 transient Occultist (atheist?) Luman Walters (Laman Walter) (1789-1860) acts as seer for a treasure dig on the property of fellow freethinker Abner Cole (1783-1835) in Palmyra, N.Y., participated in by Joseph Smith Sr. and Joseph Smith Jr. (who views him as his mentor?).
On Sept. 21-22, 1823 Joseph Smith Jr. is allegedly visited by the angel Moroni, who tells him of the Book of Mormon and shows him the gold plates buried in Hill Cumorah; Moroni, having a pipeline to God tells him the true history of the American continent, how it was first colonized by the Lost Tribes of the Jews, then visited by fictional Bible figures incl. Jesus Christ, who gave them the true religion, after which there was a dreadful apostasy, causing their skin to darken as punishment (creating the Indians), and how now that his pure whiteness has arrived, he will become head of the one true, new, and improved church and get all the worshipful, adoring white poontang he can shake his fork at as compensation, making everybody look like snack-and-seal Elvis?; of course, he has to endure a get-the-odors-out 4-year college-free worthiness quest before being permitted to graduate into the big leagues of come-hungry-leave-happy prophetdom?
On Nov. 19, 1823 Joseph Smith Jr.'s Tunbridge, Vt.-born eldest brother Alvin Smith (b. 1798) dies in Palmyra, N.Y. of mercury poisoning from calomel after allegedly becoming a believer in his claim about gold plates on Hill Cumorah, which he hasn't recovered yet, after which Young Joe begins to take over family affairs; when he is given a funeral at the local Presbyterian church, and Rev. Stockton claims that since he isn't a church member he's already in Hell, Young Joe swears to never become a Presbyterian, and later has a vision about his big brother getting saved somehow, leading to the establishment of the Mormon doctrines of redemption, baptism of the dead (vicarious or proxy baptism), and destiny of the unevangelized.
In 1823 Rev. Ethan Smith (1762-1849) of the New Israelites sect in Poultney, Rutland County, Vt. pub. View of the Hebrews, which claims that the Native Ams. are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; Oliver Cowdery, who helped Joseph Smith Jr. translate the Gold Plates grew up in Poultney, Rutland County, Vt. and attended Ethan Smith's Congregational Church there along with his father William Cowdery, known for dowsing (money digging); Joseph Smith Sr. also was a member?; the book influenced the real source of the Book of Mormon?
On Sept. 11, 1826 disgruntled Va.-born Mason William Morgan (b. 1774) of Batavia, N.Y. is "given a ride" from debtor's prison by a party or parties unknown, and mysteriously disappears just before the pub. of Morgan's Illustrations (pub. by Col. David C. Miller), a book exposing the delicious secrets of Masonry, causing the Anti-Masonic Party (ends 1840) (3rd major U.S. party and first U.S. organized third party) to be formed in New York City in 1828 by N.Y. political boss Thurlow Weed (1797-1882), with its supporters accusing everybody but their mothers of complicity in the murder coverup, and spreading their movement throughout the U.S.; meanwhile others claim that there was no murder, that it was a publicity stunt to make the book a bestseller (which it became), and/or that it was really aimed at Andrew Jackson, a Freemason, and/or that the Anti-Masonic Party is itself a Masonic front; in 1882 a monument to Morgan is erected in Batavia; in 1946 Am. historian Fawn McKay Brodie (1915-81) claims that Joseph Smith created the name Mormon from Morgan and Monroe.
In 1826 popular Unadilla, N.Y.-born Bible-thumping white supremacist writer Josiah Priest (1788-1861) pub. The Wonders of Nature and Providence, Displayed. Compiled from Authentic Sources, Both Ancient and Modern, Giving an Account of Various and Strange Phenomena Existing in Nature, of Travels, Adventures, Singular Providences, &c., attempting to prove the existence of God through Nature, containing the chapter "Northern and Western Indians, Proofs that the Indians of North America were lineally descended from the ancient Hebrews", mentioning that the Hebrew descent of North Am. Indians was proposed for at least 50 years; in 1833 he pub. American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West, which claims that mounds found in Ohio and N.Y. couldn't have been built by the "bloodthirsty savages, bent on the destruction of all but their own race", but by the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, contradicting himself by claiming that Noah visited America on his Ark and viewed them; in 1843 he pub. Slavery, As It Relates to the Negro, later titled "Bible Defence of Slavery; or the Origin, History, and Fortunes of the Negro Race" (1851), which tries to prove from the Bible that God created black people to be slaves to whites, starting with Noah's son Ham, who was cursed from birth to be a slave and was given black skin by God as a badge of inferiority, "a judicial act of God, or in other words a divine judgment"; since Priest knew Oliver Cowdery, this makes him a major source for the Book of Mormon and its nutso history and white supremacy?
I'll buy that for a buck, nyuk nyuk? On Jan. 18, 1827 after her parents object, Joseph Smith Jr. and Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (1804-79) of Harmony Township in Susquehanna County, Penn. elope in South Bainbridge, N.Y., after which they move to the home of Smith's parents in Manchester Township near Palmyra, N.Y.; on Sept. 22 (midnight) everhard 22-y.-o. Sharon, Vt.-born blonde Elvis lookalike Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44) (known for being "a great babbler, credulous, not especially industrious, a money digger, prone to the miraculous and withal a little given to difficulties with neighbors and petty law suits", plus a "glass-looker", which gets him into criminal trouble), who goes on treasure hunts around the area takes his first wife Emma in a carriage borrowed from Joseph Knight Sr. (1772-1847) of Colesville (near Harmony), N.Y. (who supplies significant material support to Smith's trans. and pub. of the Book of Mormon, and converts along with his whole family, forming the Colesville Branch, the first branch in the church), and while she is praying he allegedly digs up ding-dong magic gold(en) plates (8 in. x 6 in. x 6 in. = 200 lb.?) inscribed with "reformed Egyptian" text on Cumorah (Mormon) (Gold Bible) Hill (Inspiration Point) in Manchester, N.Y. near his farm in Palmyra in W N.Y., later claiming that "Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them and the Urim and Thummim [magic seer stone] with them; by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the book of Mormon", telling everybody and causing great excitement; on Dec. 27 they move to Harmony, Penn., obtaining a small house and farm, after which on Apr. 7, 1828 Joseph begins work on the Book of Mormon while Emma acts as scribe, never allowed to see the gold plates but permitted to feel them through a cloth blanket hung up between them (about seven inches long and rock hard?), later uttering the contradictory soundbyte to her son Joseph Smith III: "In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us" (let's get something straight between us?); the LDS Church later depicts Joseph Smth Jr. sitting at a table with the plates in front of him and a candle, translating them without any stones, and never pub. an image showing him putting his face in a hat, or even mentioning that there could not have been any plates in it because of the problem of individual plates not being separable from the metal bindings?; in Feb. 1828 Easton, N.Y.-born Martin Harris (1783-1875) travels to Harmony to act as Smith's scribe in translating the plates, reaching 116 pages by June, after which he receives Smith's permission to show them to his wife and loses them, causing Smith to fire him and hire his Wells, Rutland County, Vt.-born schoolmaster friend Oliver H.P. (Hervy Pliny?) Cowdery (1806-50); on May 15, 1829 after being visited by John the Baptist near Harmony, Smith and Cowdery receive the Aaronic Priesthood and baptize each other in the Susquehanna River, then receive the Melchizedek Priesthood from Jesus' apostles Peter, James, and John near the Susquehanna River in June, after which the couple leaves Harmony and settles in Fayette, N.Y., where Smith finishes the translation in early June 1829 after dictating it in 65 days; in 2016 in the face of massive exposure of its failings on the Internet, the LDS Church releases the first photos of the magic stone allegedly used by Smith to translate the sacred text, a brown egg-sized rock - and it won't talk?
In 1828 the Anthon Transcript is presented by Martin Harris to classical scholar Charles Anthon (1797-1867) of Columbia U., a small piece of paper on which Joseph Smith Jr. allegedly wrote several lines of chars. from the gold plates in reformed Egyptian, allegedly writing a letter of authenticity before hearing the story about an angel revealing the plates to Smith, causing him on Feb. 17, 1834 to write a letter denying authenticity and calling it a hoax and "a scheme to cheat the farmer [Harris] out of his money"; in 1980 Mormon closet apostate Mark William Hofmann (1954-) creates a forgery of the Anthon Transcript and successfully foists it on the leaders of the LDS Church for $25K; he goes on to forge a document by Thomas Bullock claiming that Joseph Smith Jr. had designated his son Joseph Smith III as his successor rather than Brigham Young, a holograph by Joseph Smith Jr. claiming that he was a practitioner of black magic and treasure hunting five years after his First Vision, which he sells to Gordon B. Hinckley for $15K, who suppresses it until Hofmann leaks it to the press, causing the LDS Church to deny possession then confess and release it for study, and the Salamander Letter from Martin Harris to W.W. Phelps, claiming that Smith practiced "money digging" and that it wasn't an angel that appeared to him, but a white salamander; too bad, in 1984 LDS critics Jerald and Sander Tanner blow the whistle, and after he squanders his dough on lavish living and gets desperate, he makes homemade bombs and uses them to kill document collector Steven Christiansen and Kathy Sheets, wife of his former employer in Salt Lake City, Utah, throwing the police off the track until he accidentally explodes a bomb in his car, getting him arrested in Jan. 1986, after which he pleads guilty to two counts of 2nd degree murder in Jan. 1987, and is sentenced in Jan. 1988 to 5-life in prison, with the parole board recommending no parole.
In June 1829 Elvis is in the House, er, Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44) announces the completion of his lone gunman translation, using the magic Urim and Thummim, of his secret, jealously-guarded heavenly Sun, er, golden recordings, er, plates that he allegedly dug up near his farm in Sept. 1827 into what he titles The Book of Mormon (Mohican?); his daddy Col. Parker, er, Joseph Smith Sr. (1771-1840) and seven other real unbiased and reliable backwoodsmen sign the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses, claiming to see and handle the magic plates (which are later conveniently taken away by an angel), proving their existence to umpteen million morons over the next ? cents., when the crazy quilt cult folds its tent?; meanwhile Joseph's mommy Lucy Mack Smith (1775-1856) backs her son all the way, becoming the original Elvis mom as he seduces, er, lawfully and devoutly marries 28 wives?; the life and works of Joseph Smith are a copycat of Islam and Muhammad?
On Mar. 26, 1830 The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi is pub. by Egbert Bratt "E.B." Grandin (1806-45) of Palmyra, N.Y., with author, er, translator Joseph Smith Jr. uttering the soundbyte: "I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book"; too bad, it riles-up the locals, who organize a boycott, causing Grandin to suspend pub. until Martin Harris (1783-1875) sells his farm for $3K to pay him; in Sept. local freethinker Abner Cole (1783-1835) begins pub. the weekly Palmyra Reflector on Grandin's press, giving him access to the unbound sheets, allowing him to reprint mocking excerpts until Smith threatens him with a copyright lawsuit; in 1999 a first ed. is sold for $58K, and another in 2007 for $180K. We all have internal plumbing, but for some of us it can be a problem? Most of them pesky Injuns is exterminated, and whites are breeding like rabbits, so it's time for a new homegrown American prophet who sanctifies the breeding of white rabbits, with himself as the new Abraham? On Apr. 6, 1830 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (originally the Church of Christ until May 1834, then the Church of the Latter Day Saints until Apr. 26, 1838) is founded in Fayette, N.Y. by six men led by studly white Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44) (whose portrait bears a striking resemblance to Elvis Presley (1935-77)?) with the pub. of his allegedly lost and refound true history book titled The Book of Mormon, with a preface containing the solemn, foolproof Testimony of the Three Witnesses on June 28, 1829, incl. David Whitmer (1805-88), Martin Harris (1783-1875), and Oliver H.P. (Hervy Pliny?) Cowdery (1806-50) (the first baptized Mormon, who is named the Second Elder, then ordained as Smith's "assistant-president" on Dec. 5, 1834), who each have a separate vision of the angel presenting the gold plates to them on a table (but don't actually see them in real life?), signing a statement that incl. the soundbyte: "And we declare with words of soberness, than an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true"; Harris issues a prophecy that "[Andrew] Jackson would be the last president that we would have; and that all persons who did not embrace Mormonism in two years' time would be stricken off the face of the earth", adding that Palmyra, N.Y.. will be the New Jerusalem, with streets paved with gold; the preface also contains the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses that they personally saw and handled Smith's gold pates, incl. four sons of Peter Whitmer Sr. (1773-1854), incl. Christian Whitmer (1798-1835), Jacob Whitmer (1800-56), John Whitmer (1802-78), and Peter Whitmer Jr. (1809-36), and Hiram Page (1800-52), brother-in-law of 5th brother David Whitmer (1805-88) ("I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified" - Mark Twain), and three Smiths, incl. brothers Hyrum Smith (1800-44) and Samuel Harrison Smith (1808-44), and daddy Joseph Smith Sr. (1771-1840), who is baptized on Apr. 6, causing Smith Jr. to utter the soundbyte: "Oh my God, I have lived to see my father baptized into the true church of Jesus Christ"); the statement signed by the Eight Witnesses reads: "Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen. And we lie not, God bearing witness of it"; the entire Whitmer family joins the LDS Church, with their Whitmer Log House in Fayette, where Joseph Smith Jr. and his wife Emma lived for 6 mo. in 1829 becoming the first HQ of the LDS Church; in Aug. Hiram Page is discovered by Joseph Smith Jr. to be using a black seerstone to receive revelations for the LDS Church, claiming to receive details of the org. and location of Zion, pissing-off Smith, who receives a revelation at a church conference in Sept. to send Oliver Cowdery to him to tell him that his revelations are of the devil, getting the conference to vote unanimously that Smith is the church's sole revelator, after which Page burns his revelations and grings the stone to powder; sole revelator Smith announces that the Second Coming of Christ will be near the town of Independence in Jackson County, Mo., which is the land of their inheritance despite others ("your enemies") now holding the land, causing immigrants to begin arriving next year; Mormonism owes everything to the magic gold plates which Smith allegedly dug up, translated, then decided to give back before anybody (except 11) can see them, detailing how the ancient Jews under Nephi (who is white?) sailed to America and brought the Old Testament with them, after which they were visited by Ivory-Soap-white Jesus Christ before the sinful and unbelieving Indians crushed them and reverted to devil worship, getting turned dark (red) as a judgment from God, and all in 15 books with uncool lame names such as Nephi, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Mormon, Ether and Moroni, full of lame stale King James style language, replete with mistakes in the correct usage of thee, thou, thine, etc.? - all without knowing a word of Hebrew or Aramaic, nyuk nyuk? On June 1-9 Joseph Smith Jr. drafts the Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ in Fayette, N.Y., calling himself and Oliver Cowdery "apostles of Jesus Christ" and "elders of this church", also mentioning the new office of deacon; on June 9 Smith presides over the church's first gen. conference, and performs his first miracle, the exorcism of Newel Knight (1800-47), who later becomes one of the church's first branch presidents; on June 30-July 1 after Martin Harris goes around Palmyra bragging about it, Smith is tried in Colesville, N.Y. for it, and for scrying, but is acquitted, causing a mob to chase them out of Colesville toward Harmony on July 6. On June 12 after stealing excerpts of "Jo Smith's Gold Bible" from the E.B. Grandin Press and pub. them in Jan., the Palmyra Reflector pub. The Book of Pukei by freethinker Abner Cole (1783-1835) (under the alias Obadiah Dogberry Esq.) satiring the Book of Mormon, dissing the treasure-digging activities of Smith and Walters the Magician (Luman Walters), who allegedly carries a Latin trans. of Cicero's Orations and claims it is a record of the Native Ams. and hidden treasure; "The Magician led the rabble unto a dark grove, in a place called Manchester, where after drawing a Magic circle, with a rusty sword, and collecting his motley crew of latter-demallions, within the centre, he sacrificed a Cock (a bird sacred to Minerva) for the purpose of propiciating the prince of spirits"; when they realize he's a fraud, he "took his book, and his rusty sword, and his magic stone, and his stuffed Toad, and all his implements of witchcraft and retired to the mountains near Great Sodus Bay", after which "It came to pass, that when the mantle of Walters the Magician had fallen upon Joseph, sirnamed the prophet, who was the son of Joseph", "I looked, and behold a little old man stood before me, clad, as I supposed, in Egyptian raiment, except his Indian blanket, and moccasins — his beard of silver white, hung far below his knees. On his head was an old fashioned military half cocked hat, such as was worn in the days of the patriarch Moses - his speech was sweeter than molasses, and his words were the reformed Egyptian", telling Joseph that "thou art chosen to interpret the book, which Mormon has written, to wit, the gold Bible", promising to give him a breast plate and "an assistant, even Oliver, the pedagogue." On Sept. 26 after Joseph Smith Jr. receives revelations giving him exclusive authority to receive revelations for the LDS Church and to issue commandments to the church on any subject ("all things unto God are spiritual"), the Second LDS Church Conference is held, and in Oct. the first Mormon Lamanite Mission is sent to preach to the devil-plagued Lamanites (Native Ams.), consisting of Oliver Cowdery and John Whitmer, who convert 130 within three weeks; while passing through Kirtland, Ohio, they convert former Campbellite minister Sidney Rigdon (1793-1876) and 20 members of his Disciples of Christ congregation, followed by hundreds more in the Western Reserve area of Ohio, more than doubling the LDS movement's size, after which Cowdery heads W of the Mississippi River and Rigdon heads to Fayette, N.Y.; meanwhile in Oct. Burlington, N.Y.-born Disciples of Christ minister Parley Parker Pratt Sr. (1807-57), who was converted by reading the Book of Mormon, and was baptized on Sept. 1 by Oliver Cowdery in Seneca Lake then baptizes his brother Orson Pratt Sr. (1811-81) on Sept. 19 arrives in Fayette, N.Y. and meets Joseph Smith Jr., getting permission to join the mission; after being converted by Pratt, converting Sidney Rigdon (1793-1876) and 130 members of his congregation within three weeks, after which Rigdon arrives in Fayette in Dec., and Smith compares him to John the Baptist and makes him his new scribe, dictating the lost Prophecy of Enoch before receiving a revelation in late Dec. that the church HQ must be moved to Kirtland to await Cowdery's return; Pratt goes on to become one of the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1835, becoming known as "the Apostle Paul of Mormonism" for his leadership of the Quorum's successful mission to Great Britain in 1839-41; after being murdered in Alma, Ark. ("Spinach Capital of the World") on May 13, 1857 by the estranged husband of his 12th wife, he leaves 30 children, which multiply to 30K-50K by 2011, becoming the great-great-grandfather of Mitt Romney and great-great-great-grandfather of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr; thus the Latter Day Saint Movement is founded; Mormo is a name for the god of the living dead, and "Mormon" means gates of hell in Chinese?; the new cult of Moronism, er, Moroniism, er, Mormonism soon riles up the other Bible-thumping Christian sects with its promotion of a new black-bound ersatz Bible copyrighted by them, and its claim that its people are the true saints and their org. the true Church; even worse, the doctrine that Jehovah was once a white man and worked his way up to Creator, and that this evolutionary process can be followed by true believers (white males only), who get to become gods complete with their own planets, with their descendants becoming angels (white, of course), which therefore makes it not only okay but holy for future Jehovahs to marry and bed as many hot white babes as possible and keep them barefoot and pregnant, with manly Elvis J. Smith leading the way with a flock of wives; "What man is God once was; what God is man may become"; the white supremacist racism jumps out in several places, e.g.: "And behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof" (3 Nephi 19:25); "O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God" (Jacob 3:8); maybe it only means white as in pure of heart, duh?; "And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus said the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they all be cursed even with the same cursing... And because of their cursing which was upon them, they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety" (2 Nephi 5:21-24) - a lame attempt at giving divine sanction to white supremacy so that the de-redskinned North Am. continent can be populated by white rabbits, while reconciling the growing gaps between the Bible and Science, trying to cover-up for the the Bible's lack of awareness of the existence of America, and explain the disturbing question of how, if Jesus wanted his gospel to be spread to all nations before he returns, all them red people got saved or deserved to get damned before greedy cross-toting whitey finally stumbled in with paintings of a white Christ in 1492, and even worse, the wrong brand of Christ, the Roman Catholic one, hurry on in now and fill up the vacuum? The real authors of the Book of Mormon are Solomon Spalding (1761-1816), whose unpublished work was taken over and modified by 37-y.-o. history and Bible expert Sidney Rigdon (1793-1876) and perhaps 24-y.-o. schoolteacher Oliver Cowdery (1806-50), with poorly educated but charismatic 25-y.-o. Smith set up as a dummy corporation to launder it as an ancient document dug up on never-seen gold plates?; he really started with a polished ms. first, developed by others who lurked in the background, then pretended to discover the plates and translate them second to launder the authorship while leaving him in control as The Man? He would hide one page at the bottom of his hat along with some metal plates and a fluorescent rock, then take his magic stone and insert it so everybody can see, then duck his head in and peep at the ms. and read it one line at a time until the page was exhausted, then call it quits for the day?
