History of the Mormons
1805-1830
December 23, 1805Joseph Smith was born the fourth child of Joseph and Lucy Smith in Sharon, Vermont. Frequent change of residence as a result of the father's changing occupations.
1815The Smith family moves to Palmyra/New York.
1820Younger, today official date of the "first vision", at which Joseph Smith was personally visited by God and Christ and instructed not to join any church.
After 1820Joseph Smith is an active participant in the youth discussion group of the local Methodist church.
1822Joseph Smith finds his "Peepstone," his seer stone, with the help of which he promises to track down treasures in the field.
1823Ethan Smith (unrelated to Joseph) publishes his book View of the Hebrews, which anticipates the essentials and some details of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith is most likely familiar with the work.
September 23, 1823alleged date of Joseph Smith's first visit by an angel, first named Nephi, then Moroni, who showed him the gold plates hidden in a treasury on a hill.
1824Revival in New York State. The description given by Joseph Smith for the setting of his "First Vision" which allegedly took place in 1820 only fits into this time. This is where Joseph Smith's 1833 report of the visit, however, only through Jesus Christ alone is to be placed.
1826A court in Bainbridge, New York found Joseph Smith guilty of fraud in connection with his treasure hunting activities.
01/18/1827Joseph Smith marries Emma Hale. Because her father is against his daughter marrying a treasure hunter, Joseph elopes with Emma.
September 23, 1827alleged date when the angel hands Joseph Smith the gold plates for translation.
1827Joseph Smith's brother Hyrum becomes a Freemason.
Summer 1828Joseph Smith begins translating the gold plates, but they remain encased during the translation work. Instead, Joseph looks at his "Peepstone", in which he thinks he is reading an English translation. The first 116 pages of the translation are lost, and Joseph is instructed not to retranslate them.
April 1829Oliver Cowdery meets Joseph Smith and volunteers as his scribe. The plates are subsequently shown to the "Three" and the "Eight Witnesses", although some only in a visionary view, some only wrapped in cloths. It is more than doubtful that anyone actually saw the records.
May 15, 1929alleged ordination of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery with the two levels of the Mormon priesthood, the "Aaronite" and the "Mechizedek".
August 1829The "translation work" is complete. Joseph returns the plates to the angel.
March 1830"The Book of Mormon" appears in Palmyra in a circulation of 5,000 copies.
06. 04. 1830Joseph Smith founds his own community in Fayette/New York with the "Church of Jesus Christ", from which the Mormons emerge.
Sep 1830In a revelation, Joseph Smith hears the call to build the "new Jerusalem" somewhere in the western United States.
1831-1845
07/17/1831Joseph Smith foreshadows a revelation to some elders that polygamy might later be the way of life for the community.
July 1831In a revelation Joseph Smith gives the exact location of the "new Jerusalem" to be built, it is Independence/Missouri.
08/03/1831Joseph Smith dedicates the site for the Temple of the "New Jerusalem" to be built in Independence. However, the construction project does not materialize.
02/16/1832Joseph Smith receives a revelation of the "three degrees of glory" into which a soul can attain after death.
August 1832 to January 1844"The Book of Moses" appears as a serial in a Mormon newspaper. It references Genesis and is still monotheistically oriented.
01/04/1833Joseph Smith prophesies apocalyptic catastrophes within a few years.
1833The "Book of Commandments" appears as a collection of revelations directly received by Joseph Smith between 1828 and 1831.
1833The traveling exhibitor Michael H. Chandler buys several Egyptian mummies including papyri as grave goods, with which he travels across the country from now on.
1835Joseph lives polygamously with the then 16-year-old Fanny Algers. More affairs follow.
07/03/1835Joseph Smith meets Michael H. Chandler and buys his exhibits for $2,400. Joseph identifies the papyri as "the writings of Abraham and Joseph" and begins the "translation".
1836The first Mormon temple is dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio after three years of construction.
04/03/1836In the Temple of Kirtland, Joseph Smith is said to have received the order to introduce baptism for the dead through a vision in which Moses, Elijah and Elijah (sic!) appeared to him.
1837First Mormon Missionaries in Britain.
1837Disappointed, Smith's comrade-in-arms Warren Parrish turns away from the prophet and founds his own community, the "Church of Christ" (now defunct).
1838The name of the community, which is still valid today: "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", is introduced.
