30 years ago today - Jul 2, 1996

"Security leader and de facto second in command" of the Russian Republic publicly apologizes a week after calling Russia's Mormons "filth and scum." The LDS church has no more than 5,000 converts and 300 missionaries there. The apology occurs because LDS members (Republicans) of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate ask the Democratic "Clinton administration to reconsider aid to Russia because of [Aleksandr] Lebed's stand."

[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]

155 years ago today - Jul 2, 1871

The "Liberal Institute" is dedicated in Salt Lake City at the corner of Second South and Second East. This architectural landmark seats over 1000 and is constructed mostly by Godbeites and disaffected Mormons. Susan B. Anthony, who attended the dedication, writes that the reformers "sang their songs of freedom, poured out their rejoicings over the emancipation from the thrall of the Theocracy of Brigham, and told of the beatitudes of soul-to-soul communion with the All-Father." The Institute became a home for Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews, Swedish Lutherans and "Reorganite Mormons" as well as suffragettes, spiritualists (including mediums and their debunkers), and free thinkers.

170 years ago today - Jul 2, 1856

[Wilford Woodruff]

P[arley] P. Pratt asked Presidet Young what He should do with regard to tithing. Said he had been travelling & preaching a good deal & had not paid any tithing. Presidet Young Said the Law of tithing reached evry man. He should pay his tithing if he had to have five times as much from the tithing office in order to live & all that he had from the tithing office should be charged to him & he should Consecrate what he had to the Church. He said that he should consecrate what he had to the Church that his children when he was dead should not squander his property & go to Hell upon it.

[Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

55 years ago today - Jul 01, 1971

Henry B. Eyring is appointed tenth president of Ricks College.

65 years ago today - Jul 1, 1961

CHURCH NEWS article, "Mission Presidents Get Uniform Plan For Teaching Gospel," introduces the new six-discussion proselytizing plan in which the discussions are to be memorized verbatim by the missionaries.

160 years ago today - Jul 1, 1866

Apostle Wilford Woodruff, as the officially appointed "Church Historian" recorded the following in his "Historian's Private Journal “Joseph Smith & Zina Huntington were sealed Oct. 27, 1841 by Dimick B. Huntington in Nauvoo”

[Wilford Woodruff, "Historian's Private Journal" (one volume, 1858-78), entries after 1 July 1866, LDS Church History Library, in "Evidence For The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith's Polygamy," Comments by D. Michael Quinn on Session #2A "Reconsidering Joseph Smith's Marital Practices," Mormon History Association's Annual Conference, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 29 June 2012 (unabbreviated version, revised during July)]

20 years ago today - 2006 June 29

The LDS Church announces that the Church College of New Zealand will not admit more students and eventually close.

[Wikipedia, 21st Century (Mormonism), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century_(Mormonism)]

180 years ago today - Jun 29, 1846

[Willard Richards]

council together'O. Hyde nominated E.T. Benson to take the crown of John E. Page, & council wrote him accordingly.

[Willard Richards Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]

190 years ago today - Jun 29, 1836

A public meeting is held in Liberty, Clay County, Missouri, in which the local citizens decide that to avoid a civil war the Saints must leave Clay County. They accuse the Saints of coming into the county friendless and penniless, of arriving in large numbers, of being nonslave holders, and of communicating with the Indian tribes.

[Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]

80 years ago today - Jun 28, 1946

A First Presidency statement against compulsory military service ("conscription" or "the draft") during peace time. This is an extensive version of the Presidency's earlier views and of its efforts to persuade LDS congressmen to vote against the peacetime draft.

[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]

180 years ago today - Jun 28, 1846

[Hosea Stout]

I awoke very early this morning and immediately discovered my child to be dying. He seemed perfectly easy and now had given up to the struggle of death and lay breathing out his life sweetly. The evil spirits had entirely left him and he now had his natural, easy, pleasant, calm and usual appearance but death was in his countenance and his little spirit now in the enjoyment of its own body only seemed loth to give it up as almost every one seemed involuntary to observe who was present. He gradually and slowly declined untill forty minutes after seven when its spirit took its leave of its body without any appearant pain but seemed to go to sleep.

[Diaries of Hosea Stout]

185 years ago today - Jun 28, 1841

Assistant President of the Church John C. Bennett writes to Bodley Lodge No. 1, Quincy, Illinois, asking that it recommend that a Masonic lodge be established in Nauvoo. His request is denied because Mormons were "unknown to this lodge as Masons."

[On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]

65 years ago today - Jun 27, 1961

Musa Bey Alami in company with the daughter of Jordanian ambassador to the United States expresses gratitude to President David O. McKay and to BYU for their joint donation of a large herd of milk cows for the Jericho Dairy Project in Jordan. By this time 400 Jordanian boys have graduated from the project's dairy school, and 160 are currently enrolled in the project which is providing milk to 111 Palestinian and Jordanian villages. Alami says that "there has not been anything done in Jordan, in spite of the millions of dollars spent there that has met the success of this gift." The church called L. Burt Bigler, LDS bishop and dairyman from Jordan, Utah, to select cattle, transport them to Jericho, and supervise the dairy in the Kingdom of Jordan.