On Feb. 9, 1831 Joseph Smith Jr. receives a revelation to institute the Law of Consecration, instructing the church to keep goods "in my storehouse, to administer to the poor and the needy", causing the first Bishop's Storehouse to be established in the store of Bishop Newel (Newell) Kimball Whitney (1795-1850) in Kirtland, Ohio, where prophet Joseph Smith Jr. lives and maintains an office, and receives 16 revelations; on July 27, 1842 Newell and his wife Elizabeth Ann later marry their 17-y.-o. daughter Sarah Ann Whitney to Smith.
In Mar. 1831 Joseph Smith Jr. proclaims that Christ's New Jerusalem will be sited on the Mo.-Kan. border in Jackson County, Mo., with the capital in Independence, Mo.; on Aug. 2 he holds a ceremony there, telling church members to buy up as much land as possible, helping lay the logs for the first house, with the first log caried by 12 men representing the Twelve Tribes of Israel; too bad, the locals don't like them, confusing them with abolitionists, giving them until Nov. 6, 1833 to skedaddle, then ordering the stragglers out on Nov. 23, 1833; after the last Mormons leave Mo. in mid-1839, they don't start returning until 1867; meanwhile he moves the church HQ from Palmyra, N.Y. to Kirtland, Ohio E of Cleveland (until 1837).
In Aug. 1831 Joseph Smith Jr. receives a revelation that his associate Sidney Rigdom is displeasing the Lord by exalting himself, "Wherefore, let all men beware how they take my name in their lips. For behold, I say, that many there be who are under this condemnation, who use the name of the Lord, and use it in vain, having not authority. Wherefore, let the church repent of their sins, and I, the Lord, will own them otherwise they shall be cut off."
In Sept. 1831 Joseph Smith Jr. relocates to John Johnson Farm in Hiram, NE Ohio, moving the HQ of the LDS Church with him; on Mar. 24, 1832 he and Sidney Rigdon are tarred and feathered by a mob of 25, and attempt to pour acid in Smith's mouth than try unsuccessfully to get a physician to castrate him; the attack is led by Eli Johnson, brother of John Johnson, who wanted to get him for messing around with his niece Marinda; "The next morning I went to see elder Rigdon, and found him crazy, and his head highly inflamed, for they had dragged him by his heels, and those too, so high from the earth he could not raise his head from the rough frozen surface, which lascerated it exceedingly; and when he saw me he called to his wife to bring him his razor. She asked him what he wanted of it? and he replied to kill me. Sister Rigdon left the room, and he asked me to bring his razor. I asked him what he wanted of it, and he replied he wanted to kill his wife, and he continued delirious some days." (Smith)
In 1831 the city of Kansas City (originally just Kansas) (modern-day. pop. 481K/2.4M) is founded at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers by a group of Mormons from N.Y., building the first school in Kan. Territory until they are chased out by mobs in 1833, after which the Kansas Town Co. is formed to settle the area; it is incorporated as a town on June 1, 1850, and as a city on Mar. 28, 1853, going on to become the largest city in Mo.
On Mar. 8, 1832 Joseph Smith Jr. establishes the First Presidency (Quorum of the Presidency of the Church), the highest governing body of the LDS Church, consisting of Jesse Gause (785-1836) (until Dec. 3) and Sidney Rigdon (1793-1876), who supplants "Second Elder Oliver Cowdery (until summer 1844); on Mar. 18, 1833 Rigdon is promoted from Second to First Counselor in the First Presidency.
On July 5, 1832 Sidney Rigdon gives a sermon in which he claims that "the keys of the kingdom were taken from us. On hearing this, many of his hearers wept, and when some one undertook to dismiss the meeting by prayer he said praying dould do them no good, and the meeting broke up in confusion"; after Hyrum Smith returns his brother Joseph Smith Jr. to Kirtland, Ohio on July 7, he rebukes Rigdon, with the soundbyte: "No power can pluck those keys from me, except the power that gave them to me; But for what Sidney has done, the devil shall handle him as one man handles another"; you gussed it, "About three weeks after this, Sidney was lying on his bed alone. An unseen power lifted him from his bed, threw him across the room, and tossed him from one side of the room to the other. The noise being heard in the adjoining room, his family went in to see what was the matter, and found him going from one side of the room to the other, from the effects of which Sidney was laid up for five or six weeks. Thus was Joseph's prediction in regard to him verified"; on July 28 after he "repented like Peter of old" Smith ordains Rigdon to the high priesthood for the "Second time".
On Dec. 27, 1832 while living in Kirtland, Ohio, Mormon founder Joseph Smith Jr. announces a revelation calling upon church members to restore the practice of worshiping in temples, fulfilling Malachi 3:1, with the soundbyte: "Establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God"; the Kirtland Temple is dedicated on Mar. 27, 1836, becoming their first; after "Doctrines and Covenants" 109:20 specifies: "No unclean thing shall be permitted to come into thy house to pollute it", only adult males who have been ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood are allowed to enter a temple, along with their wives, but only after receiving a Temple Recommend issued by the bishop or stake pres. after a solemn worthiness interview, featuring 14 questions; meanwhile in 1832 Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon receive a revelation about the Three Degrees (Kingdoms) of Glory (Three Heavens) for people after they are resurrected from the spirit world, incl. the celestial kingdom, terrestrial kingdom, and "telestial kingdom"; those who have committed the unpardonable sin will be banished to outer darkness with Satan as Sons of Perdition.
In 1832 after converting to Methodism in 1823, then reading the Book of Mormon in 1830, Whittingham, Vt.-born traveling carpenter Whittingham, Vt.-born Brigham Young (1801-77) (four brothers) joins the LDS Church, and travels to Upper Canada as a missionary, losing his first wife (since Oct. 8, 1824) Miriam Angeline Works (1806-32) a few mo. after they are baptized; after becoming a polygamist, he marries 54 more, fathering 59 children by 16 of them, of which 46 reach adulthood, later claiming that when he first heard about plural marriage "It was the first time in my life that I desired the grave" - bring 'em young, bring 'em old?
On Dec. 18, 1833 Joseph Smith Sr. (1771-1840) is ordained as the LDS Church's first Presiding Patriarch in Kirtland, Ohio., with his adoring son Joseph Smith Jr. likening him to Adam, the first Biblical patriarch, with the soundbyte: "So shall it be with my father; he shall be called a prince over his posterity, holding the keys of the patriarchal priesthood over the kingdom of God on earth, even the Church of the Latter Day Saints"; when he dies in Nauvoo, Ill. on Sept. 14, 1840 his eldest son Hyrum Smith (1800-44) becomes Presiding Patriarch #2 (until June 27, 1844).
On Dec. 31, 1833 after the Mormon Lamanite Mission converts future Mormon pres. Wilford Woodruff Sr. (1807-98), he joins the LDS Church, becoming one of the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1835 before leaving on his first missionary journey on Jan. 13, 1835 to preach "without purse or scrip" in S Mo., Ark., Tenn., and Ky., returning to Kirtland, Ohio on Nov. 25, 1836 and getting in the swim by marrying his first wife Phoebe Carter; he goes on to earn the nickname "the Apostle Paul of Mormonism" for his leadership of the Quorum's successful mission to Great Britain in 1839-41; after being murdered in Alma, Ark. ("Spinach Capital of the World") on May 13, 1857 by the estranged husband of his 12th wife, he leaves 30 children, which multiply to 30K-50K by 2011, becoming the great-great-grandfather of Mitt Romney and great-great-great-grandfather of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
On Feb. 12, 1834 LDS high priest (since July 28, 1832) Sidney Rigdon charges fellow high priest (since June 3, 1831) Martin Harris before the Kirtland High Council in Kirtland, Ohio of saying that "Joseph [Smith] drank too much liquor when he was translating the Book of Mormon and that he wrestled with many men and threw them"; also that Harris "exalted himself above Bro. Joseph, in that he said bro. Joseph knew not the contents of the Book of Mormon until after it was translated"; after he is forgiven, on Feb. 17, 1834 he is ordained a member of the Kirtland High Council, consisting of 12 men headed by the First Presidency, becoming the Mormon church's chief judicial and legislative body until the High Council of Zion is created in Jackson County, Mo., later Far West, Caldwell County, NW Mo., founded in Aug. 1836 by Mormon leaders W.W. Phelps and John Witmer.
In May-June 1834 Joseph Smith Jr. leads the Zion's Camp Mormon military legion from Kirtland, Ohio to Clay County, Mo. in an unsuccessful attempt to regain land taken from Mormons by non-Mormon settlers, chickening-out when he sees the superior numbers of the Mo. militias and faces a cholera epidemic, disbanding on July 25, after which Smith uses participation in the expedition as a basis for selecting future church leaders.
In 1834 Eber Dudley Howe (1798-1885), ed. of the Painesville Telegraph in Painesville, Ohio pub. Mormonism Unvailed, claiming that the Book of Mormon was really written by Ashford, Conn.-born Congregationalist preacher Solomon Spalding (1761-1816) of Conneaut, Ohio, who wrote "The Oberlin Manuscript" in 1809-12, about 24 rolls of parchment allegedly found in a cave on the banks of Conneaut Creek, telling how the ancient Romans discovered America, and that the native Americans are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of the Hebrews, who came over from Jerusalem under the leadership of Nephi and Lehi, who split into the Nephites and Lamanites, and ended up in several cruel bloody wars, with the large heaps of the dead later becoming Indian mounds; too bad, he never pub. it, but when LDS missionaries Samuel H. Smith and Orson Hyde visited Conneaut, Ohio in 1832, the locals spotted the resemblance with the Book of Mormon, and in 1833 Spalding's brother John Spalding and seven other residents signed affidavits claiming plagiarism; in 1885 the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pub. it, followed by the LDS Church in 1886 and 1910.
In 1835 after Joseph Smith Jr. started out in 1828 claiming to restore primitive Christianity sans priests, hierarchy, or dogmas, inviting anywho who feels called to minister freely, which proved an attractive recruitment formula, he cops-out and claims the need for a hierarchy based on the Pauline model, founding the Quorum (Council) of the Twelve Apostles as a body of "traveling councilors" equal in authority to the First Presidency, with jurisdiction outside areas where the LDS Church is formally organized (AKA Zion), supposed to act as prophets, seers, revelators, evangelical ambassadors, and special witnesses of Jesus Christ; Brigham Young is an original member; after the Three Witnesses pick Brigham's brother Phineas Young (1799-1879) as a member on Feb. 14, Joseph Smith Jr. overrules them and picks his own younger brother William B. Smith (1811-93), who is ordained as an apostle on Feb. 15, starting a simmering feud with Brigham Young; after their 1839-41 mission to England the Twelve Apostles are given charge of church affairs under the direction of the First Presidency; meanwhile on Feb. 28 the Seventy are ordained, followed on Mar. 1 by the First Seven Presidents of the Seventy, which is later called the First Quorum of the Seventy, directed and supervised hierarchically by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; the senior pres. of the First Seven Presidents of the Seventy is Brigham's elder brother Joseph Young (1797-1881) (until July 16, 1881).
In 1835 A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints is pub., consisting of 90 hymns selected by Joseph Smith Jr.'s 1st wife Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (1804-79), who was instructed by her hubby 3 mo. after the LDS Church was organized on Apr. 6, 1830 to do it, with the soundbyte: "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads"; text revisions for doctrinal purposes are by N.J.-born Mormon hymnodist William Wines Phelps (1792-1872), whose hymn The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning is sung at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio next Mar. 27; Phelps goes on to be excommunicated on Mar. 17, 1838, reinstated on July 8 by Joseph Smith Jr., then in Nov. 1838 turn rat at Smith's hearings in Richmond, Mo., getting him excommunicated again on Mar. 17, 1839, and reinstated in June 1840 by Smith, becoming a ghostwriter for him in Nauvoo, Ill., then getting excommunicated a 3rd time on Dec. 9, 1847, only to be reinstated on Dec. 11, ending up in Salt Lake City, where he becomes a lifelong good Mormon, leaving a legacy of 14 Mormon hymns, which are all pub. in the Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the official LDS Church hymnal, pub. in 1985.
On Jan. 2, 1837 the Kirtland Safety Society "anti-bank" is organized as a joint stock co. by Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon, with Smith as cashier; too bad, it fails in Nov., and Smith is fined for "running an illegal bank", bankrupting several Mormons, who leave the church in disgust at this scammer, causing half of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to condemn him, with apostle Heber S. Kimball uttering the soundbyte: "There were not twenty persons on earth that would declare that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God", and a group of Mormons incl. Warren Parish and Martin Harris seizing control of the Kirtland Temple (which becomes the Church of Christ) and excommunicating Smith and Sidney Rigdon, who take off for parts unknown, er, Far West, Mo., taking the Kirtland Camp of several hundred loyal followers with them, incl. the First Seven Presidents of the Seventies, the top-third of the Mormon priesthood hierarchy; on May 11 after declaring that he had no confidence in the church presidency, Smith County, Tenn.-born apostle (since Feb. 15, 1835) William Earl McLellin (1806-83) is excommunicated, and becomes Smith's bitter enemy, ransacking and robbing his home while he's being held in Liberty Jail in Richmond, Mo. over the Safety Society scandal, after which on Dec. 16, 1838 Smith writes a letter from jail comparing McLellin to Balaam of talking ass fame, pissing him off and causing him to ask the sheriff for permission to fight him, but insisting on being given a club while leaving Smith unarmed, getting him turned down; meanwhile after Smith receives a revelation on July 8, 1838 (which ends up in Doctrine and Covenants, Sect. 117, making him immortal), the First Presidency asks Phelps, N.Y.-born Mormon high priest and Kirtland high council member Oliver Granger (1794-1841) (who was baptized in Sodus, N.Y. in 1832 by Brigham Young and ordained by him to be a church elder) to settle the bank's affairs, satisfying the creditors even though much church property is appropriated by squatters, after which Granger stays in Kirtland until his death on Aug. 27, 1841, his funeral attended by a large crowd; meanwhile all of the original Three Witnesses leave the church, causing Smith to call them "too mean to mention, and we had liked to have forgotten them", while in Mar. 1838 ex-church members claim that Harris publicly denied that any of the Three Witnesses had seen the gold plates physically, but only in a vision, causing three apostles and two others to leave the church, while Harris continues to believe in the truth of the Book of Mormon but rejects Smith as a con man.
In 1837 after getting appointed by Pres. James Madison in 1813 as U.S. consul to Tunis, where he rescued U.S. citizens from Muslim slavery, only to be removed in 1815 by U.S. secy. of state James Monroe for his Jewish religion, pissing him off and causing him to raise a stink about church-state separation, receiving support from Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, then writing the play "She Would be a Soldier; or, The Plains of Chippewa" in 1819, identifying the Indian Great Spirit with Jehovah, then purchasing land on Grand Island in the Niagara River in 1825 for his new Jewish and Native Am. refuge of Ararat, City of Refuge for the Jews, and holding a big ceremony on Sept. 2, 1825 incl. Jews, Freemasons, a N.Y. militia co., and municipal leaders then changing heart and giving up in favor of a Jewish state in Israel, Philly-born Jewish playwright Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851) (first Jew born in the U.S. to achieve nat. prominence) pub. Discourse on the Evidences of the American Indians being the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, delighting Mormons by obliquely backing their Book of Mormon, followed in 1845 by Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews, calling on Americans to take the lead in helping Jews return to Israel.
On Apr. 26, 1838 Joseph Smith Jr. receives a revelation renaming his Church of the Latter Day Saints (the Church of Christ before May 1834) to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; in 1851 it is incorporated by the legislature of the provisional State of Deseret as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; in 1876 a new ed. of "Doctrine and Covenants" decides to capitalize the word "The". On June 17, 1838 after Joseph Smith Jr. and his followers move to Far West, Caldwell County, NW Mo., and found the Danites vigilante group in June, declaring a site in Daviess County 5 mi. S of Jameson along the E bluffs above the Grand River to be Adam-ondi-Ahman (Diahman), the place where Adam and Eve lived after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, claiming that it will be the gathering spot for the Mormon priesthood and prophets and righteous people before the Second Coming of Christ, dedicating it in Oct. and planning on building a temple there, Mormon leader Sidney Rigdon preaches the Salt Sermon in Far West, condemning dissenters Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and John Whitmer, William Wines Phelps et al. by comparing them with Matt. 5:13 ("If salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men"), after which on June 19 80 Mormons sign the Danite Manifesto, warning dissenters to "depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you"; too bad, the evacuating dissenters spread stories that whip-up anti-Mormon feeling, leading to the 1838 Missouri Mormon War; after Christian Whitmer and Peter Whitmer Jr. die in 1835 and 1836, the remaining members of the Whitmer family (a big part of the Eight Witnesses) fall out with Smith and are excommunicated along with other dissenters, fleeing Caldwell County after receiving an ultimatum from the Danites and never joining an LDS group again. On Aug. 6, 1838 the 1838 Missouri Mormon War in a corridor 100 mi. E and NE of modern-day Kansas City, Mo. begins with an election battle in Gallatin County; on Oct. 24 the Battle of Crooked River sees the Mormons defeated by the Mo. state militia, resulting on Oct. 27 in Mo. Executive Order 44 ("Extermination Order") by Mo. Dem. Gov. #6 (1836-40) Lilburn Williams Boggs (1796-1860), calling for the expulsion of Mormons from Mo., with the soundbyte that Mormons were guilty of "open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this State... The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace - their outrages are beyond all description"; on Oct. 30 (4:00 p.m.) the Haun's (Hawn's) Mill Massacre in E Caldwell County, Mo. sees a mob of 240 incl. unathorized Mo. state militiamen and Mo. Regulators from Livingston County attack 30 Mormon families who had been disarmed by anti-Mormon raiders, causing the women and children to flee to the woods while the men hole-up in a blacksmith shop with widely-spaced logs, allowing the mob to fire 100+ rifles into the bldg. for 30-60 min., firing 1.6K rounds until dusk sets in at 5:16 p.m., killing 17 and injuring 15; on Nov. 1 Joseph Smith Jr. surrenders in Far West after 22 are killed, incl. 21 Mormons, causing the rest (10K) to move to Nauvoo, Ill. (Heb. "they are beautiful", based on Isaiah 52:7) (formerly Quashquema, Venus, and Commerce) in Hancock County on the Mississippi River near Fort Madison, Iowa, buying it in late 1839 and renaming it in Apr. 1840, growing to 12K pop. by 1844; the Nauvoo Legion starts out as a state authorized militia, turning into Gen. Joseph Smith Jr.'s personal army; meanwhile in 1838 Mormon Church co-founder Oliver Cowdery leaves the church and is excommunicated, becoming a Methodist, then returns in 1848.
On Oct. 27, 1838 Mo. gov. #6 (1836-40) Lilburn Williams Boggs (1796-1860) issues Executive Order #44 AKA the Extermination Order, calling for the violent expulsion of the Mormons from Mo.; On May 6, 1842 (eve.) after moving to a house in the City of Zion plot in Independence, Mo. three blocks E of Temple Lot, Mormon archenemy Boggs is shot through a window as he reads a newspaper in his study, almost killing him; after a revolver is discovered at the scene, Hampshire County, Mass.-born Mormon Danite Orrin Porter "Old Port" Rockwell (1813-78), bodyguard and close associate of Joseph Smith Jr. known as "the Destroying Angel of Mormondom" is arrested, then tried and acquitted in 1843 after spending 8 mo. in jail, moving to Nauvoo, Ill., where Smith prophesies that as long as he doesn't cut his hair "no bullet or blade can harm thee" a la Samson. At his funeral in Salt Lake City, LDS Church pres. Joseph F. Smith utters the soundbyte: "They say he was a murderer; if he was he was the friend of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and he was faithful to them, and to his covenants, and he has gone to Heaven and apostates can go to Hell... Porter Rockwell was yesterday afternoon ushered into Heaven clothed with immortality and eternal life, and crowned with all glory which belongs to a departed saint. He has his little faults but Porter's life on Earth, taken altogether, was one worthy of example, and reflected honor upon the church. Through all his trials he had never once forgotten his obligations to his brethren and his God"; his legend goes on to inspire Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill.