1838Mormons settle in Far West, Missouri.
1839Driven out of the Far West, the Mormons establish the settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois.
1839Joseph Smith declares that he will not intercede for the blacks. Blacks would not be admitted. As a result, dark-skinned people remain barred from the priesthood.
1840The Mormon George M. Hinkle founds his own community in Moscow/Iowa, the "Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride the Lamb's Wife".
1840Various Illinois Masonic lodges merge to form the Grand Lodge of Illinois, based in Springfield. Some leading Mormons are members and are asking the incumbent Grand Master Abraham Jonas to establish a local lodge in Nauvoo.
1841Foundation stone laid for the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois
October 1841Grand Master Abraham Jonas authorizes Mormon Masons to hold casual meetings in Nauvoo.
early 1842Joseph's "translation" of one of the papyri in Michael H. Chandler's possession is complete: "The Book of Abraham." It teaches polytheism and appears in a Mormon newspaper. Alongside this "translation", Joseph Smith wrote a manuscript work entitled "Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language" as the fruit of his "Egyptological" endeavor.
03/01/1842Joseph Smith publishes the 13 Articles of Faith, the Mormon creed.
03/15/1842Grand Master Abraham Jonas opens the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge in Joseph Smith's offices. Joseph Smith becomes a member.
03/16/1842Joseph Smith is initiated into the 2nd and 3rd degrees of Freemasonry.
05/04/1842Joseph Smith introduces the "endowment," the most importantMormon temple ritual, which is strikingly similar to Masonic rituals.
1842Two more short-lived secessions from the Mormons, caused by disfellowshipped members, trouble Smith.
05/02/1843The first documented vicarious baptism for the dead takes place in the Mississippi near Nauvoo.
07/12/1843Official date of revelation calling for the introduction of polygamy.
September 28, 1843Joseph Smith receives and performs for the first time in Nauvoo the ritual of the "Second Anointing," which, reserved for proven Mormons, anoints the recipient for after-death godhood.
07.04.1844Joseph Smith publicly proclaims his God evolution doctrine: "God Himself was once as we are now. He is an exalted Man...".
May 1844William Law, opposition Mormon, accuses Joseph of adultery and rejects polygamy. Law founds the Nauvoo Expositor newspaper to publish his criticism.
07. 06. 1844The first and last editions of the "Nauvoo Expositor" are published. Joseph Smith has the printing works destroyed. Joseph Smith flees but returns and is arrested.
06/27/1844Joseph Smith is shot dead by an angry mob in Carthage Jail, but not before shooting down two of the attackers with his pistol.
1844The Mormons number about 40,000 members.
09.07.1844Mormon missionary James Jesse Strang states that he has a letter written by Joseph Smith in which Joseph appoints him as his successor. Strang is expelled and founds the "Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite)" with his followers, with its current headquarters in Voree/Wisconsin. Today it has 300 members.
Sep 1845The people of Illinois are urging the Mormons to leave the area.
1845Brigham Young, born 1801, President of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, takes the leadership of the majority of Mormons.
1846-1900
1846Dedication of the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois.
winter of 1846/47Brigham Young organizes the great Mormon trek west. Midwestern states refuse to accept Mormons.
1847Other Mormon groups who do not recognize Brigham Young's leadership remain in Illinois, such as the Hedrickites led by their leader Granville Hedrick.
July 1847The Mormons around Brigham Young reach the Great Salt Lake, a desolate area, which they subsequently transform into a fertile cultural landscape.
December 27, 1947Brigham Young is sustained by his followers as the second Mormon "seer, prophet, and revelator." His community claims the last of the names Joseph Smith used for his church, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
1850Beginning of the Mormon mission on the European mainland, in Germany by the apostle John Taylor (b. 1808).
1851The book "The Pearl of Great Price" is published in England. Contents: Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, First Vision and others
1852Brigham Young proclaims polygamy as an essential element of Mormonism.
1852The Book of Mormon is published in German for the first time.
04/09/1852Brigham Young proclaims his "Adam God Doctrine": "He (Adam) is our father and our God and the only God with whom we have to do...".
1853Construction of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City begins.
