1805: Joseph Smith born in Sharon Vermont, Dec. 23rd the fifth child of Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith, Sr
1811: The Smith family moved to Lebanon, New Hampshire
1813: Joseph Smith contracted typhus fever. Infection in leg, which required surgery. Left him with a slight limp the rest of his life
1816: Family moved to Palmyra, New York
1820: Joseph Smiths first vision - Joseph first wrote an account of this in 1832. There no evidence of a revival at that time
1822: Joseph Smith finds seer stone in a well with Willard Chase. Stone used for treasure digging, and to receive revelation/translate the Book of Mormon
1823: Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph on Sep. 23rd and revealed that Joseph would translate an ancient record, the gold plates. Joseph commanded to tell his father. It spread around. Not a lot of evidence of outright persecution, but we can imagine derision.
1824: Starting in the Fall there was a revival in the neighborhood involving the Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. This continued into Spring 1825. Joseph's mother, sister and two brothers joined the Presbyterians.
1825: Oct-Nov. Josiah Stowell hired Joseph and his father to help him search for buried treasure near Harmony, Pennsylvania. Joseph boarded with Isaac Hale, where he met his future bride, Emma Hale.
1826: On March 20th, Joseph Smith was brought before Judge Albert Neeley on charges of money digging, using a "peep stone" to locate buried treasures for hire, according to Court records of Chenango County
1827: Joseph eloped with Emma Hale. Her father opposed the wedding. Stowell helped Joseph and Emma move back to Manchester, NY.
1827: On Sep 22nd, Joseph went to the hill and received from the Angel Moroni the gold plates, Written in Reformed Egyptian
1827: Oct-Nov; Joseph and Emma moved back to her father's farm in Harmony, Pa. They took the plates with them, Joseph started to translate.
1828: Feb, Martin Harris, who would later act as a scribe for Smith, took a document containing some of the characters copied from the plates to Samuel L. Mitchell and Charles Anthon to see if they were authentic.
1828: Apr, Harris became Joseph's scribe
1828: June. Harris took 116 pages of manuscript back to Palmyra to convince his wife the translation was true. Lucy Harris either destroyed the pages or hid them.
1828: June 15; Smith's first child died shortly after birth, leaving Emma near death. Sometime after this, Joseph traveled to his parents' home to retrieve the manuscript from Harris, only to learn that Harris had lost it
1828: Fall; In the fall Smith returned to his translation, using his brother Samuel, wife Emma, and her brother Reuben as scribes.
1829: April; Oliver Cowdery took over as scribe.
1829: May 15th; John the Baptist bestowed the Aaronic Priesthood on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as part of the restoration of God's Church on earth; JS later said that sometime after receiving the Aaronic Priesthood, Peter, James and John bestowed upon the Melchizedek Priesthood.
1829: June; Secured copyright for Book of Mormon. Moved to Fayette, NY to complete his translation
1830: Early in year; In order to raise funds for the printing of the Book of Mormon, Joseph gave a revelation for several men to travel to Canada to sell the copyright. The revelation failed and was not included in his 1833 printing of his revelations.
1830: March; 5,000 copies of Book of Mormon were printed by the Grandin Print Shop in Palmyra, NY. Martin Harris pledged his farm to cover the printing costs. In April of 1831 one hundred and fifty-one acres of Harris' farm were auctioned off to pay the bill.
1830: April 6th; The Church of Christ was organized in New York with a handful of people, as God's one true church on earth
1830: June; Began his revision of the Bible. Work on the revision continued into 1833. It has been estimated that half of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants are in some way connected to this translation effort. While the whole revision has been printed by the Community of Christ
1830: November; Sidney Rigdon and other Campbellites joined Mormonism.
1831: The Smiths and the church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where Rigdon had been a pastor.
1831: June; Joseph Smith traveled to Jackson County, Mo. where it was revealed that it was to be the site of the City of Zion and a temple. Mormons started settlements in Missouri. Members living in two main groups, in Ohio and Missouri.
1832: September; Revelation that the church was to build a temple in New Jerusalem (Independence, Mo.) in this generation
1832: Fall; Joseph Smith wrote the earliest account of his first vision, attributing it to his sixteenth year (15 years old). In it he only mentioned "the Lord" had appeared
1833: Bible revision completed
1833: July; Joseph Smith's revelations were published as the Book of Commandments, at Independence, Missouri. The press was destroyed before the printing was completed, but a number of copies were salvaged.