In Nov. 1839 the monthly Times and Seasons newspaper is founded by the LDS Church as the successor to the "Elders' Journal", ed. by Joseph Smith Jr.'s youngest brother Don Carlos Smith (1816-41) (first pres. of the high priests quorum, since Jan. 15, 1836, later called stake pres., who represents the church's high priests when the cornerstones to the Nauvoo Temple are laid in 1841), becoming their last newspaper before the schisms caused by Joseph Smith Jr.'s death in 1844; it ceases pub. in 1846; on May 13, 1840 the Warsaw Signal (originally Western World) begins pub. in Warsaw, Ill., published by Mount Holly Township, N.J.-born Thomas Coke "Old Tom" Sharp (1818-94) to oppose Mormonism and advance the Whig Party; in Apr. 1842 the (Nauvoo) Wasp weekly newspaper is founded in Nauvoo, Ill. by LDS apostle William Smith, folding in Apr. 1843 after devoting itself to answering Sharp; on Mar. 3, 1843 the Nauvoo Neighbor weekly newspaper is founded in Nauvoo, Ill. by LDS apostle John Taylor, pub. its final ed. on Oct. 29, 1845 as most of the Mormons pack up and leave Nauvoo for Salt Lake Valley; on Aug. 7, 1841 Don Carlos Smith (b. 1816) dies of malaria in Nauvoo, Ill., and on Jan. 6, 1842 his wife Agnes Moulton Coolbrith marries Joseph Smith Jr., who on Feb. 8, 1842 marries Sylvia Porter Sessions, after which 1 mo. later her mother Patty Bartlett Sessions (1795-1892) marries him while still married to her first husband David Sessions, going on to have daughter Perrigrine Sessions, founder of Bountiful, Utah, and leave diaries of the Mormon migration to Utah documenting 3,977 births she participated in as midwife.
In 1839 Joseph Smith Jr. sends the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a mission to the British Isles (ends 1841); Orson Pratt Sr. (1811-81) preaches in Scotland, and pub. the tract "An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions", containing the first pub. of Smith's First Vision, along with parts of Smith's 1842 Articles of Faith; meanwhile Smith gives a sermon, in which he teaches that Adam is actually archangel Michael, and that he held the First Presidency in his pre-mortal life, and now holds "the keys of the Universe", hence all priesthood keys (abilities to unlock various priesthood powers) are revealed from heaven; next year he adds that Adam is the one "through whom Christ has been revealed from heaven, and will continue to be revealed from henceforth"; he finally goes all the way and claims that God was once a man "like one of us" in his 1844 King Follette discourse; Brigham Young becomes a big fan of this Looney Tunes doctrine; Smith also teaches belief in the Heavenly Mother, telling Zina Diantha Huntngton Jacobs Smith Young (1821-1901) after her mother died: "Not only would she know her mother again on the other side, but 'more than that, you will meet and become acquainted with your eternal Mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven'"; Zina later marries Joseph Smith Jr. and Brigham Young while still married to her first husband Henry Jacobs, and becomes pres. #3 of the LDS Relief Society in 1888-1901.
In 1840 Fairhaven, Mass.-born Freemason John Cook Bennett (1804-67) arrives in Commerce, Ill. and begins recruiting Mormons into Freemasonry incl. Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Rigdon, and Joseph Smith Jr., who on Mar. 15, 1842 get to skip the usual memorization for the first three degrees by being made "Masons on Sight"; other Mormon Freemasons incl. Heber C. Kimball, Joseph Smith Sr., and Hyrum Smith; too bad, after moving to Nauvoo, Ill. and becoming mayor #1 on Feb. 1, 1841, along with maj.-gen. of the Nauvoo Legion, earning praise from Abraham Lincoln for his lobbying efforts on behalf of Mormons, he gets caught using his position as a physician to seduce women (introducing the term "spiritual wifery" to cover for it, causing polygamy or plural marriage to get confused with free love and polygyny by the public, causing nat. outrage), and is excommunicated on May 11, 1842, losing his job as mayor and becoming a bitter enemy of Joseph Smith Jr., pub. the expose The History of the Saints: An Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism in 1842, accusing Joseph Smith Jr. and his followers of treason, conspiracy to commit murder, prostitution, adultery et al., with the preface beginning: "I have been induced to prepare and publish the following work by a desire to expose the enormous iniquities which have perpetrated by one of the grosses and most infamous impostors that ever appeared upon the face of the earth, and by many of his minions, under the name and garb of Religion, and professedly by the direct will and command of Almighty God"; he goes on to lead a Union co. in the U.S. Civil War, champion the health benefits of the tomato, pioneer the anesthetic chloroform, create the Plymouth Rock fowl and other chicken breeds, and establish medical colleges, which he taints by selling diplomas; meanwhile after returning from Scotland in 1841, elder Orson Pratt Sr. hears rumors that Bennett accused Joseph Smith Jr. of proposing marriage to his wife (since July 4, 1836) Sarah Marinda Bates Pratt (1817-88), which Smith denies, while more rumors accuse her of hooking up with Bennett, causing him to reject plural marriage and force a 4-day public meeting examining Smith's moral character, which vindicates him, after which Pratt is excommunicated on Aug. 20, 1842, toying with the idea of exposing Mormonism before flopping and kissing up, getting reinstated to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on Jan. 20, 1843, going on to marry 10 women, pissing-off Sarah, who divorces him in 1868 for his "obsession with marrying younger women", with the soundbyte that polygamy "demoralizes good men and makes bad men correspondingly worse. As for the women - well, God help them! First wives it renders desperate, or else heart-broken, mean-spirited creatures", and the 1877 soundbyte: "Here was my husband, gray headed, taking to his bed young girls in mockery of marriage. Of course there could be no joy for him in such an intercourse except for the indulgence of his fanaticism and of something else, perhaps, which I hesitate to mention", going apostate and getting excommunicated on Oct. 4, 1874, founding the Anti-Polygamy Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 1840 the LDS Church begins practicing Baptism for the dead (proxy or vicarious baptism), which is considered heretical by mainstream Christianity; they claim that the dead soul gets to choose whether to accept or reject the favor done on their behalf; meanwhile in 1840 Joseph Smith Jr. issues the White Horse Prophesy, that when the U.S. Constitution hangs by a thread, Mormon elders will rig, er, ride in on a white horse and save the country, becoming a Mormon code phrase later used in 1855 by Brigham Young, and in 2010 by Glenn Beck.
In 1841 Joseph Smith Jr. builds the Red Brick Store on Water St. in Nauvoo, Ill., turning the 2nd floor into his HQ.
On May 6, 1842 (eve.) after moving to a house in the City of Zion plot in Independence, Mo. three blocks E of Temple Lot, Mormon archenemy Lilburn Williams Boggs (1796-1860) (gov. #6 of Mo. in 1836-40) is shot through a window as he reads a newspaper in his study, almost killing him; after a revolver is discovered at the scene, Hampshire County, Mass.-born Mormon Danite Orrin Porter "Old Port" Rockwell (1813-78), bodyguard and close associate of Joseph Smith Jr. known as "the Destroying Angel of Mormondom" is arrested, then tried and acquitted in 1843 after spending 8 mo. in jail, moving to Nauvoo, Ill., where Smith prophesies that as long as he doesn't cut his hair "no bullet or blade can harm thee" a la Samson. At his funeral in Salt Lake City, LDS Church pres. Joseph F. Smith utters the soundbyte: "They say he was a murderer; if he was he was the friend of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and he was faithful to them, and to his covenants, and he has gone to Heaven and apostates can go to Hell... Porter Rockwell was yesterday afternoon ushered into Heaven clothed with immortality and eternal life, and crowned with all glory which belongs to a departed saint. He has his little faults but Porter's life on Earth, taken altogether, was one worthy of example, and reflected honor upon the church. Through all his trials he had never once forgotten his obligations to his brethren and his God"; his legend goes on to inspire Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill.
In May 1842 Joseph Smith Jr. creates the Quorum of the Anointed (Holy Order), giving them their washings and anointings and endowments in the upper floor of his Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, Ill., with membership eventually reaching 60+.
In May 1842 after Bent's Fort misses a shipment of hides wanted by the East, causing them to see their chance, Pueblo, Colo. on the N bank of the Arkansas River at its confluence with Fountain Creek in S Colo. on the border of the Louisiana Purchase is founded as Ft. Pueblo (El Pueblo) by Bent's Fort trader George Simpson et al., who build a log fort to protect against hostile Utes, attracting Va.-born part-black mountain man James P. "Jim" Beckwourth (1798-1867), Kit Carson et al., and reaching 100 pop., encouraging farming and ranching; in winter 1846 a party of several hundred Mormons from Miss. arrive, and are joined by a group of sick members of the Mormon Battalion incl. women and children, who all leave for the Salt Lake Valley next July; too bad, the 1848 Mexican-Am. War and the 1849 Calif. Gold Rush deplete it, and by 1854 only 15-20 live there.
On Aug. 13-15, 1842 13,745 ft. (4,189m) Fremont Peak in Wyo. is first climbed by Am. explorer John Charles Fremont (1813-90) (son-in-law of Mo. U.S. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton) on the first of four expeditions of the Am. West., guided by Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson (1809-68), going on to pub. A Report on an Exploration of the Country Lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains on the Line of the Kansas and Great Platte Rivers, which was printed by newspapers across the U.S., making him a celeb, with the nickname "The Pathfinder"; Carson goes on to become the most famous Am. frontiersman after Daniel Boone. In summer 1843 John Charles Fremont (1813-90) goes on his 2nd expedition, crossing the Rocky Mts. N of the Great Salt Lake, and down the Snake River and Columbia River to Oregon, then W to Lake Tahoe, and down the E slopes of the Sierra Nevadas through Carson Pass into the Central Valley of Calif. to scope it out for gringos waiting for da news back east, then down the American River Valley to Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, then S along the E edge of the San Joaquin Valley, then E through Tehachapi Pass to modern-day Las Vegas, Nev., then N through Utah to South Pass, proving that the Great Basis doesn't have any river flowing towards the sea, disproving the legend of a Buenaventura River; in 1845 Fremont pub. a new map, which is pub. by Congress and used by thousands of immgrants to Ore. and Calif. in 1845-9 incl. the Calif. Gold Rush, inspiring the Mormons to settle in Utah. On June 1, 1845 John C. Fremont and his 55 men leave St. Louis searching for the source of the Arkansas River, and when they don't find it, they hastily travel to the Sacramento Valley in Calif. next Jan., trying to stur up a war; in Sonoma after hearing of the U.S.-Mexican War a group of gringo Americans capture Mexican Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1807-90) on June 14 and declare the independent Calif. Repub., making up a flag with a Calif. grizzly and star painted on white cloth; the Bear Flag Revolt begins; by late June Fremont endorses the new repub. and sets out for Monterey, but before he arrives the revolt ends as the commodore of the U.S. Pacific Fleet sends a shore party to raise the Stars and Stripes and proclaim Calif. as part of the U.S.; in July Robert F. Stockton becomes the new commodore and prepares to invade S Calif., enlisting Fremont's band as the Calif. Battalion and promoting him to maj.; the Mexican loyalists flee, and on Aug. 17 Stockton declares himself gov. of Calif., with Fremont as military cmdr. in the N.
In 1842 the Relief Society (RS) educational women's org. is founded in Nauvoo, Ill. by the LDS Church, reaching 7.1M members in 188 countries by 2017; pres. #1 is Joseph Smith Jr.'s 1st wife Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (1804-79).
In 1842 Joseph Smith Jr. sends a letter to "Long" John Wentworth (1815-88) (Repub. mayor #19 of Chicago in 1857-8), ed. of the Chicago Democrat, containing the Latter Day Saints Articles of Faith (Epitome of Faith and Doctrine), consisting of 13 fundamental doctrines.
In 1842 the Nauvoo Brass Band (originally Joseph's City Band, Pitt's Brass Band) is formed in Nauvoo, Ill. by Dymock, England-born bandleader William Hill Pitt (1813-73) to accompany the Mormon Nauvoo Legion and perform at special events; after raising money at ticketed events in Iowa in 1846 during their emigration to Utah, they scatter until they are reorganized in 1850, performing at the 1853 Salt Lake Temple site dedication ceremony and the cornerstone laying ceremony; in 2003 they are recreated by the LDS Ill. Nauvoo Mission.
On Mar. 4, 1843 Joseph Smith debates with fellow Mormon (his first cousin) George A. (Albert) Smith (1817-75), who argues against capital punishment, while Smith not only approves of it, but demands that hanging be chucked in favor of the Biblical punishment of "blood for blood", with the soundbyte: "I am opposed to hanging, even if a man kill another, I will shoot him, or cut off his head, spill his blood on the ground, and let the smoke thereof ascend up to God"; in a church gen. conference on Apr. 6, 1843 he utters the soundbyte that he would "wring a thief's neck off if I can find him, if I cannot bring him to justice any other way"; later Smith flops, claiming that he would be willing to tolerate men "as corrupt as the devil himself" in Nauvoo, Ill. who "had been guilty of murder and robbery" on the chance that they might "come to the wters of baptism through repentance, and redeem a part of their allotted time", which is approved on Jan. 27, 1845 by his successor Brigham Young, who on Feb. 25, 1846 flops and threatens thieves with throat cutting, getting a law passed in Utah Territory in 1851-88 providing for execution of murderers by decapitation, although nobody is executed; meanwhile Young preaches Blood Atonement (spilling their blood on the ground as a sacrificial offering for crimes so heinous that the atonement of Jesus no longer applies) for murder, theft, fornication, adultery, apostasy, and of course, miscegenation; in 1978 LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie claims that the doctrine of blood atonement is only applicable in a theocracy; meanwhile George A. Smith gives a speech praising polygamy as superior to monogamy, with the soundbyte: "We breathe the free air, we have the best looking men and handsomest women, and if [non-Mormons] envy us our position, well they may, for they are a poor, narrow-minded, pinch-backed race of men, who chain themselves down to the law of monogamy, and live all their days under the dominion of one wife. They ought to be ashamed of such conduct, and the still fouler channel which flows from their practices; and it is not to be wondered at that they should envy those who so much better understand the social relations."
On July 12, 1843 Joseph Smith Jr. receives his divine revelation that polygamy is okay, going on to have 30 wives, incl. wife #28, 14-y.-o. Helen Mar Kimball (1828-96) in May; after the original written version disappears, the revelation is first revealed publicly by Brigham Young in 1852, causing a coverup attempt to the effect that Young introduced polygamy in the first place.
On Mar. 11, 1844 Joseph Smith Jr. establishes the secret Council of Fifty (which incl. non-Mormons) AKA "The Kingdom of God and His Laws with the Keys and Power thereof, and Judgment in the Hands of His Servants, Ahman Christ" to symbolize and represent the future theodemocratic Mormon Kingdom of God on Earth, with him as king (cooked up by his ghostwriter Wiliam Wines Phelps), but really to launch his campaign for pres. of the U.S., which is announced at the LDS Gen. Conference on Apr. 9; on May 17 Smith's new Reform Party holds its nomination convention, which uninanimously nominates him, with the platform calling for members "to carry out the principles of liberty and equal rights, Jeffersonian democracy, free trade, and sailors' rights, and the protection of person and property", announcing a nat. convention in New York City on July 13; Smith turns Southerners on with a plan to end slavery by 1850 via compensated emancipation funded with the sale of public lands and the cutting of Congresspersons' salaries from $8/day to $2/day, and proposes a nat. bank along with a reduction of the U.S. House of Reps to two members per million pop., open borders, replacement of prisons with "seminaries of learning", and the granting of power to the U.S. pres. to suppress mobs sans a request from state governors along with a constitutional amendment providing for capital punishment for officials who refuse to assist those denied their constitutional rights, with the soundbyte: "The state rights doctrines are what feed mobs"; if Smith had lived to be elected U.S. pres. instead of Abraham Lincoln, he could have avoided the bloody U.S. Civil War and kept Washington, D.C. from turning into a corrupt shark-infested swamp, and the compensated Southern ex-slaveholders might have invested their cash in factories and turned the South into an industrial dynamo?; he might even have become a nat. hero and pushed Mormonism over on the U.S. complete with polygamy and white supremacy? - the good die young? He had time to inject the Satanic core into Mormonism before his assassination? On Apr. 7, 1844 the King Follett Discourse (Sermon) is delivered by Joseph Smith Jr. in Nauvoo, Ill. before an audience of 20K Mormons at a gen. conference shortly before the funeral service of elder King Follett, who died on Mar. 9, claiming that God (Elohim) was once a mortal man, and that men and women can become gods and goddesses (divinization) via salvation and exaltation. On June 14, 1844 the Warsaw Signal pub. minutes of a meeting of residents of Warsaw, Ill. organized by Mount Holly, N.J.-born anti-Mormon activist publisher Thomas Coke "Old Tom" Sharp (1818-94), July 1841 founder of the Anti-Mormon Party in Hancock County, at which they resolve that "the Prophet [Smith] and his miscreant adherents, should... be demanded at their [the Latter Day Saints'] hands, and if not surrendered, a war of extermination should be waged to the entire destruction, if necessary for our protection, of his adherents"; on Sept. 25 a deputy sheriff attempts to arrest him as a suspect in the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, but he flees to Alexandria, Mo. until Oct. 1, when he agrees to be tried in Quincy, Ill., where he and four others are acquitted of the murders. The good die young? Another beauty queen doesn't reach 40? On June 27, 1844 after 39-y.-o. holy polygamist Elvis lookalike Joseph Smith Jr. (b. 1805) becomes mayor of Nauvoo, Ill., and his city council orders the suppression of the Warsaw Signal anti-Mormon newspaper for claiming that Smith is a polygamist (which he denies), which Smith allows the Nauvoo Legion to do, causing an outcry that causes Smith to declare martial law and mobilize the Nauvoo Legion on June 18, getting him and his elder brother Hyrum Smith (b. 1800) arrested and jailed on June 23 in Carthage, Ill., they are murdered in jail by a mob after being promised protection by Dem. Ill. gov. #8 (1842-6) Thomas Ford (1800-50) and the Carthage Greys local state militia, which disobeys orders and joins the mob; Smith unloads a 6-shooter smuggled to him, missing three shots and wounding three mob members with the others; he could have escaped, but preferred martyrdom?; Smith liked tea, wine, and liquor, and Nauvoo had its own brewery; the Prophet dies at age 39 after having married at least 49 women (wives or concubines)?, incl. 12 already-married women, five sets of sisters, and one mother-daughter pair; "When I see a pretty woman I have to pray for grace"; during his life he was subjected to approx. 30 criminal actions; he leaves Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible, written mainly in June 1830-July 1833, adding the Book of Moses (Visions of Moses and Enoch), and the Passage on Melchizedek, and amending the text of the King James Version even though he doesn't know Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic; "The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so 'slow,' so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle - keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate... Wherever he found his speech growing too modern - which was about every sentence or two - he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as 'exceeding sore,' 'and it came to pass,' etc., and made things satisfactory again. 'And it came to pass' was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet." - Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872, Ch. 16; the prophet's death launches a succession crisis, with the church's five leading quorums of authority going at like cats and dogs; on July 10 Smith's longtime friend (born in Rutland, Vt.) William Marks (1792-1872), stake pres. of Nauvoo (an opponent of polygamy) is ordained by the secret Council of Fifty as his successor, backed by Smith's first wife Emma, with Marks claiming that in the weeks before his death Smith had told him that it was a curse not a blessing, and started taking steps to end the practice incl. burning his polygamy revelation and destroying his temple garments; too bad, Hopkinton, Mass.-born apostle-elder and church historian-recorder Willard Richards (1804-54) convinces them to wait until his cousin, Whittingham, Vt.-born Brigham Young (1801-77) returns from Smith's pres. campaign, then backs him as successor, after which a large meeting is held on Aug. 8, where Sidney Rigdon (1793-1876) claims that there can be no true successor to Smith, and that as the senior surviving member of the First Presidency he should be made the church's "Protector", while Young claims that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is "equal in authority and power" to the First Presidency, so as its pres. he should lead the church, with his speech wowing the audience so much that they claim he looks and sounds exactly like Smith, proving divine approval; actually the majority back Young for his pro-polygamy stand?; either way, Marks drops out of the race, leaving Nauvoo in Feb. 1845 before Young can get him "whittled out" (surrounded by men who whistle and whittle until he gets the idea), going on to ping-pong between support of Sidney Rigdon, James Strang, and Joseph Smith III, ending up as his counselor; after Rigdon is excommunicated on Sept. 8, causing him to excommunicate the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and flee to Pittsburgh, Penn., founding the Rigdonite Church; on Apr. 6, 1860 the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Community of Christ since 2001) also splits off, with Joseph Smith Jr.'s eldest surviving son Joseph Smith III (1832-1914) (who is ardently anti-polygamy, claiming that his daddy never taught or practiced it, and that it was invented by Brigham Young), becoming prophet-pres. on June 6, 1860-Dec. 10, 1914; the Strangites, organized by Scipio, N.Y.-born James Jesse Strang (1813-56) split off after he produces a Letter of Appointment from Joseph Smith Jr. dated June 18, 1844 and convinces several thousand Mormons to move with him to Voree, Wisc., followed in 1848 by well-named Beaver Island in Lake Michigan after flopping from monogamy to polygamy and losing several followers, declaring himself king and ending up getting assassinated; the Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite) also splits off, organized by William Bickerton (1815-1905), who is converted from Methodist to Mormon by Sidney Rigdon in 1845, and backs his claim to be Joseph Smith Jr.'s rightful successor, but refuses to move with him to Adventure Farm near Greencastle, Penn., remaining in Monongahela, Penn. until it collapses in Apr. 1847, refusing Brigham Young's command to teach plural marriage, organizing his own branch of the church in West Elizabeth, Penn. in 1851, causing Young to excommunicate them in 1855, after which in 1875 he leads 35-50 families to the Zion Valley Colony in St. John, Kan.; on Sept. 19, 1853 after leaving in fall 1847 to do missionary work among the Lamanites (Native Ams.) near Kanesville, Iowa, and becoming the subject of rumors of disloyalty to the Twelve Apostles and of being elected Generalissimo of a union of 37 nations, Plainfield, N.H.-born John Alpheus Cutler (1784-1864), captain of Smith's personal bodyguard and his "chief architect and master workman of all God's holy houses" since 1838, who picked the site for Winter Quarters, breaks off from Brigham Young and founds his own Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) in Manti, Iowa, claiming to be the only legitimate Latter Day Saint church in the world because the Nauvoo Temple wasn't completed in the "sufficient time" required in Doctrine and Covenants 124:31-32, rejecting polygamy but retaining baptism for the dead, reaching a high of 183 members; in 1847 Smith County, Tenn.-born apostate William Earl McLellin (1806-83) remembers that Joseph Smith Jr. once designated Harrisburg, Penn.-born Three Witnesses man David Whitmer (1805-88) as his successor, and he bites and forms the Church of Christ (Whitmerite), recruiting fellow witnesses Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, Hiram Page, and John Whitmer.