06. 04. 1860Out of various groups left behind in the East and Midwest, the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is formed. The reorganized church, which Joseph Smith's son joined, rejects polygamy and the "God-becoming" teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. She knows no secret temple ceremonies and today owns the first Mormon temple in Kirtland, Ohio. The fellowship was led by direct descendants of Joseph Smith until 1996, and by Joseph Smith III from 1860 to 1914. The number of members today is 250,000.
1864The Hedrickites left in Illinois receive a revelation telling them to settle in Independence, Missouri.
1867The Hedrickites move to Independence.
1869First appearance of the monthly magazine "Der Stern", the official organ of the German-speaking "Pfles" and "Missions".
Nov. 1869The Hedrickites begin buying up the site dedicated by Joseph Smith in Independence for the Temple of the "New Jerusalem."
1871US President Ulysses S. Grant sharply criticizes Mormon polygamy.
October 29, 1877Brigham Young dies. He leaves behind 17 wives and 56 children (in total, Young had 28 wives).
1877Dedication of the Mormon Temple in St. George, Utah.
October 10, 1880John Taylor becomes the third Mormon President.
October 1880The Mormon "General Conference" unanimously affirms the Book of Abraham as part of the "Pearl of Great Price" and thus as revelation and scripture.
1882US Congress tightens anti-polygamy legislation. Convicted polygamists lose the right to vote and all public offices.
1884Dedication of the Mormon Temple in Logan, Utah.
1887The US Congress passes the "Edmunds-Tucker Act". It allows the perpetrators to confiscate their assets in order to prosecute polygamous communities.
1887David Whitmer publishes his work, "An Address to All Believers in Christ," in which he confirms having seen the gold plates in spiritual vision, but says he has received just as clearly revealed that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet who increasingly distorted his message.
07/25/1887John Taylor dies.
1888Dedication of the Mormon Temple in Manti, Utah.
07.04.1889Wilford Woodruff (b. 1807) becomes fourth President of the Mormons.
December 19, 1889The "apostle" Abraham H. Cannon writes in his diary that Wilford Woodruff received a revelation in which God called on him to continue on the path of polygamy.
September 24, 1890Wilford Woodruff drafts the "Manifesto" outlawing the practice of polygamy.
10/06/1890The Mormon "General Conference" unanimously adopts the "Manifesto" as an "Official Declaration."
After 1890The Mormons' turning away from polygamy led to a wave of splitting off of local polygamous communities, some of which still exist today and practice their polygamy, with ongoing fragmentation. The total number of members of these communities is estimated today at 30,000. The "Church of the Lamb of God" by Ervil LeBaron in Los Molinos in Baja/California became ingloriously famous. Between 1972 and 1977, LeBaron had various leaders of competing polygamous Mormon-derived communities assassinated by followers.
11/06/1891The distribution of the "Second Anointing" that guarantees becoming God is restricted.
1893Wilford Woodruff dedicated the Salt Lake City Temple.
1896Utah is incorporated into the United States as a state.
09/02/1898Wilford Woodruff dies.
September 13, 1898Lorenzo Snow (b. 1814) becomes fifth President of the Mormons.
1901 - 2000
October 10, 1901Lorenzo Snow dies.
October 17, 1901Joseph F. Smith, born in 1838 to Joseph Smith's brother Hyrum, becomes the sixth President of the Mormons. Joseph F. Smith refused to implement Wilford Woodruff's "Manifesto" privately and after 1890 had eleven more children from his five wives.
July 1906The city of Independence sells the last remaining parcels of land that Joseph Smith dedicated as the site for the Temple of the "New Jerusalem" to the "Church of Christ (Temple Lot)", as the Hedrickites are now called. Since then, the Utah Mormons, now numbering 3,000 members, have attempted the Teto buy off mpelplatz, unsuccessful so far.
October 03, 1918Joseph F. Smith experiences a vision of what is happening in the realm of the dead, which has been part of the "Pearl of Great Price" since 1976.
November 19, 1918Joseph F Smith dies.
November 23, 1918Heber J. Grant (born 1856) becomes the seventh Mormon President.
01/30/1926Heber J. Grant further restricts the giving of the "Second Anointing". As a result, the ritual became increasingly taboo, so that almost nothing is known about today's customs.
1929In Independence, Missouri, the followers of Otto Fetting, who claims to have received revelations from John the Baptist, separate from the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) and form the Church of Christ (Fetting).
May 14, 1945Heber J. Grant dies.
May 21, 1945George Albert Smith (born 1870) becomes the eighth Mormon President.