[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]

85 years ago today - Jun 27, 1941

[Heber J. Grant]

"It is truly refreshing to find men with the courage to stand out for what is right instead of allowing politics to warp their judgment."

[The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1945, Abridged, Digital Edition Salt Lake City, Utah, 2015]

125 years ago today - Thursday, Jun 27, 1901

Pres. L. Snow remarked that 57 years ago today Joseph Smith, the prophet, was martyred for the truth and suggested that "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" be sung, which was done.

... [Closing] Hymn, "Give Me Back My Prophet Dear." Benediction by Apostle Reed Smoot.

[Stan Larson (editor), A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic diaries of Rudger Clawson, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1993, http://bit.ly/rudgerclawson]

165 years ago today - Jun 26, 1861

Brigham Young's office journal records: "Br. [Samuel] Murphy called upon the President and mentioned to him that his eyes were bad and his stomach out of order. The President told him to take care of himself, and to wear a good shade to his eyes, and take some medicine to cleanse his stomach. The President noticed the effects of the first dose of lobelia he took, the lobelia poked the phlegm, but not his food. he observed persons have formed a prejudice against lobelia, because their stomachs were not properly prepared with warm drinks until they ware in a perspiration before they took the lobelia, if there is no disease the lobelia will not cause a vomit but will pass off the same as any thing else taken into the stomach, but if there is disaese then the lobelia will cause a puke."

[On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]

180 years ago today - Friday, Jun 26, 1846.

[Willard Richards]

Conversed about Mitchell’s writing to Fort Kearney for troops to take the Mormon leaders and drive off the leaders, as related by Sarpee to President Young yesterday. Voted that O. Hyde and N. K. Whitney go to Major Mitchell and inquire if he has written to Fort Kearney for troops, and if so, learn the cause and get him to write a letter to counteract his former letter. ... Elders Hyde and Whitney came to them and informed them that Major Mitchell said he had written no letter to Fort Kearney except one he wrote some two months ago about Emmett's company; that since his acquaintance with the Mormons his feelings had materially changed, that he had found them gentlemen, and wished them well and would do all in his power to do them good;

[Apostle Willard Richards Journal]

180 years ago today - Jun 26, 1846

[Wilford Woodruff]

The Camp was flung into some excitement this morning by the appearance of capt J. Allen with 3 draggoons of the U S Armey. ... He informed us He was sent by order of Capt Carney who had recieved word so He said By President Polk to give the Mormons an invitation to raise 500 volunteers to Assist the USA in the Mexican war. This was his pretentions. I Had some reasons to believe them to be spies & that the president Had no Hand in it. We however treated them with civility & directed them on to Council Bluffs to lay the case before the President.

[Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

125 years ago today - Jun 25, 1901

At Koosharem, Utah, Apostle Owen Woodruff writes: "We then held a council of the Indians [-] they chose Mocha Nogitz for their Chief. I ordained him an Elder and set him apart as Chief of the little band of Utes."

[The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]

130 years ago today - Thursday, Jun 25, 1896

[John Henry Smith]

[Apostle] Moses Thatcher's condition was talked over. I held he was not responsible from his use of narcotics. Prest. W. Woodruff & G. Q. Cannon rather held that he was.

[Jean Bickmore White (editor), Church, State, and Politics: The Diaries of John Henry Smith, Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, 1990, http://bit.ly/johnhenrysmith]

130 years ago today - Jun 25, 1896

Brigham recorded his dream in which he, his legal wife, and the Prophet were traveling in a covered carriage: "Br Joseph Smith sat on the Back Seat with my wife [--] he whispered to hir [her--] Sead [said] it was wright [right] if she was a mind to [--] nothing more past [passed] betwen [sic] them." Then, in the dream, she disappears and is next seen as a corpse in a hearse.

During a meeting of Church President Wilford Woodruff with the apostles in the Salt Lake Temple on 25 June 1896, there was a discussion about "certain trials or tests to which Prests. B. Young and Jno. Taylor were put by Prest. Joseph the Prophet in Nauvoo, as the plurality & Eternity of the M. [Marriage] covenant was being revealed. Also what Emma was commanded to abstain from, and O. Hyde's trial also." Young's dream in December 1843 apparently referred to the Prophet's "test" of asking for Brigham's wife to become Joseph's.

[Brigham Young 1840-44 journal,Franklin D. Richards journal, 25 June 1896, LDS Church History Library, in "Evidence For The Sexual Side of Joseph Smith's Polygamy," Comments by D. Michael Quinn on Session #2A "Reconsidering Joseph Smith's Marital Practices," Mormon History Association's Annual Conference, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 29 June 2012 (unabbreviated version, revised during July)]