On Oct. 24, 1844 the Millerites, followers of Pittsfield, Mass.-born Baptist preacher William Miller (1782-1849) begin to face the Great Disappointment of 1844 when the 2,300 Year-Days of Daniel 8:14 don't jive like they thought, and the world doesn't end with the Second Coming of Christ; never fear, in Dec. Maine-born Ellen Gould White (1827-1915) begins having the first of 2K personal visions, causing the true believers to regroup and form the Seventh-Day Adventists, who claim that Christ didn't make his Second Coming because he entered the Holy of Holies in the Heavenly Sanctuary to begin the Investigative Judgment, and that they should worship on Saturday not pagan Sunday - Sunday didn't work so why not go back to the Jewish sabbath?
On Apr. 18, 1845 the term "Jack Mormon" is coined in The Ottawa Free Trader to mean somebody who is "friendly to the Mormons, but not one himself"; it was first used to refer to sympathetic Democrats in Jackson County and/or Clay County, Mo. back in 1834?; the term evolves to mean a baptized Mormon who is lapsed but still friendly toward the LDS Church, or somebody of Mormon descent who was never baptized and/or is nonreligious, and/or a nominal Mormon who likes to sin.
On May 24, 1845 William B. Smith (1811-93) becomes LDS Presiding Patriarch #3, pissing off his enemy Brigham Young, who prints a clarification in a church newspaper that he is not patriarch over the church, but patriarch to the church, pissing Smith off; on Oct. 6 a gen. conference of the church sees apostle Parly P. Pratt object to Smith's name and position being read, causing the attendees to vote unanimously to remove him as apostle and patriarch and disfellowship him, pissing-off Smith more and causing him t pub. a statement comparing Brigham Young to Pontius Pilate and Nero, and airing the church's dirty laundry by accusing Young and other members of the Twelve of secretly keeping spiritual waves, causing them to excommunicate him for apostasy on Oct. 19, 1845.
Don't you want me baby, oh-oh-oh? On Feb. 10, 1846 1.6K Mormons led by Brigham Young begin their Mormon Exodus (Migration) to the Mexican-controlled Am. West, crossing the frozen Mississippi River in subzero temperatures to a temporary refuge in Sugar Grove, Iowa, sending out a recon team to plan the route across Iowa to the first major stopping point opposite Council Bluffs, Neb. on the Missouri River, digging wells along the way and planting corn; by fall Winter Quarters in modern-day North Omaha, Neb. on the Missouri River is home to 12K Mormons, who suffer a starvation and cholera epidemic that kills 600; in order to get some of their men to the West Coast cost-free, they form the Mormon Battalion of 500 volunteers from Iowa to fight in the Mexican War, and it leaves Council Bluffs on July 20, with Brigham Young giving a speech predicting that none of them will be killed in battle and their only fighting will be with wild beasts; on Dec. 1 the Battle of the Bulls in SE Ariz. results when men hunting for fresh meat cause a herd of angry bulls from an abandoned ranchero to charge their wagons, goring a mule to death and knocking two men down before several are killed to furnish them with fresh but tough meat; the battalion reaches Calif. too late to help with the war, and is disbanded in July 1847, so the prophet proves correct? - vision works, why pay more?
On Apr. 25, 1846-Feb. 3, 1848 the Mexican-Am. (U.S.-Mexico) War is a V for the U.S., resulting in the Mexican Cesession of Alta. Calif. and Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico, incl. Utah, allowing it to apply for statehood.
The real attraction of Mormonism is the temple shenanigans, where mere fornication is elevated into eternity? On May 1, 1846 the 54K sq. ft. Nauvoo Temple in Nauvoo, Ill. (2nd LDS temple after the 1836 one in Kirtland, Ohio) (open to only those with an official temple recommend by their bishop of stake pres. at least one year after being baptized) is dedicated by Orson Hyde, where prophet Joseph Smith Jr. performs the Nauvoo Endowment Ceremony, where true believer Mormon couples make covenants with God and the LDS Church and go through ridicul, er, solemn sacred ceremonies to prepare them to become gods and goddesses, er, priests or kings and priestesses or queens in the after life, starting with a ritual washing and anointing (initiatory), where they must wear their new temple garment (sacred/magic underwear), never taking it off for life (a talisman to ward off evil?), and are taught secret gestures and passwords to use on angels; ceremonies incl. reenactments of Creation and the Fall; couples wishing to undergo a celestial (eternal) (temple) marriage in the temple must first complete the endowment ceremony; some later go through a Second Anointing, which anoints a married couple as a "priest and king" or "priestess and queen" and makes their "calling and election sure", with their celestial marriage "sealed by the holy spirit of promise", making sure they have received the "more sure word of prophecy"; after the main body are forced out of Nauvoo in winter 1846, they sell the bldg. in 1848, after which it is damaged by a fire and tornado before being demolished; in 1937 the church buys the lot on which it stood, and begins rebuilding it in 2000, dedicating it on June 27, 2002; celestial marriages may only be contracted with one living partner at a time, but a man may be sealed to more than one woman, and if the wife dies, he may be sealed to his living wife and deceased wives so that they may live for eternity together in the celestial kingdom, neatly sidestepping Matt. 22:28-30 ("people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like angels in heaven") by limiting marriage ceremonies to living persons, that will continue into the afterlife, incl. dead people who receive the eternal marriage ordinance by proxy; in 1998 the LDS Church permits a woman to be sealed to more than one man, but only after she has died via proxy sealings.
On Sept. 17, 1846 despite trying to pull out, the Battle of Nauvoo sees the Mormon stronghold of Nauvoo, Ill. shelled for a week, receiving help from the Ill. militia 32nd Regiment, led by non-Mormon lt. col. Lewis Crum Bidamon (1806-91), who goes on to marry Joseph Smith Jr.'s widow Emma Smith on Dec. 23, 1847 (the Prophet's 40th birthday) in Nauvoo.
One group of half-civilized Indians is pushed aside so another can move in their place? On Apr. 5, 1847 (2:00 p.m.) the Vanguard Co. of 143 men incl. eight members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and three black men, three white women, and three white children, led by Brigham Young leave Winter Quarters in modern-day North Omaha, Neb. on the Missouri River heading to the Great Basin, arriving on July 24 in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah after Young says "This is the right place, drive on" from a sick wagon driven by Wilford Woodruff; on July 28 Young marks the location of the Gothic-Romanesque Salt Lake Temple (the White Man's Mecca?) on 10-acre Temple Square after Oliver Cowdery allegedly locates the exact spot with his divining rod; Morons, er, Mormons become the first white settlers in Utah (just what the Indians need, Morons who think they know all about their history when they can't even speak their language?); on Aug. 21 they leave for Winter Quarters to gather the remaining Mormon families, setting 12K Mormons in groups of 3K to work as a team to make the trek into the new Mormon Promised Land along the North Platte River, South Pass, Wyo. and Ft. Bridger, Wyo., setting up way stations for the remaining 60K Mormon pioneers, with 2.5K making the journey in 1848; on Feb. 14, 1853 the Salt Lake Temple is dedicated by Heber C. Kimball, after which groundbreaking ceremonies are held on Apr. 6, and it is dedicated on Apr. 6, 1893 by Wilford Woodruff; the architect is Truman Osborn Angell (1810-87) (brother-in-law of Brigham Young), who fills it with Masonic symbols; the walls are made of quartz monzonite from Little Cottonwood Canyon 20 mi. to the SE; Angell goes on to become the official architect of the LDS Church.
On Sept. 27, 1847 the town of Bountiful, Utah (modern-day pop. 42K) is founded by the Mormon family of Perrigrine Sessions, becoming their 2nd settlement in Utah after Salt Lake City to the S; it is incorporated in 1892.
On Dec. 27, 1847 Whittingham, Vt.-born Brigham Young (1801-77) is confirmed as pres. #2 of the LDS Church (until Aug. 29, 1877), continuing to operate the Nauvoo Legion.
In 1847 after settling in Utah, the Mormon pioneers are encouraged by LDS Church leaders to go on a fast on the first Thurs. of each month, and donate the food saved to their bishop, known as a fast offering; the bishop stores the food in the bishop's storehouse; later to accomodate farmers and laborers the day of fasting is changed to Sun., and donations are preferred in cash.
In 1847 the U. of Deseret in Utah begins developing the Deseret Alphabet (until 1854), advertising and promoting it in books, newspapers, street signs and correspondence before giving up in 1869.
On Mar. 31, 1848 the Fox Sisters, Leah Fox (1814-90), Margaret Fox (1836-93), and Katherine "Kate" Fox (1838-92) of Hydesville, N.Y. begin claiming that spirit rappings are coming out of their farmhouse in Hydesville, Arcadia (E of Rochester), N.Y. (guess where, the burned-over district of W. N.Y., home of Millerism and Mormonism), launching the Spiritualist Movement in the U.S., which attempts to communicate with dead spirits while raking in money from crowds of dupes; in 1888 after making fans of Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, Sojourner Truth et al., they come clean, admitting that they caused the rappings themselves via trick joints which cause explosions in gas bubbles in synovial fluid, stinking the movement up bigtime, which doesn't stop it from reaching 8M followers by 1897 in the U.S. and Europe.
In Feb. 1849 the Battle at Fort Utah begins when the mainly friendly Timpanogos Indians begin stealing Mormon cattle, and 50 armed Mormons corner them on Mar. 3 in Battle Creek Canyon and massacre them all, incl. women and children; on Mar. 10 Brigham Young sends 30 families (150 people) to colonize Utah Valley, beginning a fort on Apr. 3, which pisses-off the Timpanogos, who threaten them with death until they swear that they will be good and not drive them away, giving them time to build Fort Utah, going on to hog all their food sources and cause massive starvation, and infect them with measles, causing massive deaths; too bad, in Aug. three Mormons murder Old Bishop and throw his body in the Provo River then brag about it, pissing-off the Timpanogos, who finally agree to a peace treaty in Oct.; too bad, on Jan. 31, 1850 Fort Utah bishop John Higbee meets with Gov. Brigham Young to demand a war, and he authorizes an extermination campaign via Special Order No. 2, ordering the Mormons to kill all the men but save the women and children, announcing the decision to the gen. assembly on Feb. 2, causing the Nauvoo Legion to leave Salt Lake City on Feb. 8, sieging their village for two days until they flee to Spanish Fork River and Rock Canyon, then chasing and killing them like vermin; Mormon frontiersman William Adams "Wild Bill" Hickman (1815-83) finds Rock Canyon leader Old Elk dead, and cuts off his head for the $100 reward offered by Jim Bridger, which is hung by the hair at Fort Utah, after which 50 more heads are taken and piled in boxes near the prisoners to intimidate them before being shipped to Salt Lake, causing rumors of ghosts haunting Rock Canyon; on Feb. 13 15-20 families surrender in modern-day Lake Shore, Utah, only to be executed the next morning, for a total of 102 Timpanogos killed and 40 taken POW and turned into slaves in Salt Lake City before they escape; leaders Old Elk and his wife become martyrs, and Squaw Peak is named after her; in 1868 after allegedly refusing to commit a murder ordered by Brigham Young, Hickman is excommunicated from the LDS Church, causing nine of his 10 wives to leave him, taking their 36-39 children with them; in 1871 Hickman pub. his autobio. Brigham's Destroying Angel, exposing his numerous murders and implicating Brigham Young as the one who ordered him to do them, causing federal authorities to put him under protective custody in Ft. Douglas, Utah to be states' witness against Brigham Young; too bad, the case never goes to trial; in 1850 Fort Utah is renamed Provo, Utah in honor of French-Canadian trapper (1824-5) Etienne (Étienne) Provost (Provot) (Proveau) (1785-1850), later (1875) becoming home to Brigham Young U.
In Mar. 1849 after seeing Calif. and N.M. applying for statehood, the Mormons propose the new State of Deseret, with Brigham Young having a new state constitution drafted based on that of Iowa, sending messengers to Washington, D.C., boldly claiming most of the territory bought (stolen) from Mexico in 1848, from the Sierra Nevada Mts. to the Rocky Mts. incl. the entire watershed of the Colo. River and the entire Great Basin, consisting of modern-day Utah and Nev., with large portions of Ariz., Calif., and smaller portions of Colo., N.M. (excluding the Rio Grande), Wyo., Idaho, and Ore. (excluding the Williamette Valley); afteer Pres. Zachary Taylor offers to combine Deseret with Calif., and the Calif. Constitutional Convention of 1849 is a push, Congress creates Utah Territory on Sept. 9, 1850 (until Jan. 4, 1896), and on Feb. 3, 1851 Brigham Young becomes gov. #1, never giving up the idea of the state of Deseret.
In 1849 the LDS Church establishes the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Co. (Perpetual Emigration Fund) to provide economic assistance (low-interest loans) to 30K Mormons emigrating to Salt Lake Valley in Utah; it is disincorporated by Congress in 1887, and reincorporated in 2001 as the Perpetual Education Fund.
In the 1850s Mormon settlers begin arriving in Hawaii, trying to buy all the property in Lanai; in 1862 Mormon settler Walter Murray Gibson (1822-88) arrives in Lanai to reorganize the Mormon colony, becoming a friend and advisor to King Kalakaua and ending up getting excommunicated for registering the land under his own name and refusing to turn it over to the church, causing him to expel those who don't support him from his colony and church; on May 20, 1882 he is appointed foreign affairs minister, followed on June 30, 1886 by PM of Hawaii (until Oct. 13, 1886), giving the king bad counsel incl. building his own Pacific Empire, leading to the 1887 Hawaiian Constitution, after which he flees the islands and dies broke in San Francisco, Calif. on Jan. 21, 1888.
On Feb. 28, 1850 the U. of Utah (originally the U. of Deseret until 1892) is founded in in Salt Lake City, Utah by the Deseret gen. assembly, becoming Utah's flagship univ.
On Sept. 9-20, 1850 the Compromise of 1850 passes after being split into five separate bills: 1: admitting (Calif.)) to the Union as a free state; 2: organizing the New Mexico Territory (N.M.) with the slavery issue to be decided by popular sovereignty, and payment of $10M to Texas to satisfy claims to New Mexico; 3: organizing the Territory of Utah ditto; 4: a stiff new fugitive slave act; 5: an act abolishing the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in the District of Columbia; the issue of popular sovereignty is left for future legislative debates, which is what makes the Southerners accept the whole deal; the Mormon Corridor from Utah N through W Wyo. and E Idaho, S to San Bernardino, Calif., W to Mesa, Ariz., and S to the U.S.-Mexico border (area between modern-day Interstate 15 and U.S. Route 89) begins to be settled by Mormons (until 1890).
In 1850 Mormons begin settling the area of Bryce Canyon in SW Utah, which is named after Ebenezer Bryce; it becomes a nat. monument in 1923 and nat. park in 1928.On Jan. 9, 1851 Salt Lake City (originally Great Salt Lake City) (modern pop. 180K/560K) is incorporated; a territorial legislature is established on Apr. 5; the pop. of Utah is 11,354 - one Mormon cock to every how many dozen Moron pussies?
In summer 1851 the Runaway Officials of 1851, federal Judge Perry Brocchus, federal Judge Lemuel Brandenbury, and Utah Territorial secy. Broughton Harris arrive in Utah, enjoying festive welcomes but soon coming into conflict with Mormon settlers over polygamy and the admin. of new territorial gov. Brigham Young, and all leaving by the end of Sept., with their posts remaining unfilled for the next two years.
In 1851 the city of San Bernardino, Calif. (modern-day pop. 209K/4.2M) (originally the 1810 Spanish settlement of Politana, named for Bernardino of Sienna) is founded by Mormons, who form San Bernardino County in 1853, and incorporate the city in 1857; in 1857 most of the colonists are recalled to Utah by Brigham Young to fight the Utah War; in 1860 William F. Holcomb discovers gold in nearby Holcomb Valley, causing a pop. spurt.
In 1851 The Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13) is pub. by Franklin Dewey Richards (1821-99) of Liverpool, England (one of two men who survived the mob attack in the Carthage, Ill. jail that killed Joseph Smith Jr.), containing "a selection of choice materials touching many significant aspects of the faith and doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These items were produced by Joseph Smith and were published in the Church periodicals of his day"; it incl. Joseph Smith Jr.'s 1842 Articles of Faith, The Book of Moses, incl. Joseph Smith Jr.'s revision of the first six chapters of Genesis, The Book of Abraham, written in 1835 by Joseph Smith Jr. allegedly by translating ancient Egyptian papyri purchased at a traveling mummy exhibition, claiming it was written by Biblical patriarch Abraham; too bad, after most of them are lose in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, fragments are discovered in 1966 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and examined by Egyptologists, who find that Smith's translation is bogus.