1943As a split from the Church of Christ (Fetting), the Church of Christ is constituted in Independence/MO with the Elias message, which supplements the revelations of Otto Fetting with those of its founder, Wilhelm August Draves.
1945The "Aaronic Order" constituted itself in Salt Lake City as a split from the Mormons. The founder is Maurice Lerrie Glendenning, who added more of his own to the revelations of Joseph Smith and was therefore expelled from the Mormon Church. The community now has around 2,000 members.
1947The Mormons exceed the one million mark with their membership.
04.04.1951George Albert Smith dies.
04/09/1951David O. McKay (b. 1873) becomes ninth Mormon President.
1955Dedication of the Mormon Temple in Zollikofen near Bern.
1963There are two million Mormon members worldwide.
1966The orientalist Aziz S. Atiya discovers the papyri in the New York Metropolitan Museum that Joseph Smith bought from Michael H. Chandler and used for the "translation" of the Book of Abraham.
1966Joseph Smith's "Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language" is made available for reproduction through indiscretion. The publication makes it clear that Joseph Smith had no knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language. His work is pure fantasy.
1967N. Eldon Smith, Counselor to the Presidency, affirms that blacks are not admitted to the priesthood in the Mormon Church: "The Church has no intention of changing doctrinal changes with regard to Negroes...".
November 27, 1967The Mormons buy the now so-called "Joseph Smith papyri" from the Metropolitan Museum and commission Egyptologists to translate them.
1968The Chicago Egyptologists John A. Wilson and Klaus Baer identify the "Joseph Smith papyri" as texts from the "Book of Breathing", a Ptolemaic abridged version of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Joseph's "translation" at that time, as is now shown, has absolutely nothing to do with the actual text.
01/18/1970David O McKay dies.
01/23/1970Joseph Fielding Smith (b. 1876) becomes the tenth President of the Mormons.
1971The Mormon Church reaches three million members.
07/02/1972Joseph Fielding Smith dies.
07/07/1972Harold B. Lee (born 1899) becomes the eleventh Mormon President.
December 26, 1973Harold B Lee dies.
December 30, 1973Spencer W. Kimball (born 1895) becomes the twelfth Mormon President.
04/03/1976Mormon minister Douglas A. Wallace ordains a black man as a priest in protest at the Mormon leadership's ban.
04/13/1976Douglas A. Wallace is expelled from the Mormon Church. As a result, the US Treasury Department threatened to strip Mormons of church status because of their racism.
October 1976Spencer W. Kimball Discards Brigham Young's"Adam God Doctrine": "We criticize that theory (the Adam-God theory) very severely and hope that everyone will exercise caution against this and all other kinds of false teaching".
06/08/1978Spencer W. Kimball, through revelation, declares skin color irrelevant for admission to the priesthood.
09/30/1978Official acceptance of Kimball's revelation as "Official Statement No. 2" by the Mormon "General Conference".
May 1980The Smithsonian Institute issues a statement rejecting the Book of Mormon's claims about American prehistory as untenable.
07/01/1984Reorganization of the Mormon administrative structure. The world is divided into "principal areas" that are under an "area presidency."
1985Dedication of the Mormon Temple in Freiberg/Saxony.
10/09/1985Spencer W Kimball dies.
11/10/1985Ezra Taft Benson, born 1899, US Secretary of Agriculture under Eisenhower, becomes the thirteenth President.
1987Dedication of the Mormon Temple in Friedrichshof/Taunus.
1990Revision of the Mormon Endowment ritual. The penal signs, a self-curse in case of betrayal of secrets, are omitted, as is the "preacher" in the endowment film, which was intended to denigrate Christianity as the servant of Satan.
1993A published computer analysis of the text of the Book of Mormon makes it likely that the text was by one author rather than by multiple authors as suggested in the book itself. Another study in the same year shows that the Book of Mormon, in New Testament citations, adopts incorrect translations of the original Greek text in the King James Bible owned by Joseph Smith.
05/30/1994Ezra Taft Benson dies.
05.06.1994Howard W. Hunter (b. 1907) becomes fourteenth President of the Mormons.
03.03.1995Howard W Hunter dies.
03/12/1995Gordon B. Hinkley (born 1910) becomes the fifteenth Mormon President.
1997The Mormons number 9,700,000 members.