On Apr. 9, 1852 Brigham Young gives a sermon at the LDS Church spring gen. conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, which begins: "When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later"; he adds: "When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family", addind that Adam "was begotten by his Father in heaven" in the same way that Adam begat his own sons and daughters, and that there were "three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael", concluding: "Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven", finishing with: "I could tell you much more about this; but were I to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it, in the estimation of the superstitious and overrighteous mankind... Now, let all who may hear these doctrines, pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation." LSD is taken with a cube of sugar, LDS is taken with a pinch of salt? This is his first public explanation of his Looney Tunes Adam-God Doctrine (Theory), that Adam started out as a mortal man who died, was resurrected, and exalted into a god on another planet, then came as Michael the Archangel to this neck of the Universe to create Earth, bringing one of his many wives named Eve, who messed up by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, making them both mortal again, after which they bred and established the human race, later returning to their heavenly thrones, where Adam became God the Father (Jehovah), later returning to Israel to impregnate Mary and father Jesus; the doctrine is accepted by LDS presidents John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff et al., and is incl. in the LDS Church endowment ceremony, but is rejected by many incl. Orson Pratt, who wins the day, so that in 1976 LDS pres. Spencer W. Kimball announces that the church doesn't support Young's doctrine, because Adam is only the Ancient of Days, Father of Us All, and Michael the Archangel, but not God the Father - sufferin' succotash?
On Aug. 28, 1852 at a special conference in Salt Lake City, polygamy (plural marriage) is officially proclaimed by the LDS (Mormon) Church, which acknowledges that Joseph Smith Jr. practiced it and issued a written revelation authorizing it; Quorum of Twelve Apostles member Orson Pratt (1811-81) (later last surviving member) publicly proclaims the Mormon practice of plural marriage (polygamy) (polygyny) in a sermon; Brigham Young gives a sermon elaborating on his God-Adam Theory, explaining how when a married Mormon couple become gods and goddesses they start out creating spiritual offspring, then "eat and drink of the fruits of the corporal world, until this grosser matter is diffused sufficiently through their celestal bodies, to enable them according to the established laws to produce mortal tabernacles for their spiritual children", giving birth to mortal children.
On July 7, 1853 the Walker War begins after Mormon settler James Walker Ivie of Springville, Utah Valley, Utah kills Timpanogo warrior Shower-O-Cats, relative of chief Walkara (Walker) (Wakhara) ("Hawk") (Colorow) (1808-55), causing the Indians to retaliate by killing Alexander Keele on July 18 in Payson, Utah and launching a war, which after more deaths on both sides (a total of 12 whites and a small number of Indians) ends next May with a treaty between Walkara and Brigham Young in Levan (near Nephi), Utah; too bad, some Indians don't accept it, leading to the Ute Black Hawk War of 1865-72.
In 1853 a militia of Mormons arrests Jim Bridger for selling alcohol and firearms to Native Ams., but he escapes and flees east, after which the Mormons establish their own Fort Supply in 1855, and take over Ft. Bridger in Wyo. (founded 1842) after claiming to have purchased it for $8K in gold coins, which Bridger denies, to which the Mormons respond that H.F. Morrell signed his name with his power of atty.
In 1853 after dictating her recollections to Nauvoo schoolteacher Martha Jane Coray in 1844-5, Joseph Smith Jr.'s mother Lucy Mack Smith (1775-1856) pub. Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations (History of Joseph Smith by His Mother) in Liverpool, England via Mormon apostle Orson Pratt, pissing-off Brigham Young, who calls it a "tissue of lies" and claims that before it can be pub. the "sketches" should be "carefully corrected", ordering church members to destroy their copies, after which the LDS Church pub. them in 1901-2 under the dir. of Lucy's grandson Joseph Fielding Smith; it was all about his feud with Mormon apostle William B. Smith?
The first Holy Cathouse in the Am. West? In 1854 Am. "Mormon Moses" (pres. #2 since Dec. 27, 1847) Brigham Young builds the Beehive House (begun 1852) on South Temple St. 1 block E of the LDS Temple as the executive mansion for the Territory of Utah; in 1856 he builds the long motel-like Lion House at 63 E South Temple in Salt Lake City to house his family of 27 wives and 57 children, with each wife given her own apartment with parlor, bedroom, and locked front door; Young later dies there (he's got the master key and the family jewels?); in 1859 Eagle Gate Monument is built next to Beehive House.
In 1854 the LDS Church begins pub. the 26-vol. Journal of Discourses (until 1866) in England, ed. by Brigham Young's stenographer George Darling Watt (1812-81) (first Mormon convert in the British Isles, and primary inventor of the Deseret Alphabet), containing 1,438 sermons by 55 church leaders incl. Young, George Q. Cannon, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, and John Taylor; too bad, Watt goes Godbeite and is excommunicated by the LDS Church on May 3, 1874.
On June 14, 1855 Mormon missionaries arrive at the site of Las Vegas Springs in modern-day Las Vegas, Nev. and select the site of Old Mormon Fort, which protects the midpoint of the Mormon trail from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles from Indian attacks; it is abandoned in 1857.
In Mar. 1857 the Utah (Mormon) War (Campaign) (Expedition) (Rebellion) (Buchanan's Blunder) begins in Utah Territory when Pres. Buchanan sends the U.S. Army to replace gov. Brigham Young, causing the Mormon Nauvoo Legion to resist, blocking the entrance to Salt Lake Valley and engaging in slash and burn warfare, sending 10 men to cross Little Mountain and meet with Brig. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's Army; on Oct. 7 (night) Mormon frontiersman William Adams "Wild Bill" Hickman (1815-83) burns Ft. Bridger to keep it from falling into army hands, along with numerous army supply trains, which doesn't stop them from wintering near it and establishing it as their post, while more troops establish Camp Floyd in Cedar Valley near modern-day Fairfield S of Salt Lake City, which serves as a Pony Express stop in 1860-1; the Utah War ends in July 1858 with few casualties after Pres. James Buchanan grants full amnesty on the condition that they accept federal authority and replace Brigham Young as gov.; the U.S. Congress rejects the Mormon claim to Ft. Bridger, along with Jim Bridger's; in 1861-5 the federal troops are withdrawn from Utah Territory to fight in the U.S. Civil War; meanwhile in Oct. 1862 the Calif. Volunteer Cavalry-Infantry establishes Fort Douglas 3 mi. E of Salt Lake City.
On Aug. 25, 1857 after leaving Salt Lake City to visit LDS communities in S Utah and warn them of approaching federal troops, telling them to "touch fire to their homes, and hide themselves in the mountains, and to defend their country to the very last extremity", whipping up fear and paranoia, LDS apostle (since Apr. 26, 1839) (Joseph Smith Jr.'s first cousin) George A. (Albert) Smith (1817-75), accompanied by several Native Am. chiefs and new Mormon missionary and pres. of the Santa Clara Indian Mission Jacob Hamblin (1819-86) (later becoming known as "Apostle to the Lamanites" and "the Buckskin Apostle" for his fair dealings with them) directs the Fancher-Baker party to Mountain Meadows N of Santa Clara on the Spanish Trail to find water and pasture, leading to their massacre, after which Hamblin tries to pin all the blame on John D. Lee. America's first 9/11 is cause not by Muslims, but Mormons? On Sept. 7-11, 1857 the Mountain Meadows Massacre sees the Baker-Fancher Party of 120+ Ark. settlers headed for Calif. incl. men, women, and children massacred in S Utah by the Mormon Utah Territorial Militia dressed as Paiutes; 17 children ages six and younger are spared; a Mormon coverup follows, stifling nat. publicity until 1872 when Mormon bishop Philip Klingensmith, a former private in the militia confesses, causing a scapegoat to be cut loose to beat the heat on the others, resulting in the 1874-6 trial of former Mormon militiaman John Doyle Lee (b. 1812), who is executed by firing squad on Mar. 23, 1877 at the site of the massacre after speaking his last words: "I do not believe everything that is now being taught and practiced by Brigham Young. I do not care who hears it. It is my last word... I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner", leaving Mormonism Unveiled; or, The Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop John D. Lee (Written by Himself) (1877); Cedar Springs, Mich.-born non-religious historian Charles Kelly (1889-1971) edits Lee's journals, claiming to smell a rat, posing for a photo in which he thumbs his nose at the Mormon memorial to the massacre; in 1950 Bunkerville, Nev.-born Mormon historian Juanita Pulsipher Brooks (nee Juanita Leone Leavitt) (1898-1989) pub. The Mountain Meadows Massacre, which proves that the Mormon militia did it, and that militiaman John D. Lee was a scapegoat, charging Brigham Young with running a coverup after provoking it with incendiary rhetoric, making him "an accessory after the fact"; the book is acclaimed by historians, keeping the LDS Church from taking disciplinary action against her, but members and officials shun her for breaking their code of silence; on June 30, 2011 U.S. interior secy. Ken Salazar designates the Meadow Mountains Massacre site as a nat. historic landmark.
In 1858 the LDS Church pub. History of Joseph Smith, "a narrative of the prophet Joseph Smith", a compilation of the works of scribes written in 1839-56 revised by Brigham Young; in 1902-12 a 7-vol. definitive ed. edited by Warrington, Lancashire, England-born Brigham Henry "B.H." Roberts (1857-1933) is pub. under the title "History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"; Roberts dies of diabetes on Sept. 27, 1933 in Salt Lake City, Utah, leaving Studies of the Book of Mormon (pub. in 1985), questioning whether Joseph Smith Jr. really was divinely inspired to write the Book of Mormon, or plagiarized it from Ethan Smith's 1823 "View of the Hebrews" and merely had a good imagination, freaking-out the church because he was an insider not outsider, and seems to have lost his faith.
On July 13, 1859 after taking his own advice and going west to Calif., stopping in Colo. to see the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, New-York Tribune ed. Horace Greeley (1811-72) stops in Salt Lake City, Utah for a 2-hour Interview with Brigham Young, which is printed in his paper in Q&A form on Aug. 20; Greeley: "What is the position of your church with respect to slavery?"; Young: "We consider it of divine institution, and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham shall have been removed from his descendants."
In 1859 the city of Logan, Utah on the Logan River on the W slopes of the Bear River Mts. and the E edge of Cache Valley in N Utah 47 mi. N of modern-day Ogden and 82 mi. N of Salt Lake City (modern-day pop. 48K) is founded by Mormon settlers sent by Brigham Young to build a new fort, named for fur trapper Ephraim Logan; it is incorporated on Jan. 17, 1866; on Aug. 6, 1877 Brigham Young College is founded there (until 1926), followed on Mar. 8, 1888 by Utah State U. (of Agriculture and Applied Science) (originally Agricultural College of Utah until 1957).
In 1859 at the request of the War Dept., U.S. Army Capt. Randolph Barnes Marcy (1812-87) (who accompanied U.S. Brig. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston on his expedition against the Mormons in Utah in 1857) pub. The Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland Expeditions, with Maps, Illustrations, and Itineraries of the Principal Routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific, giving advice for Am. pioneers on stopping points, mileage, gathering of provisions, and ways to handle Indians and bears on the way to Utah, Ore., and Calif., becoming a bestseller for the rest of the cent.; "Perhaps the single most important work on the conduct of frontier expeditions published under the aegis of the War Department." (Andrew J. Birtle)
On Apr. 6, 1860 the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is formed in Independence, Mo. by disgruntled Mormons who can't hack plural marriage plus other doctrines introduced by Brigham Young, and repudiate the name Moron, er, Mormon, changing its name in 2001 to the Community of Christ - the signs one could put up about the lures of Utah?
In June-Nov. 1860 the Newark Holy Stones are allegedly discovered by David Wyrick in a cluster of ancient Hopewell Indian burial mounds near Newark, Ohio, consisting of a stone bowl, the Keystone inscribed in Hebrew with "Holy of Holies", "King of the Earth", "The Law of God", and "The Word of God", and the Decalogue Stone inside a sandstone box, complete with a bearded robed turban-wearing man holding a tablet along with the legend "Moses", whipping up Mormons with apparent archeological proof of the Book of Mormon; too bad, they prove to be a hoax, incl. the use of modern Hebrew.
In the 1860s the Mormons drop "Great" from the name of Salt Lake City.
In the 1860s The Avenues neighborhood of N Salt Lake City, Utah is established, with a perfect gridlike street pattern on 2.5-acre blocks, with N-S streets named for trees, and E-W streets given names incl. Fruit, Garden, Bluff, and Wall, changing by 1885 to A-V Sts., changing to A-V Aves. in 1907; the SW side attracts artisans, while the E side becomes known as Butcherville for its slaughterhouses; water is scarce until 1908, after which it becomes a middle-upper class trolley suburb; newer towns incl. Denver, Colo. copy the grid pattern, becoming known as Mormon Towns.
On Apr. 12, 1861-May 9, 1865 the horrific U.S. Civil War sees the invention of the first modern weapon when N.C.-born agricultural equipment maker Richard Jordan Gatling (1818-1903) patents the 10-barrel hand-cranked hundreds-of-rounds-per-min. Gatling Gun (the first practical machine gun) just in time for use on some Johnny Rebs; it is first used by the Union Army in 1864, but luckily never sees extensive use.
In mid-July 1863 Woodford County, Ill.-born former Gladdenite Granville Hedrick (1814-81) of Crow Creek, Ill. is ordained as apostle of the new Church of Christ (Temple Lot) (Hedrickites), immediately producing revelations that Joseph Smith Jr. was a victim of pride that led him to introduce false doctrines, incl. the creation of a church pres. and the First Presidency, making him a "fallen prophet", correcting him by decreeing that the church is to be headed only by a presiding elder (until 1925); the church goes on to chuck plural and celestial marrige, exaltation and plurality of gods, tithing, and the high priesthood; on Apr. 24, 1864 Hedrick produces a revelation instructing followers to mobe back to Independence, Mo. in 1867, which about 60 do in Feb. 1867, becoming the first group of returnees after the 1838 Mo. Extermination Order, acquiring the Temple Lot, which Smith and Sidney Rigdon had dedicated in 1831 as the future location of the temple HQ of New Jerusalem, later discovering the buried marker stones they left there; on Aug. 6, 1892 the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints files a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Mo., claiming the Temple Lot on the basis that they are the rightful successor of Smith's church, winning in Mar. 1894 only to see the appeals court dismiss the case, leaving title with the Hedrickites.
In 1864-7 the oval-shaped Salt Lake Tabernacle (cap. 7K) on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, designed by Truman Osborn Angell is built, housing the LDS semi-annual gen. conference for 132 years, and becoming the home of the world-famous 360-member Mormon Tabernacle Choir (founded Aug. 1847), who hold their first public concert in the tabernacle on July 4, 1873, and the Utah Symphony Orchestra (founded Apr. 4, 1940); the Tabernacle Organ has 11,623 pipes; London, England-born composer-conductor George Edward Percy Careless (1839-1932) becomes conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 1864, going on to compose music to several LDS hymns.
In 1865 the Indian Wars begin in the U.S. as European-descended whites fight and subdue all the Native Americans in the U.S. by 1890 in a rather one-sided genocide, starting with the Black Hawk War (ends 1872) in C and S Utah between Mormon settlers in Sanpete County, Sevier County et al. and 16 Ute, Paiute, Apache, and Navajo tribes led by Ute (Timpanogos) war chief Antonga Black Hawk (1830-70), which ends after 150 battles after intervention by 200 federal troops.
In 1868 after setting up the first sundry and drug store between San Francisco, Calif. and the Missouri River in the 1850s and becoming wealthy, Middlesex, England-born Mormon convert William Samuel Godbe (1833-1902) joins other Mormon merchants in questioning the economic demands of Brigham Young, then travels with his English-born Mormon architect friend Elias Lacy Thomas Harrison (1830-1900) to New York City to attend seances, in which the medium claims to receive visitations from Joseph Smith, Heber C. Kimball, Apostles Peter, James, and John, and King Solomon, ending with German naturalist Alexander Humbolt; on Oct. 25, 1869 after questioning the dogma of the infallibility of the LDS Churchpres., they are tried for apostasy in Salt Lake City, and execommunicated, forming the Church (Godbeite) of Zion, which merges Mormonism with Spiritualism, which folds in the 1880s; meanwhile in Feb. 1870 they found the Liberal Party of Utah to opposite LDS People's Party candidates, also founding the Mormon Tribune for ex-LDS Church members who disagree with the church's economic and political positions, changing its name in 1871 to the Salt Lake Tribune; in 1873 Kan. businessmen Frederic Lockley, George F. Prescott, and A.M. Hamilton acquire it and turn it into a pure anti-Mormon rag that backs the Liberal Party and blasts Brigham Young with contempt, incl. the Aug. 30, 1877 ed.: "He was illiterate and he has made frequent boast that he never saw the inside of a school house. His habit of mind was singularly illogical and his public addresses the greatest farrago of nonsense that ever was put in print. He prided himself on being a great financer, and yet all of his commercial speculations have been conspicuous failures. He was blarophant, and pretended to be in daily [communion] with the Almighty, and yet he was groveling in his ideas, and the system of religion he formulated was well nigh Satanic"; the Liberal Party disbands in 1893; in Oct. 1901 new wealthy Roman Catholic U.S. Sen. (R-Utah) (1901-5) Thomas Kearns (1862-1918) (owner of the Silver King Coalition Mine in Park City, Utah) secrety acquires the newpaper and eliminates its anti-Mormonism to smooth relations with the mostly-LDS state legislature, going on gain the backing of the new anti-LDS Church American Party (founded in 1905 and dissolved in 1911) and become the first Utah politician to establish a nat. and internat. reputation, becoming friends with Pres. William McKinley, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, and Pres. Howard Taft, helping to make Fort Douglas (founded Oct. 1862; closed 1991) a regimental post; in 1902 Kearns builds the marble-granite-sandstone Kearns Mansion at 603 E. Brigham (South Temple) St. in Salt Lake City, which in 1937 becomes the official mansion of the gov. of Utah.
On May 10, 1869 (2:47 p.m. EST) the 1,907-mi. Union Pacific-Central Pacific Transcontinental Railway AKA the Overland Route is completed, and the last Golden Spike (originally mahogany with a silver plaque, which is stolen) is driven at Promontory Summit, Utah (U-tie?) 66 mi. NW of Salt Lake City by Central Pacific pres. (since 1861) (Repub. Calif. gov. #8 in 1862-3) Amasa Leland Stanford (1824-93) (first swing misses) (made by Schultz, Fisher, and Machling of San Francisco, weighing 18 oz., with a 6-in. nugget attached to the head); Union Pacific locomotive #119 and Central Pacific locomotive #60 ("Jupiter") are the first to cross; the word "done" is sent out over the telegraph wires; the golden spike is then withdrawn for safekeeping, ending up at Stanford U., and is used in Cecil C. DeMille's 1939 film Union Pacific; the eastbound team c overed 690 mi. and the westbound team 1,086 mi.; the Union Pacific Railroad, the first transcontinental (New York City to Sacramento) railroad is chartered; the first train from Sacramento reaches New York City on July 29 after a journey of 6.5 days; the railroad allows East Coast beer to be shipped to the West; during the next decade the U.S. lays down railways at the rate of 10K mi. a year, causing travel on the Oregon Trail to die out; the railroad brings loads of non-Mormon settlers into the gigantic Mormon dream state of Deseret, causing plans to be dropped in favor of the more realistic Mormon state of Utah.
In 1870 The Salt Lake Tribune (originally the Mormon Tribune until 1871) is founded in Salt Lake City, Utah by ex-LDS Church members William Godbe, Elias L.T. Harrison, and Edward W. Tullidge; in 1873 Kan. businessmen Frederic Lockley, George F. Prescott, and A.M. Hamilton acquire it and turn it into an anti-Mormon newspaper backing the local Liberal Party and regularly dissing Brigham Young as "illiterate and he has made frequent boast that he never saw the inside of a school house."
On Oct. 1, 1875 Brigham Young U. is founded by the Mormons in Provo, Utah, becoming the largest religious univ. in the U.S.; it goes on to house the flagship Mormon Missionary Training Center in 1978.
On Mar. 23, 1877 John D. Lee (b. 1812), adopted son of Brigham Young is executed for his part in the Mountain Meadows Massacre; Brigham Young (b. 1801) dies on Aug. 29. On Aug. 29, 1877 LDS Church pres. #2 (since Dec. 27, 1847) Brigham Young (b. 1801) dies in Salt Lake City of peritonitis, which has a pop. of 100K, mostly Mormons; his last words: "Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!"; on Sept. 2 12K-15K attend his funeral in the Mormon Tabernacle; by 1902 he has 1K+ descendants.
On Jan. 6, 1879 after the Mormons send Brigham Young's secy. George Reynolds as a test case on polygamy, the U.S. Supreme (Waite) Court rules unanimously in Reynolds v. U.S. that religious duty is not a defense to a criminal indictment, becoming the first case to address the Impartial Jury and Confrontation Clauses of the Sixth Amendment.
On Oct. 10, 1880 English-born polygamist (8 wives) John Taylor (1808-87) becomes Mormon pres. #3 (until July 25, 1887), succeeding the late Brigham Young (d. Aug. 29, 1877), going on to fight the U.S. govt. over polygamy and lose, going underground in 1885; this year he comes out swinging, with the soundbyte: "God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged under the banner of heaven against the Government. The United States says we cannot marry more than one wife. God says different."
In 1881 Watertown, N.Y.-born Mormon Oliver Boardman Huntington (1823-1909) pub. a journal containing the allegation that back in 1837 Joseph Smith Jr. taught that: "The inhabitants of the moon are more of a uniform size than the inhabitants of the earth, being about six feet in height. They dress very much like the Quaker style and are quite general in style or the one fashion of dress. They live to be very old; coming generally, near a thousand years"; later Brigham Young claimed that the Sun is inhabited.
On Mar. 23, 1882 the U.S. Congress, responding to moral outrage over the sexual practices of holier-than-thou Marry More and More Mens (Mormons) passes the U.S. Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act, sponsored by U.S. Sen. (R-Vt.) (1866-91) George Franklin Edmunds (1828-1919), outlawing polygamy and "unlawful cohabitation", making most Mormon adults into instant criminals; 1.3K+ Mormon men are eventually imprisoned under this act.
On Dec. 8, 1885 Pres. Cleveland delivers his long-winded 1885 (First) Annual Message to Congress, slamming the Mormon practice of polygamy, with the soundbyte: "The strength, the perpetuity, and the destiny of the nation rest upon our homes, established by the law of God, guarded by parental care, regulated by parental authority, and sanctified by parental love. These are not the homes of polygamy... There is no feature of this practice or the system which sanctions it which is not opposed to all that is of value in our institutions. There should be no relaxation in the firm but just execution of the law now in operation, and I should be glad to approve such further discreet legislation as will rid the country of this blot upon its fair fame. Since the people upholding polygamy in our Territories are reenforced by immigration from other lands, I recommend that a law be passed to prevent the importation of Mormons into the country."
On Sept. 26, 1886 (night) after acting as a courier-bodyguard for on-the-lam LDS Church pres. #3 (1880-7) John Taylor, Newlin, Penn.-born John Wickersham Woolley (1831-1928) allegedly sees the spirits of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith Jr. visit Taylor in his home, and on Sept. 27 Taylor receives the 1886 Revelation, reaffirming the New and Everlasting Covenant (plural marriage) (which is covered-up until 1911 when his son John W. Taylor produces it from his papers), and sets apart five men incl. John and his son Lorin Calvin Woolley (1856-1934) as apostles with a special commission to keep celestial plural marriage alive, with authority to set others apart in perpetuity; Lorin goes on to become the founder of the modern Mormon fundamentalist movement.
On Mar. 3, 1887 after Pres. Cleveland refuses to sign it, the U.S. Edmunds-Tucker Act, sponsored by U.S. Sen. (R-Vt.) (1866-91) George Franklin Edmunds (1828-1919) (who introduced it on Dec. 8, 1885 on the same day as Pres. Cleveland's big anti-polygamy speech) and U.S. Rep. (D-Va.) (1875-87) John Randolph Tucker (1823-97) comes into effect, disincorporating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their Perpetual Emigration Fund, criminalizes the practice of polygamy, with a fine of $500-$800 and up to five years in prison, and directs the confiscation of all church properties valued over $50K; in 1890 it is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, and unless they ditch polygamy they're kaput?; repealed in 1978.
On July 25, 1887 pres. (since Oct. 10, 1880) John Taylor (b. 1808) dies, and the LDS Church goes without a pres. for two years.
On Apr. 7, 1889 after a LDS Church gen. conference reorganizes the First Presidency with him as pres., Wilford Woodruff Sr. (1807-98) (who joined way back on Dec. 31, 1833, becoming the first fly fisherman in the Rocky Mts., preaching a sermon on Aug. 22, 1868 prophesying the end of the world and Second Coming of Jesus, and marrying 9-12 wives from 1837-77, forcing him to live on the lam) becomes Mormon pres. #4 (until Sept. 2, 1898), going on to make the big decision to end polygamy in the church inside the U.S. while secretly encouraging it outside the U.S. (incl. on the high seas), founding the Genealogical Society of Utah on Nov. 13, 1894 and announcing the policy of sealing individuals to their direct ancesors instead of church leaders.
On Feb. 3, 1890 the U.S. Supreme (Fuller) Court rules unanimously in Davis v. Beason that federal laws against Islam, er, polygamy don't violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, with Justice Stephen J. Field writing the soundbytes: "However free the exercise of religion may be, it must be subordinate to the criminal laws of the country, passed with reference to actions regarded by general consent as properly the subjects of punitive legislation", and "Swift punishment would follow the carrying into effect of its doctrines, and no heed would be given to the pretense that, as religious beliefs, their supporters could be protected in their exercise by the constitution of the United States."
On May 19, 1890 the U.S. Supreme (Fuller) Court rules 6-3 in Late Corp. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States to uphold the 1887 U.S. Edmunds-Tucker Act, disincorporating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons); Justice Fuller dissents on the basis that "it is not authorized under the cover of that power to seize and confiscate the property of persons, individuals, or corporations, without office found, because they may have been guilty of criminal practices"; only $381,812 of $3M in assets are seized, and real property isn't touched because the church acts too fast to prohibit polygamy.
On Sept. 25, 1890 in order to gain statehood for Utah (and keep the U.S. Army from invading and enforcing the law?), polygamy (plural marriage) (celestial marriage) (new and everlasting covenant marriage) is officially prohibited by the Mormon Church via the Woodruff Manifesto of Mormon pres. #4 (since Apr. 7, 1889) Wilford Woodruff Sr. (1807-98), causing Pres. Benjamin Harrison on Jan. 4, 1893 to issue a Presidential Proclamation granting the 2,451 Mormon plural families in the U.S. amnesty from the 1882 federal anti-polygamy law; that doesn't stop a lot of renegade Mormons from doing it anyway (50K in the year 2000); Congress rejects the name Deseret ("land of honeybees") (taken from the Book of Mormon) (in ancient Egypt, Kenet meant black land, i.e., fertile land, and Deseret meant red land, i.e., the desert), preferring Utah, from a Navajo word meaning upper, after the Shoshone Ute tribe; actually, Woodruff didn't prohibit polygamy per se, only "contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land", meaning that it it still okay for church members when and where it is legal?
On Oct. 25, 1893 the Congress passes a resolution authorizing the release of assets seized from the LDS Church on the grounds that "said church has discontinued the practice of polygamy and no longer encourages or gives countenance to any manner of practices in violation of law, or contrary to good morals or public policy."
On Nov. 13, 1894 the Genealogical Society of Utah is founded by the LDS (Mormon) Church, working out of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, going on to become the largest genealogical society on Earth.
On Jan. 4, 1896 after a ban on polygamy is written into the state constitution, "Beehive State" Utah (Ute "people of the mountains") is admitted as the 45th U.S. state; a debate begins about whether to call a resident of Utah a Utahan or a Utahn (ends ?) - are you my tah, er, pah?
On Sept. 2, 1898 pres. (since Apr. 7, 1889) Wilford Woodruff (b. 1807) dies, and on Sept. 13 his son-in-law Lorenzo Snow (1814-1901) becomes Mormon (LDS) pres. #5 (until Oct. 10, 1901), going on to marry seven wives, getting convicted of three counts of polygamy and appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rules in Ex Parte Snow that it's all just one count; he also adopts the principle of tithing (10%) as a condition of membership, causing church debts of $2.3M to be paid by Apr. 1907, and first defines the LDS doctrines of exaltation and eternal progression (evolving into a God), coining the motto: "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be"; on Apr. 5, 1900 not wanting young whippersnapper John Willard Young (1844-1924) (son of Brigham Young) (disliked for his lavish New York City lifestyle and risky business ventures when he should have been in Salt Lake City attending to church business?) to succeed him, he gets the requirement of being ordained an apostle the longest changed to being a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles the longest, while preventing him from being a member - Young's sin was that he was too young?
On Oct. 10, 1901 pres. (since Sept. 13, 1898) Lorenzo Snow (b. 1814) dies, and on Oct. 17 Joseph Fielding Smith Sr. (1838-1918) (nephew of Joseph Smith Jr.) becomes Mormon (LDS) pres. #6 (until Nov. 19, 1918), becoming the last pres. who personally knew founder Joseph Smith Jr.
On Apr. 6, 1904 the Second Manifesto is issued by LDS Church (Mormon) pres. #6 (since Oct. 10, 1901) Joseph Fielding Smith Sr., reaffirming the 1890 Woodruff Manifesto and providing for excommunication of violators, but keeping the snakelike language that polygamous marriages in violation of a nation's laws are not to be contracted; the 1890 manifesto is later canonized, but not this one; LDS apostles John Whitaker Taylor (1858-1916) (son of LDS Church pres. #3 John Taylor) and Matthias Foss Cowley (1858-1940) dissent and resign from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1906 (becoming the last until?), causing the Mormon Fundamentalist Movement to arise, pointing out that neither manifesto is claimed as a revelation from Jehovah.
Just upload your catchphrases at Moron.com? In 1905 the Binet-Simon IQ Test is developed by French psychologists Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and Theodore Simon (1872-1961); too bad, to take it you have to speak French, but never fear, in 1908 East Vassalboro, Maine-born God's-gift psychologist Henry Herbert Goddard (1866-1957), dir. (1906-8) of the Vineland Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys in Vineland, N.J. trans. it into English and distributes 22K copies, introducing the term "mormon", er, "moron" and promoting not only intelligence testing to weed them out, but proposing IQ labels on May 18, 1910 (moron is actually the top of the food chain, with IQ of 51-70, i.e., mental age of 8-12, followed by imbecile at 26-50 and oh no, dumber-than-a-donut idiot at 0-25), then helping write the first U.S. law is founded requiring special segregated education for them in public schools along with the blind and deaf; in 1912 he pub. The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness; now listen while I tell you a story about a man named Martin, whose Appalachian descendants get into inbreeding and become "a race of defective degenerates", causing him to call for eugenics programs incl. compulsory sterilization and segregation for the feeble-minded; in 1913 he tests IQs of 172 Euro immigrants on Ellis Island, finding that he correctly matches 80% of feeble-minded immigrants with those classed that way before they left; in 1914 he becomes the first U.S. non-moron psychologist to lend his high IQ to testify in court that being a moron should limit criminal responsibility of defendants; he also utters the unmoronly soundbyte: "Democracy means that the people rule by selecting the wisest, most intelligent and most human to tell them what to do to be happy" - what, me worry, here comes another: "There are two kinds of people" messiah - not, since now morons ain't even human (you need a toupee with some brains in it, nyuk nyuk?)
On Feb. 20, 1907 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt signs the U.S. Immigration Act of 1907, prohibiting immigration of people with TB and other loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases, along with mentally-disabled and insane persons, hos and anarchists and people who advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. govt., and people who practice or believe in the practice of polygamy, neatly keeping Muslims out of the U.S.
On July 8, 1907 Mormon George Wilcken Romney (d. 1995) is born in Galeana, Chihuahua, Mexico, going on to become CEO of Am. Motors Corp. (1954-62), Repub. Mich. gov. #43 (1963-9), and U.S. HUD secy. #3 (1969-73), fathering Willard Mitt Romney (1947-) on Mar. 12, 1947 in Detroit, Mich.; a descendant of English portraitist George Romney (1734-1802), his ancestors fled to Mexico in the 1880s to be able to practice polygamy; his grandfather Miles Park Romney married his 5th wife in 1897, six years after polygamy was officially banned by Mormon leaders.
In 1908 the LDS Church establishes the Priesthood Correlation Program to make sure that all pubs. conform to official church doctrine; too bad, in 1982 it takes over the church's Historical Dept., leading to excommunication of Mormon historians.
On Nov. 20, 1910 after challenging Gen. Porfirio Diaz in the pres. elections and being jailed to get him out of the way so that Diaz can be reeelected, wealthy U.S.-educated haciendado Francisco Ignacio Madero (1873-1913) flees to Texas and issues the Plan of San Luis de Potosi, a manifesto calling for an uprising, beginning the Mexican Rev. of 1910 (ends May 21, 1920), which causes masses of Mexicans to begin immigrating to the U.S., along with renegade polygamous Romney, er, Mormons - bring down the hacienda?
In 1913 the Short Creek Community is founded in the Ariz. Strip by polygamous Mormon fundamentalists, who found the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) AKA The Work, The Group, and The Priesthood.
In 1914 Orem, Utah (originally Sharon and Provo Bench) near Provo is named after Walter C. Orem, pres. of the Salt Lake and Utah Railroad; it is incorporated in 1919, adopting the slogan "Family City USA".
On Nov. 19, 1918 pres. (since Oct. 17, 1901) Joseph F. Smith Sr. (b. 1838) dies, and on Nov. 23 Heber Jeddy Grant (1856-1945) becomes Mormon pres. #7 (until May 14, 1945), becoming the last to have practiced polygamy (three wives, only one still living), going on to promote The Avenues neighborhood in Salt Lake City, Utah for home ownership.
At least they pay for the milk and don't get it for free through the fence? The polygamous branch of the LDS Church goes on a long losing streak? In 1924 after acting as a courier-bodyguard for polygamous LDS Church leaders on the lam during their war with the feds, and announcing that he has been set apart to keep plural marriage alive by LDS pres. John Taylor's Sept. 26, 1886 Revelation, dairy farmer Lorin Calvin Woolley (1856-1934) is excommunicated by the LDS Church for polygamy, after which on Mar. 6, 1929 he founds the fundamentalist Mormon Council of Friends (Woolley Group) (Priesthood Council) in Short Creek, Ariz.; meanwhile in 1927 Joseph Leslie Broadbent (1891-1935), mayor of Lehi, Utah (1922-8) pub. the pamphlet "Celestial Marriage", advocating polygamy, getting him excommunicated by the LDS Church in July 1929; meanwhile on Mar. 6, 1929 he is ordained as an apostle in the Council of Friends by Woolley, who on May 15 gives him the title of second elder; on Sept. 19, 1934 Wooley dies, and Broadbent succeeds him as pres., dying on Mar. 16, 1935, after which a secession dispute with Charles Elden Kingston (1909-48) is won by John Yeates (Yates) Barlow (1874-1949), who becomes leader of the fundamentalist polygamous Mormon community in Short Creek, Ariz., while on Jan. 1, 1935 Kingston founds the Davis County Cooperative (Kingston Group) (Kingston Clan) (Latter Day Church of Christ) (Co-op Society) in Bountiful, Utah; on Dec. 29, 1949 Barlow dies, and Leroy Sunderland Johnson (1888-1986) becomes leader of the polygamous Woolley Group of fundamentalist Mormons in Short Creek, Ariz., splitting with the LDS Church in 1952 and surviving the 1953 Short Creek Raid, becoming a modern-day saint and helping the movement grow before dying on Nov. 25, 1986, after which Rulon Timpson Jeffs (1909-2002) becomes prophet-pres. of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Colorado City, Ariz., going on to marry up to 75 wives and have 65 children and become known as Uncle Rulon, dying on Sept. 8, 2002 in St. George, Utah, leaving 19-20 wives, after which one of his 33 sons Worn-out Stud, er, Warren Steed Jeffs (1955-) takes over as the new pres., marrying all but two of his father's widows. On Aug. 29, 2006 after being placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List for arranging illegal marriages between adult males and unerage girls, Sacramento, Calif.-born Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints pres. (since Sept. 8, 2002) Warren Steed Jeffs (1955-) is arrested in Clark County, Nev. and extradited back to Utah for trial; in May-July 2007 Ariz. charges him with incest and sex with minors; on Sept. 25, 2007 he is convicted in St. George, Utah of two counts of rape as an accomplice, and on Nov. 20 he is sentenced to 10-life, which is overturned by the Utah Supreme Court on July 27, 2010, after which he is extradited to Tex., where he is convicted of aggravated sexual assault of 12-to-15-y.o. girls on Aug. 9, 2011 and sentenced to life plus 20 years plus a $10K fine.
In 1934 the LDS (Mormon) Church establish the Radio, Publicity and Missionary Literature Committee, headed by Quorum of the Twelve members Stephen L. Richards and Gordon B. Hinckley, going on to produce film strips for use by missionaries; in 1957 the committee is split into the Internal Communications Dept. and the Church Info. Service, which in 1972 is renamed the Dept. of Public Communcations, and in 1973 the Public Communications Dept., under the direct supervision of the First Presidency, dir. by Wendell J. Ashton, producing Homefront ads with the motto: "Family: isn't it about time?"
In 1936 after demanding the appointment of a Mexican pres. "of pure race and blood", the Third Convention group of Latter-day Saints in Mexico break away from the lily-white HQ in Salt Lake City, Utah, reconciling in 1946, although small pockets remain into the 1990s.
On May 14, 1945 Mormon pres. (since Nov. 23, 1918) Heber J. Grant (b. 1856) dies, and on May 21 Repub. Boy Scout leader George Albert Smith Sr. (1870-1951) becomes Mormon pres. #8 (until Apr. 4, 1951), going on to denouce the KKK, send supplies to war-torn Europe, and travel 1M mi. in office, becoming the first LDS Church pres. to visit Mexico in office, reconciling the Third Conventionist apostates to the church.
In 1945 Ogden, Utah-born Fawn McKay Brodie (1915-81), niece of Mormon pres. #9 (1951-70) David Oman McKay (1873-1970), who was educated at the U. of Chicago, where she dumped her faith and married Jewish defense expert Bernard Brodie, becoming one of the first tenured profs. at JewCLA, er, UCLA pub. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, a bestseller which claims that Joseph Smith made the Book of Mormon up, getting her excommunicated from the Mormon Church in 1946 - as if she cares?
In 1950 Quorum of the Twelve Apostles member (since Apr. 10, 1947) Henry Dinwoodey Moyle (1889-1963) convinces the LDS Church to purchase the 54K-acre Deseret Cattle and Citrus Ranch 50 mi. SE of Orlando, Fla. and 19 mi. W of Cape Canaveral, Fla., growing to 312K acres and becoming the largest cow-calf ranch in the U.S.; he then talks the church into an ambitious building program with the idea that larger meetinghouses will attract more converts, giving the church a deficit of $32M by 1962, causing LDS pres. David O. McKay to fire him after he talked him into discontinuing publishing annual financial statements to hide church spending.
In 1950 Cardston, Alberta, Canada-born swimsuit designer Rose Marie Reid (nee Yancey) (1906-78) of Los Angeles, Calif. files for a patent on a 1-piece bathing suit using elastic fabric sans buttons, which is both fashionable and functional, using photopermeable fabric to allow full body tanning; it catches on, capturing 10% of the women's swimwear market, and she is named Designer of the Year by Sports Illustrated, and Woman of the Year by Time in 1955; meanwhile she uses her free time to proselyte Jews for the Mormon faith.
On Apr. 9, 1951 David Oman McKay (1873-1970) becomes pres. #9 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (until Jan. 18, 1970), going on to preside over an increase in church membership from 1.1M to 2.8M, opposing atheistic Communism and planning a BYU campus in Hawaii, softening the church's stance on Africans holding the priesthood by no longer requiring dark-skinned applicants from South Am., South Africa et al. to prove that their lineage isn't African; he becomes friends with film dir. Cecil B. DeMille, consulting with him during production of the 1956 film "The Ten Commandments".
In 1952 Ore-Ida Potato Products Inc. is founded by Mormon brothers F. Nephi Grigg and Golden Grigg, with the fields in Idaho and the processing facility in Ore. near the border; in 1953 they introduce "all-righta" Tater Tots, made from French fry leftovers; the slogan is "When it says Ore-Ida, It's All-Righta"; in 1965 it is acquired by H.J. Heinz Co., who in 1999 move the HQ from Boise, Idaho to Pittsburgh, Penn.
The general who later warns of the grate powah of the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex Tribe oughta know, since he packs his cabinet with its chiefs? On Jan. 20, 1953 bridge-playing Repub. 5-star gen. Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) becomes the 34th U.S. pres. (until Jan. 20, 1961) in the 49th U.S. Pres. Inauguration; anti-Commie poker-playing Quaker Richard Milhous Nixon (1913-94) becomes the 36th U.S. vice-pres. (youngest so far); Ike becomes the first pres. in the 20th. cent. without a double letter in his name, unless you count initials; the first U.S. pres. to ride in a helicopter; the inaug. theme (first-ever?) is "Crusade in America"; the inaugural parade is the most elaborate ever held (until ?), with 22K service men-women and 5K civilians in the parade, which incl. 50 state floats costing $100K, along with 65 bands, 350 horses, 3 elephants, an Alaskan dog team, and the new Atomic Annie atomic cannon, plus a 642-plane flyover; First Lady is Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower (1896-1979) (Secret Service codeword: Springtime), who brings pink back with her fashion tastes; Aaron Copland's 1942 "A Lincoln Portrait" is withdrawn from the inaugural concert because of his alleged Communist connections; Ike's favorite books are Zane Grey Westerns, since he once considered working as a cowboy in Argentina; his Jehovah's Witnesses background is covered-up?; the unnamed balcony on the White House South Lawn becomes Truman's legacy; he renames Camp Shangri-La to Camp David in honor of his grandson Dwight David Eisenhower II; Robert A. Taft of Ohio becomes Senate majority leader, but in June has to give it up because of cancer, and dies on July 31; Ike appoints GM pres. (since 1941) Charles Erwin "Engine Charlie" Wilson (1890-1961) as U.S. defense secy. #5 (until Oct. 8, 1957) (known for the soundbyte: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country", and for telling the U.S. in 1944 that it needs a "permanent war economy"), M.A. Hanna steel manufacturing firm pres. George Magoffin Humphrey (1890-1970) as U.S. treasury secy. #55 (until July 29, 1957) (takes a pay cut from $300K to $22.5K), John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) as U.S. secy. of state #52 (until Apr. 22, 1959) (becoming known for his policy of brinkmanship, holding the nuclear club over other countries' heads), labor leader Martin Patrick Durkin (1894-1955) (a Dem.) as U.S. labor secy. #7 (who resigns on Sept. 10 and goes back to being pres. of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Union of the U.S. and Canada), Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994) of Utah (a Mormon Quorum of the Twelve member, who becomes LDS pres. #13 on Nov. 10, 1985) as U.S. agriculture secy. #15 (until Jan. 20, 1961) (starting the custom of beginning cabinet meetings with prayer and calling govt. price supports and other aid to farmers unvarnished Socialism), and James Douglas McKay (1893-1959) as U.S. interior secy. (until 1956); Mormon Ivy Baker Priest (1905-75) (mother of Pat Priest of The Munsters fame) becomes U.S. treasurer #30 (until Jan. 29, 1961); a few days before his retirement date comes up, Arthur Joseph Altmeyer's office of commissioner for social security (since 1937) is abolished in favor of a new commissioner of social security, causing a public outcry, but in a delicious gotchya, Altmeyer refuses the offer of a 1-mo. job with no responsibilities; Kan. Repub. Sen. (1950-69) Frank Carlson (1893-1987) (a buddy of Ike) brokers a deal through Ohio Sen. Robert Taft to become Senate majority leader, and organizes the first pres. prayer breakfast, going on to coin the phrase "worldwide spiritual offensive" in 1955 for Christian evangelicals fighting the Commies.
On July 26, 1953 (a.m.) Ariz. police raid the village of Short Creek (pop. 368) in NW Ariz. (Arizona Strip) on the Utah border on a pretext of "grasshopper control" to arrest Mormon polygamists belonging to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, becoming their 3rd raid (1935, 1944) to stop the pesky practice which causes girls as young as 13 to get married, settle down and have kids, arresting 122 men after Ariz. Gov. J. Howard Pyle (1906-87) predicts that unless they end the Bad P Thang, "in another 10 years the population would be in the thousands and an army would not be sufficient to end the defiance of all that is right"; Utah Gov. J. Bracken Lee cooperates; 38 women and 154 children are bused 400 mi. in the care of the Dept. of Public Welfare and given foster homes and forbidden to return, although most of the kids do after growing up; the largest mass arrest of polygamists in U.S. history (until ?), and the largest mass arrest of men and women in U.S. history (until ?); 36 men plead guilty to conspiracy to commit the Bad P, and are given 1-year suspended sentences; the town's name is changed to Colorado City on the Ariz. side and Hildale on the Utah side.
On Sept. 26, 1955 Brigham Young U. - Hawaii in Laie, Honolulu, Hawaii on the N shore of Oahu is founded by the LDS Church; on Oct. 12, 1963 it opens the Polynesian Cultural Center, which becomes a hit with tourists.
In 1958 Mormon brain man Bruce Redd McConkie (1915-85) (member of the First Council of the Seventy since Oct. 10, 1946, and husband of Joseph Fielding Smith's daughter Amelia since 1937) pub. Mormon Doctrine: A Compendium of the Gospel, "the first major attempt to digest, explain, and analyze all of the important doctrines of the kingdom" and "the first extensive compendium of the whole gospel - the first attempt to publish an encyclopedic commentary covering the whole field of revealed religion", which becomes a std. work for Mormons, going through three eds. by 1978; too bad, it is full of errors, and was never authorized by the LDS Church, which disses it for its authoritative tone incl. calling the Roman Catholic Church "the church of the devil" and "the great and abominable church", claiming that the "falsity of the theory of organic evolution" is the "official doctrine of the Church", dissing psychiatrity as "in many instances... a form of apostate religion which keeps sinners from repenting", and its claims that those who use contraceptives are "in rebellion against God and are guilty of gross wickedness", and that "Suicide is murder, pure and simple, and murderers are damned", and in Jan. 1960 it bans further pub. of the book, even if the 1,067 errors are corrected, then flops in 1966, allowing a rev. ed. to be pub. with a more moderate tone; in 1978 the book is changed to accomodate black priesthood, which since 1958 has defended the church's "Negro doctrine", that people of black African descent had been less valiant in the premortal life than white people, with the soundbyte: "In the pre-existent eternity various degrees of valiance and devotion to the truth were exhibited by different groups of our Father's spirit offspring. One-third of the spirit hosts of heaven came out in open rebellion and were cast out without bodies, becoming the devil and his angels. The other two-thirds stood affirmatively for Christ: there were no neutrals. To stand neutral in the midst of war is a philosophical impossibility. Of the two-thirds who followed Christ, however, some were more valiant than others. Those who were less valiant in pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the negroes. Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. The present status of the negro rests purely and simply on the foundation of pre-existence. Along with all races and peoples he is receiving here what he merits as a result of the long pre-mortal probation in the presence of the Lord. The principle is the same as will apply when all men are judged according to their mortal works and are awarded varying statuses in the life hereafter"; this prohibit interracial marriage: "In a broad general sense, caste systems have their root and origin in the gospel itself, and when they operate according to the divine decree, the resultant restrictions and segregation are right and proper and have the approval of the Lord. To illustrate: Cain, Ham, and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry"; after the First Presidency and the Twelve receive their revelation on June 1, 1978 allowing blacks into the priesthood, he instantly falls in line, with the soundbyte: "It doesn't make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June 1978. It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them. We now do what meridian Israel did when the Lord said the gospel should go to the Gentiles. We forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the house of Israel, and we start going to the Gentiles." In 1978 he pub. the 6-vol. Messiah Series, incl. "The Milennial Messiah" (1982), which contains the soundbytes: "Let this fact be engraved in the eternal records with a pen of steel: the Jews were cursed, and smitten, and cursed anew, because they rejected the gospel, cast out their Messiah, and crucified their King"; and "Let the spiritually illiterate suppose what they may, it was the Jewish denial and rejection of the Holy One of Israel, whom their fathers worshiped in the beauty of holiness, that has made them a hiss and a byword in all nations and that has taken millions of their fair sons and daughters to untimely graves."
In 1964 the BYU Motion Picture Studio (founded 1953) of the LDS (Mormon) Church begins producing short promotional films, starting with Man's Search for Happiness, produced for the Mormon Pavillion at the 1964 New York City World's Fair, with narration by Richard L. Evans, viewed by 5M before being remade in Japanese for Expo '70 in Japan; they follow with "The First Vision" (1976), Mr. Krueger's Christmas (debuts on NBC-TV on Dec. 21, 1980), "The Nativity" (1986), "Our Heavenly Father's Plan" (1986), How Rare a Possession (1987), Together Forever (1987), "Labor of Love" (1990), "What Is Real?" (1990), On the Way Home (1992), "Joy to the World" (1993), "The Lamb of God" (1993), "The Mediator" (1995), Finding Faith in Christ (2003), "The Restoration" (2004), and "Finding Happiness" (2006); in 1990 they release their first feature-length film Legacy: A Mormon Journey, followed by The Mountain of the Lord (1993), The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd (2000), and Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration (2005).
In 1964 after marrying in 1959 and resigning from the LDS Church, 5th-gen. Mormons Jerald Dee Tanner (1938-2006) and Sandra McGee Tanner (1941-) found Utah Lighthouse Ministry in Salt Lake City, Utah to expose Mormonism, going on to expose Mormon frauds incl. Joseph Smith Jr.'s "Book of Abraham"; in 1963 they pub. A Study of Mormon History and Doctrine (Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?), which exposes the different accounts of Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision, and questions the character and integrity of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and is called "The heavyweight of all books on Mormonism" by Dean Helland of Oral Roberts U.; in 1966 they pub. Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar (Joseph Smith's Kirtland Egyptian Papers), exposing his lack of understanding of the Egyptian language; they go on to compile lists of changes to the Book of Mormon and other LDS Church texts that explode claims of divine inspiration and Smith's soundbyte that his Book of Mormon is "the most correct book on the face of the earth... and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."
In Dec. 1965 the Mormon History Assoc. is founded in San Francisco, Calif. by "Dean/Father of Mormon History" Leonard James Arrington (1917-99), going on to found "The Journal of Mormon History" in 1974; in 1972-8 Arrington becomes the first official LDS Church historian, and in 1982-6 he becomes the dir. of the Joseph Fielding Smith Inst. for Church (Latter-day Saint) History at Brigham Young U.
In 1969 the United Order Family of Christ is founded in Denver, Colo. by David-Edward Desmond for young gay Mormon men of sucking, er, ages 18-30; it becomes defunct by 1974.
On Jan. 23, 1970 church historian and recorder Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. (1876-1972) (son of Joseph Fielding Smith Sr, and grandson of Hyrum Smith, brother of Joseph Smith Jr.) becomes pres. #10 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), succeeding pres. (since Apr. 9, 1951) David O. McKay (b. 1873), who died on Jan. 18, going on to centralize planning for all Mormon pubs., consolidating the mags. into Ensign, New Era, and Friend, and getting Hugh B. Brown removed from the First Presidency for supporting blacks in the priesthood.
On Dec. 26, 1973 pres. (since July 7, 1972) Harold B. Lee (b. 1899) dies, and on Dec. 30 Spencer Woolley Kimball (1895-1985) becomes Mormon (LDS) pres. #12 (until Nov. 5, 1985), announcing that all able-bodied young adult members must serve as missionaries.
On Jan. 23, 1976 (Fri.) the musical variety series The Donny & Marie Show debuts on ABC-TV for 78 episodes (until Jan. 12, 1979), starring Mormon sibling pop duo Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond (1957-) and Olive Marie Osmond (1959-); The Osmonds began as a barbershop quartet, and in the 1980s they dabble in country music, going go on to sell 100M+ records worldwide.
The original Dumb & Dummar? On Apr. 5, 1976 OCD-suffering billionaire aerospace and movie mogul (non-Mormon) Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (b. 1905) dies intestate on an airplane en route from Acapulco, Mexico to Houston, Tex. of kidney failure, leaving a $2.5B fortune, after which the Mormon Will is discovered at the HQ of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, leaving it one-sixteenth of his estate (approx. $156M), and another sixteenth to Willard, Utah gas station owner Melvin Earl Dummar (1944-), who claims he found Hughes sprawled on lonely desert road on U.S. Highway 95 about 150 mi. N of Las Vegas, Nev. and took him to the Sands Hotel; too bad, in 1978 it is thrown out of court by a jury, becoming the most contested will in U.S. history (until ?); in 2005 former FBI agent Gary Magnesen pub. a book with accounts of previously silent witneses bolstering Dummar's claims.
On Apr. 20, 1976 the Assoc. for Mormon Letters (AML) is founded by the LDS Church, launching the journal Irreantum in 1998.
In 1976 LDS Church pres. (1973-85) Spencer W. Kimball finally officially repudiates Brigham Young's Adam-God Doctrine, that Adam is God, with the soundbyte: "We denounce that theory and hope that everyone will be cautioned against this and other kinds of false doctrine"; in 1980 LDS Church apostle (since 1972) Bruce Redd McConkie (1915-85) disses the Adam-God Doctrine in a speech, with the soundbyte: "There are those who believe or say they believe that Adam is our father and our god, that he is the father of our spirits and our bodies, and that he is the one we worship. The devil keeps this heresy alive as a means of obtaining converts to cultism. It is contrary to the whole plan of salvation set forth in the scriptures, and anyone who has read the Book of Moses, and anyone who has received the temple endowment and who yet believes the Adam–God theory does not deserve to be saved. Those who are so ensnared reject the living prophet and close their ears to the apostles of their day. 'We will follow those who went before,' they say. And having so determined, they soon are ready to enter polygamous relationships that destroy their souls. We worship the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Ghost; and Adam is their foremost servant, by whom the peopling of our planet was commenced."
On June 9, 1978 after 148 years of institutional white supremacy, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) pres. #12 (1973-85) Dispenser of White Gumballs, er, Spencer Woolley Kimball (1895-1985) announces a Revelation on Priesthood, received in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, finally allowing blacks ("Canaanites") to be ordained as priests, and on June 11 Joseph Freeman Jr. (1952-) becomes the first black priest ordained by the LDS Church; by 1997 it has 500K members; the real reason is the imminent opening of a new temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is filled with African-mixed people who can't read English?
In 1978 Gospel Principles is pub. by the LDS Church (2nd ed. 2009), containing the soundbytes: "We can become Gods like our Heavenly Father", and "Our Heavenly Father became a God", which stirs a firestorm of controversy, causing the 1997 ed. to change it to "We can become like our Heavenly Father" and "Our Heavenly Father became God"; too bad, the 2009 ed. quotes founder Joseph Smith Jr. as saying: "It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God... He was once a man like us;... God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did."
In 1979 the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) is founded by LDS academics led by John Woodland "Jack" Welch (1946-), becoming a part of Brigham Young U. in 1997 under the name Inst. for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, followed in 2006 by the Neal A. Maxwell Inst. for Religous Scholarship, becoming a close-minded apologetics org.
On Dec. 31, 1982 Am. ex-Mormon Christian evangelist John Edward "Ed" Decker (1935-) and Christian apologist David Charles Haddon "Dave" Hunt (1926-2013) debut their film The God Makers (Jeremiah Films), exposing the LDS Church as an evil multibillion-dollar Satanist and occult corporation, ridiculing their silly belief in "infinite gods" populating planets through "celestial sex" with their "goddess wives"; an animated segment shows Joseph Smith Jr. delivering his 1844 King Follett Discourse about Jehovah living on the planet Kolob then visiting Earth to have sex with Virgin Mary, who bears Jesus Christ, who has multiple wives and children, with Smith ending up as his direct descendant; they pub. it in book form in 1984 under the title "The God Makers: A Shocking Expose of What the Mormon Church Really Believes"; "The God Makers" is followed by the sequels "The God Makers II" and "Temple of the Godmakers", which exposes the silly Mormon blood oaths and sacrifices, and claims they are plotting a takeover of the U.S.
In 1982 the LDS Church renames the Book of Mormon (1830) to "The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ".
On Aug. 23, 1985 the gay-friendly Restoration Church of Jesus Christ is founded in Los Angeles, Calif. by Antonio A. Feliz, an LDS Church bishop who was excommunicated for homosexuality, reaching 500 members by the time it is dissolved in 2010.
On Nov. 5, 1985 pres. (since Dec. 30, 1973) Spencer W. Kimball (b. 1895) dies, and on Nov. 10 rabid anti-Communist and Boy Scoutmaster Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1984) (U.S. secy. of agriculture #15 in 1953-61) becomes Mormon (LDS) pres. #13 (until May 30, 1994), challenging members to "flood the Earth with the Book of Mormon", selling a record 6M copies.
On June 22, 1988 gay rights activist T/Sgt. Leonard Matlovich (b. 1934), recipient of a purple heart and bronze star who was discharged from the USAF and excommunicated from the Mormon Church because of his homosexuality, appeared on the cover of Time mag. in 1975 and became the most famous gay man in the U.S. gives his cause a black eye when he dies of AIDS at age 54 - judged by God too?
In the 1990s Genoa, Italy-born population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (1922-) pioneers techniques to use genetic markers to track the ethnic background and history of individual people; in 1994 he pub. The History and Geography of Human Genes along with Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza, proving that the ancestors of Native Ams. came from Asia 16.5K-13K years ago, chucking the entire Book of Mormon and its ancient Israelite origin of Native Ams. in the trashcan and stamping the word Dumbass on the foreheads of millions of mainly white American Mormons, who deal with the scientific facts by pretending they don't exist until ?; duh, God allegedly cursed the Lamanites by darkening their skin, meaning he changed their DNA, and he could have used his old Asian gene kit for funners; later, when Nephites were exterminated by the Lamanites, they conveniently took their white-skinned Israelite DNA with them, covering the tracks so that science can neither prove nor disprove the Book of Mormon?
On July 4, 1992 the Mormon Alliance (originally the Mormon Defense League) is founded by atty. Paul Toscano and Lavinia Fielding Anderson (1944-) to document allegations of spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse by the LDS Church (Mormons); both are excommunicated in Sept. 1993 as part of the September Six.
In 1992 the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation (originally the Ensign Peak Foundation) is founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, going on to restore Kirtland, Ohio and pub. the semiannual mag. Mormon Historical Studies.
In 1992 after spending years researching problems in LDS Church history while remaining a believer, Pasadena, Calif.-born closet-gay Mormon historian Dennis Michael Quinn (1944-) (prof. at Brigham Young U. in 1976-88) pub. The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past, followed by The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (2 vols.) (1994, 1997), tracing how Joseph Smith's restoration of primitive Christianity sans priests or hierarchy crumbled, Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example (1996), claiming that some gay hanky-panky went on that was covered-up, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1998), how Joseph Smith Jr. mixed Mormonism with belief in magic stones, Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark (2002), and The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth & Corporate Power (2017); meanwhile after receiving a knock on his door in Feb. 1993, on Sept. 26, 1993 he is excommunicated as one of the September Six, and comes out.
In 1992 the semiofficial Encyclopedia of Mormonism (4 vols.) is pub. by Macmillan, containing 1,850 pages and 1M words by 730 contributors; too bad, it whitewashes Mormonism, pissing-off Mormon revisionist historians and leading to the 1993 September Six.
In Apr. 1993 Dallas Morning News Mormon columnist Deborah Laake (1953-2000) pub. Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman's Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond, a bestseller (500K copies) about the secret rituals in Mormon temples for married couples only, and how she was rooked into a loveless marriage at age 19 and took up masturbation because of "her inability to enjoy marital intercourse", ending with "three failed marriages, attempted suicide, and two months in a psychiatric institution", causing her to drop out before pub. the book, 2nd ed. 1994; no surprise, it gets her excommunicated.
In Sept. 1993 the September Six are excommunicated or disfellowshipped by the LDS Church for criticizing it; their reasons are never given (until ?).
In 1993 New York City-born Am. #1 lit. critic Harold Bloom (1930-2019) pub. The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation; how unique religions like Mormonism were born in the funky isolated U.S.; "The American finds God in herself or himself only after finding the freedom to know God by experiencing a total inward solitude... He comes to recognize that his spirit is itself uncreated. Knowing that he is the equal of God, the American Religionist can then achieve his true desideratum, mystical communion with his friend, the godhead"; claims that if he weren't a Jew he'd be a Mormon; "Joseph Smith hovers in me. There cannot be too many Mormons who are as imbued with him as I am in my own odd way"; “Smith's insight could have come only from a remarkably apt reading of the Bible, and there I would locate the secret of his religious genius… So strong was this act of reading that it broke through all the orthodoxies - Protestant, Catholic, Judaic - and found its way back to elements that Smith rightly intuited had been censored out of the stories of the archaic Jewish religion. Smith's radical sense of the theomorphic patriarchs and anthropomorphic gods is an authentic return to J, or the Yahwist, the Bible’s first author”- sometimes the shark looks right into your eyes?
On May 30, 1994 pres. (since Nov. 10, 1985) Ezra Taft Benson (b. 1899) dies, and on June 5 Idaho-born Howard William Hunter (1907-95) becomes Mormon (LDS) pres. #14 (until Mar. 3, 1995), the first pres. born in the 20th cent., the last to die in it, and the shortest term (9 mo.).
On Jan. 29, 1995 Super Bowl XXIX (29) (1995) is held at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Fla.; the San Francisco 49ers (NFC) defeat the San Diego Chargers (AFC) 49-26 (the first Chargers SB game; they are an underdog by a record 18.5 points); 49ers QB #8 Jon Steven "Steve" Young (1961-) (a Salt Lake City, Utah-born descendant of Brigham Young) throws six TD passes and becomes MVP, finally leaving the shadow of Joe Montana, who won four SBs (1981, 1984, 1988, 1989), two with Young as backup QB; the first SB in which both teams score in all four quarters; a record 75 total points (until ?) and 10 total TDs (until ?).
On Mar. 3, 1995 pres. (since June 5, 1994) Howard William Hunter (b. 1907) dies, and on Mar. 12 Gordon Bitner Hinckley (1910-2008) becomes Mormon pres. #15 (until Jan. 27, 2008), becoming the oldest pres. in LDS Church history, going on to double church membership and the number of temples, issue the proclamation The Family: A Proclamation to the World (Sept. 23, 1995) backing heterosexual marriage, and establish the Perpetual Education Fund on Mar. 31, 2001; on Dec. 25, 2005 he utters the soundbyte to the Associated Press: "We have nothing to hide. Our history is an open book. They may find what they are looking for, but the fact is the history of the church is clear and open and leads to faith and strength and virtues"; the LDS (Mormon) Church launches the Web site FamilySearch.org, containing the Family History Catalog, the Internat. Genealogical Index (founded 1969), and the Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software program (founded 1893; discontinued July 15, 2013), redesigning the church logo to display the words "Jesus Christ" in larger letters than the rest of name so that outsiders will consider Mormons to be some kind of Christians not a sick polygamy cult; meanwhile after a public outcry, the LDS (Mormon) Church announces that it will stop baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims, going on to remove 300K names from its list of church members er, database, which doesn't stop them from baptizing Daniel Pearl (2011), Anne Frank (2012), Simon Wiesenthal (2012), etc.; in 2008 the Am. Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors announces that it is ending talks with Mormons after repeated violations of agreements.
In Nov. 1997 the independent nonprofit org. FairMormon (Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research) is founded to defend Mormonism from online criticism.
In 1997 Teachings of the Presidents of the Church begins pub. by the LDS Church, reaching vol. #15 in Aug. 2016; the nonprofit corp. Intellectual Reserve is founded by the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, Utah to hold the church's intellectual property incl. copyrights and trademarks.
In 1998 the Am. Assoc. of Univ. Professors (founded in 1915 by John Dewey et al.) puts LDS Church-owned Brigham Young U. on its list of univs. that don't allow tenured professors sufficient academic freedom in teaching and research.
In Oct. 1999 after giving up alcohol and marijuana and going on a spiritual search Everett, Wash.-born white conservative Roman Catholic radio announcer Glenn Lee Beck (1964-) converts to the LDS Church, launching the Glenn Beck Radio Program in Jan. 2000 in Tampa, Fla., going into nat. syndication on Jan. 2, 2002, becoming the #3 radio program in the U.S. by 2009, combining flag-waving Am. patriotism with Mormonism and dissing Pres. Obama daily to make himself more popular; his TV show is launched in Jan. 2006-Oct. 2008 on HLN, followed by Fox News Channel on Jan. 2009-June 30, 2011, peaking in 2009 at 3.4M viewers; on Sept. 12, 2011 he launches the multimedia network TheBlaze in Irving, Tex. (until ?).
In 1999 AP/Time mag. religious writer Richard N. Ostling (1940-) and his wife Joan K. Ostling (1939-2009) pub. Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (rev. ed. 2007), introducing gen. readers to the LDS Church, with 10M members, $30B in assets, and $6B/year in income, mainly from tithes; "It was from the beginning optimistic and upbeat, a reaction against the establishment New England Calvinism.... It was a religious version of the American dream: Everyman presented with unlimited potential"; "This is a real faith and must be understood in those terms, without caricature."
On Jan. 1, 2000 the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church release the proclamation titled The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles, commemorating the birth of Jesus and giving the official church view incl. that Jesus is both the Jehovah of the Old Testament and Messiah of the New Testament.
On Feb. 8-24, 2002 the XIX (19th) Winter Olympic Games are held in Salt Lake City, Utah, with 2,399 athletes (1,513 men, 886 women) from 78 nations competing in 78 events in seven sports; the U.S. wins a record 34 medals, and Germany a record 35; the indoor Peaks Ice Arena in Provo, Utah is used as an ice hockey practice venue; Canada, led by half-white half-black Jarome Athur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla (Yoruba "big tree") (1977-) wins the men's hockey gold medal, followed by the U.S., Russia and Sweden (tie); Iginla joins the Dallas Stars in 1995, becoming capt. of the Calgary Flames, setting a team record for goals, points, and games played, scoring 50 goals in two separate seasons, and 30 goals in 11 straight seasons; on Feb. 19 Ala.-born U.S. bobsledder Vonetta Flowers (1973-) becomes the first black athlete to win a gold medal at a Winter Olympic Games; Seattle-born short-track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno (1982-) wins gold in the 1.5Km when judges disqualify South Korean Dong-Sung Kim; America's most popular figure skater Michelle Kwan (1980-) ends up with a silver behind surprise winner Sarah Elizabeth Hughes (1985-) of the U.S. - first Tara, then Sarah?
On Feb. 26, 2002 Francis Beckwith, Carl Mosser, and Paul Owen (eds.) pub. The New Mormon Challenge, claiming that the LDS Church has turned into a slick proselytizing machine making 300K converts/year, threatening to become the first world religion since Islam (265M members by 2080), and that its scholars have achieved academic respectability, attempting to meet them head-on with new research and scholarship challenging their doctrines and making the case for historical Christianity.
On Nov. 23, 2002 the blog Metaphysical Elders is founded, launching the Mormon Blogosphere, incl. Inquiry (Aug. 19, 2003), Mormon Momma (Jan. 1, 2003), and Times & Seasons: An Onymous Mormon Blog, founded in 2003 by Nathan Bryan "Nate" Oman (1975-), who becomes known as "the Godfather of the Mormon Bloggernacle" after Kaimi Wenger pub. "The Nameless Mormon Blogosphere" on Mar. 23, 2004, causing Christopher Bradford to suggest the name "Bloggernacle".
In 2002 Mormon historian Grant H. Palmer (1940-) pub. An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, running over the evidence damning basic Mormon doctrines, pissing-off the LDS Church, which disfellowships him in Dec. 2004, placing him under so much presssure that he resigns in 2010, making him the Mormons' Galileo?; he also criticizes the Mormon Jesus as nothing like the Biblical Jesus, but more like the Pharisees; on July 18, 2017 he pub. Restoring Christ: Leaving Mormon Jesus for Jesus of the Gospels.
On July 29, 2003 Am. Christian evangelical writer Richard Abanes (1961-) (gen. authority on cults and world religions) pub. One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church, meticulously reviewing the history of the LDS Church, bringing out attempted coverups and whitewashes, and exposing its attempt to appear as part of the mainstream while hiding its goal of a Mormon OWG and a money-raking scheme for the prophets; on Aug. 1, 2004 he pub. Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism; on Jan. 1, 2007 he pub. Inside Today's Mormonism: Understanding Latter-day Saints in Light of Biblical Truth, a rev. ed. of "One Nation Under Gods" that shows that Mormonism isn't just another Christian denomination but a whole new religion.
In July 2003 Am. writer-mountaineer Jon Krakauer (1954-) pub. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, a history of the violent origins of the LDS (Mormon) Church combined with a true crime story about the 1984 murder of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica by the fundamentalist Mormon School of the Prophets, pissing-off church officials, who nitpick it and hope it goes away; meanwhile in 2011 Warner Bros. purchases the film rights.
On Nov. 19, 2003 Trey Parker's All About Mormons debuts on Comedy Central, episode 12 of seven 7 of the animated TV series South Park, lampooning the Mormons and their founder Joseph Smith Jr.
On Nov. 2, 2004 Utah Constitutional Amendment 3 is passed, defining marriage as the legal union between a man and a woman; on Dec. 20, 2013 it is ruled unconstitutinal by Judge Robert J. Shelby of the U.S. District Court for Utah.
The Year of the White Prick in a Suit, Pt. 2? Or, a Nerd is Zerged? Why are some Mormons so smart and so dumb? On Nov. 2, 2004 the 40-y.-o. TV quiz show Jeopardy! holds its 4000th episode, featuring emcee Alex Trebek (1940-) and announcer Johnny Gilbert (1924-); since changing its rules allowing unlimited appearances to the winner in 2003, after making his first appearance on June 2, 30-y.-o. Edmonds, Wash.-born Mormon software engineer of Holladay, Utah (the state that's 65% Mormon) Kenneth Wayne "Ken" Jennings III (1974-) ("nerd") ("smarmy") ("peronality of a hall monitor") (resembles a white prick in a suit with the face of Mel Gibson pasted on?) (B.S. in computer science and English at BYU) rakes in $2M+ in earnings by this date, then ups his total to $2,197K, making him the biggest game show winner in TV history (later falling to #1 behind Brad Rutter), the hoopla boosting the show's ratings 22% to #1 among syndicated TV shows; on Nov. 3 (his 66th appearance) he wins a single game record $75K; on Nov. 30 he finally loses in his 75th appearance after winning $2,520,700 (10% of which he gives straight to the Mormon Church) and giving 2.7K correct responses when 48-y.-o. Ventura, Calif. real estate agent Nancy Zerg (1956-) beats him in Final Jeopardy on a question about income tax prep. service H&R Block: "This company has 70K employees, most of which only work 4 mo. of each year"; he guesses Federal Express (and later says that he does his own taxes, meaning the Mormon Church does them to make sure they get all of their 10%?), losing $5601 of his $14,400, leaving $8799, while Zerg bets $4401 of her $10K, giving $14,401; if he hadn't flubbed an easy Double Jeopardy question about Nutsy Bastogne, he wouldn't have lost $5.4K, and if he hadn't flubbed another easy one about cloche hats, he wouldn't have lost another $4.8K, and thus had a shutout game; she loses on her next appearance (Dec. 1) to Katie Fitzgerald; lucky for Ken, losing on a question about a major corp., with a wrong answer giving the name of another major corp., he later makes more moolah by doing ads for both, and gets free income tax prep service for life from H&R Block.
On Oct. 25, 2005 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah announces the withdrawal of 220 missionaries from Venezuela two weeks after Pres. Hugo Chavez ordered the expulsion of the Fla.-based evangelical New Tribes Mission.
On Mar. 12, 2006 Mark V. Olsen's and Will Scheffer's TV drama series Big Love debuts on HBO-TV for 53 episodes (until Mar. 20, 2011), about the United Effort Brotherhood of fundamentalist polygamous renegade Mormons in the Juniper Creek compound in Utah, starring Bill Paxton as patriarch Bill Henrickson, and his wives Barbara "Barb" (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Nicolette "Nicki" (Chloe Sevigny), and Margene "Margie" (Ginnifer Goodwin); Douglas Smith plays Bill's and Barb's son Ben, who is sexually attracted to Margene; Harry Dean Stanton plays Prophet Roman Grant.
Something strapless this time? On May 8, 2006 the FBI places polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Pricks, er, Saints leader Warren Jeffs on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List ($100K reward) for sex with a minor and rape; the sect based in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz. split off from the mainstream in 1890; he has been on the lam for two years already on an Ariz. charge of sex with a minor; America's Most Wanted details his case, showing pics of the weird Puritannically-dressed underage babes that marry the old farts and claim that no man may put asunder what God has joined, and that it's all done in holy wedlock; in 2007 he is convicted on two counts of rape as an accomplice and sentenced to two consecutive terms of 5-life; on June 9, 2010 all four charges against him in Ariz. are dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can be refiled.
On Dec. 6, 2007 Moron, er, Mormon Repub. pres. candidate Mitt Romney does a JFK and gives a Religion-Qualifying Speech at the George Bush Pres. Library in Tex., saying "If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States", but admitting "My convictions will indeed inform my presidency"; meanwhile a Pew Research Center poll shows that 31% of Americans don't think that Mormons are Christians, and another 17% don't know - the real question is, was Christ a Mormon?
On Jan. 27, 2008 pres. (since Mar. 12, 1995) Gordon B. Hinckley (b. 1910) dies, and the First Presidency is dissolved; on Feb. 3, 2008 former First Counselor in the First Presidency (since Mar. 12, 1995) and Boy Scout leader Thomas Spencer Monson (1927-) becomes pres. #16 of the LDS Church (until ?) - they're all so white and so right?
The U.S. govt. never could stand Mormon polygamists, and love to stomp them like cockroaches like in Short Creek in 1953? On Apr. 7, 2008 after a phone call by "Sister" to Flora Jessop of the Child Protection Project in Phoenix Ariz. claiming she was sexually abused there, Tex. authorities take 416 children into custody from the Eldorado, Tex. Yearning for for Zion ranch of the polygamist slash pedophile Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of Warren S. Jeffs, where every old billy goat is his own Elvis, with the right to mistreat women as bad as the Taliban and marry them at age 14; after each kid gets his own court-appointed atty., and the mothers show up wearing handmade 19th cent. prairie dresses with weird hairdoes caused by never cutting their hair (the height of the do indicating rank in the marriage), causing a hilarious courtroom fiasco, the puppet state district judge Barbara Walther refuses to release the children to their parents, instead ordering DNA testing, then putting the kids in foster homes, adding more kids after some are found posing as adults, incl. mothers, bringing the total to 440; meanwhile 33-y.-o. Rozita Swinton (1975-) is arrested in Colo. Springs, Colo. for filing a false police report and is suspected of faking the Sarah call; too bad, the five pregnant girls taken into custody who are under 17 give them the excuse to tear all of the kids from their mommies, who cares about the daddies either?; too bad, on May 23 the state appeals court orders the return of the children - call in Lexington Steele?
Strange bedfellows? On Nov. 4, 2008 after enthusiastic support by the Roman Catholic Church and LDS Church, whose members contribute $20M, Calif. Proposition 8 is passed by 52.2%-47.8%, making same-sex marriage illegal, invalidating 18K marriages made over 4 mo. and causing protests to begin; after a court challenge, on May 26, 2009 the Calif. Supreme Court rules the proposition constitutional but lets the marriages stand because it didn't explicitly nullify them; in Aug. 2010 federal judge Vaughn Walker rules the amendment unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.
In Jan. 2009 the group weblog Stay LDS/Mormon is founded by John Parkinson Dehlin (1969-) et al. for Mormons experiencing a crisis of faith; the Internet becomes home to a wide spectrum of cultural Mormons, incl. New Order Mormons who have ditched the religious tenets but stick with the culture, and Humanistic Mormons, who identify with the history and culture but don't believe in God.
On Oct. 12, 2010 after speaking for the LDS Church at a Salt Lake City Council meeting in favor of city ordinances including sexual orientation and gender identity in fair housing and fair employment regulations, Liverpool, England-born public affairs dir. (2008-16) Michael R. Otterson delivers an official statement for the church condemning the bullying of young gay men.
On Mar. 24, 2011 Robert Lopez (1975-), Trey Parker (1969-), and Matt Stone (1971-) debut their musical The Book of Mormon at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York (2,538 perf.); two young Mormon missionaries travel to Uganda and run up against reality; the LDS Church responds with ads saying "You've seen the play, now read the book."
On Nov. 6, 2012 (Tues.) the 2012 U.S. Pres. Election is a V for Pres. Barack Obama over wealthy Mormon Repub. challenger Willard Mitt Romney (1947-) (not officially backed by the LDS Church), with 332 vs. 206 electoral votes, and 26 vs. 24 states, plus Washington, D.C.; Obama wins 65.9M votes (51%) vs. 60.9M (47.2%) for Romney; $6B is spent by both sides on the election; Latinos comprise 10% of the electorate for the first time; Pat Buchanan utters the soundbyte: "White America died last night. Obama's reelection killed it. Our 200 plus year history as a Western nation is over. We're a Socialist Latin American country now. Venezuela without the oil"; Colo. and Wash. become the first U.S. states to legalize recreational marijuana use.
On Apr. 2, 2015 Pres. Obama makes his first pres. trip to Utah incl. Salt Lake City and Hill AFB; later news surfaces that a FBI sniper rifle had been stolen from an agent's car days before the visit.
On Nov. 5, 2015 the Mormon Church announces that same-sex couples will be considered as apostates, and that their children cannot be baptized.
On Mar. 3, 2016 Repub. pres. loser Mitt Romney attacks Donald Trump in a speech in Mormonland Utah, calling him "a phony, a fraud", warning that a Trump presidency could lead the U.S. into a dark abyss, urging Repubs. to rally around another candidate; meanwhile Trump beats him to the punch with an anti-Romney ad, followed by speech at a rally in Maine, where he calls Romney "a choke artist" and a "disaster" who "was begging" for his endorsement in 2012, and is too chicken to run against him now; in 2012 Romney uttered the soundbyte: "Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works, to create jobs for the American people. He's done it here in Nevada. He's done it across the country";
The LDS Church is showing signs of cracking? On June 23, 2016 Quorum of the Twelve Apostles pres. (since July 3, 2015) Russell Marion Nelson Sr. (1924-) gives a speech at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, in which he calls the Book of Mormon a "miraculous miracle", and utters the soundbyte: "Joseph Smith... could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon", and "There are some things the Book of Mormon is not. It is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages. It is not a definitive work on ancient American agriculture or politics. It is not a record of all former inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, but only of particular groups of people."
On May 11, 2017 the LDS (Mormon) Church announces that effective Jan. 1 it will pull out, er, drop the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) from its young men's program for ages 14-17, a total of 180K boys in the U.S. and Canada, causing evangelist Franklin Graham to call on all churches to do ditto; church leaders deny that their decision has anything to do with BSA decisions to accept gay Scout leaders and Scouts, and to admit more girls.
On Feb. 15, 2016 after signing a bipartisan bill to avert another govt. shutdown that gives him $1.375B for his border barrier, Pres. Trump finally declares a nat. emergency of the U.S.-Mexico border, citing the need to stop drugs and crime and announcing a plan to bypass Congress and steer $8B of existing funds to build a border wall, announcing that "hopefully we'll win at the Supreme Court", pissing-off Dems., who vow to stop him as usual and don't want to lose again, after which 16 U.S. states sue to stop him from redirecting federal funds to a border wall.
On Feb. 19, 2019 Auburn U. Mormonism historian Adam Jortner pub. the article Trump isn't Hitler. He's Lilburn Boggs in the Salt Lake Tribune, doing Mitt Romney's dirty work by a false comparison between an 1837 state-level order to exterminate Mormons living in Missouri as enemies of the people and a U.S. pres. order to protect U.S. borders from possible enemies from entering sans papers and causing mayhem?; meanwhile Utah hasn't joined the 16 other states suing Trump to stop his national emergency.
On Feb. 27, 2019 Charlie Bird, known for playing Brigham Young U.'s mascot Cosmo the Cougar in 2015-2018 comes out as gay, claiming to be working for gays to be accepted by the LDS Church.
On Apr. 4, 2019 the LDS Church announces that it no longer considers same-sex marriage as apostasy, and that children of LGBT parents can be baptized into the church.
On Feb. 10, 2020 SB 102 to decriminalize polygamy by consenting adults by downgrading it from a felony to an "infraction" with a penalty equivalent to a parking ticket is unanimously passed by a Utah Senate committee and sent to the full Senate for debate; on Mar. 29, 2020 the Utah gov. signs it into law.
Meanwhile polygamy is legal in 58 countries, most of them Muslim-majority, and ever since the sick self-hating leftist Marxists got the bright idea of opening the gates of the U.S. to mass Muslim immigration to burn the house down, it's a matter of time before polygamy is relegalized in the U.S., making all the hell the govt. put Mormon polygamists through a sick waste?