1833: Fall; Mormons driven from Jackson County, Mo.
1834: The name of the church was changed to The Church of the Latter Day Saints.
1834: Military expedition to Missouri to help saints there; Zion's Camp
1835: February; Organized Council of Twelve Apostles, Quorum of Seventy.
1835: July; Church purchased Egyptian mummies and papyri. Joseph Smith began translating of the papyri, which would eventually be published as the Book of Abraham, part of the Pearl of Great Price. Also composed an Egyptian alphabet and grammar.
1835: Fanny Alger affair; Oliver Cowdery referred to it in 1838 as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair."
1835: September; A new edition of Joseph Smith's revelations was published under the title Doctrine and Covenants. However, numerous changes were made in the revelations from the 1833 printing. Section 101:4 denied the practice of polygamy. This section was maintained in every ed. of the D&C until replaced in 1876 with section 132 commanding polygamy. Also included in the 1835 ed. were the Lectures on Faith, which were deleted years later, in the 1921 ed. of the D&C.
1836: March; Dedicated the Kirtland temple.
1836: November; Smith established the Kirtland Safety Society Bank, but couldn't obtain a charter. Bank failed. Many members agitating against Smith
1837: A new edition of the Book of Mormon was published, with thousands of corrections in spelling and grammar.
1837: Missionaries sent to England
1837: December; Growing dissent among members over financial matters. Martin Harris excommunicated
1838: Joseph Smith moved from Ohio to Missouri in part due to law and dissenting members
1838: April; Oliver Cowdery excommunicated. David Whitmer withdrew his membership. The name of the church was changed toThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1838: June; Rigdon preached his famous "Salt Sermon," directed at those who had opposed Smith. Two days later, eighty Mormons signed a statement (the Danite Manifesto) warning the dissenters to "depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you." Mormons formed the Danites. Dissenters Whitmer, Cowdery, and others fled Far West.
1838: August; Danites skirmish with anti-Mormons who try to prevent Mormons from voting at Gallatin. A civil war breaks out in four Missouri counties
1838: October 25; Apostle David W. Patten is killed while leading Danites against the Missouri militia in the 'Battle of Crooked River.' Apostle Parley P. Pratt kills a militiaman, and wounds another
1838: October 27; Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issued the "extermination" order against the Mormons
1838: October 30; 17 Mormons were massacred at Haun's Mill, Missouri, by non-Mormon militia, headed up by Sheriff Jennings of Caldwell County
1838: Joseph Smith surrendered to Missouri militia at Far West and was imprisoned. Spends months in Liberty Jail while awaiting trial.
1839: Smith escaped while being transferred to another county, fled to Illinois. Settlement of what was to become Nauvoo, Illinois started.
1840: Mormon Church had about 17,000 members. Gov. of Illinois signed the Nauvoo charter, giving the city of Nauvoo extensive legal rights.
1841: Joseph Smith was sealed to Louisa Beaman, usually listed as his first plural wife. Over the next 3 years he would marry at least 33 women in secret marriages
1842: Relief Society established
1842-44: Joseph Smith, John Taylor and other members of the Mormon Church printed denials of polygamy in the newspaper, even when they were practicing it
1842: Smith published "Book of Abraham" in the LDS newspaper, Times and Seasons. Also, an account of Smith's 1820 vision was published for the first time.
1842: March; Smith became a Free Mason
1842: May; Smith privately introduced the temple endowment. Women were not included until September 1843.
1842: May; An assassination attempt is made on Missouri's ex-governor Lilburn W. Boggs, allegedly by former Danite and later member of the Council of Fifty Orrin Porter Rockwell
1842: Summer; John C. Bennett published his expose of Mormon polygamy, The History of the Saints, and was excommunicated.
1843: July; Smith privately dictated a revelation authorizing the practice of polygamy, but it was not formally announced until 1852, and was not included in LDS scripture until 1876 (present day D&C 132.) The 1876 D&C no longer contained the 1835 section denouncing polygamy.
1844: March; established the theocratic Council of Fifty. In April Joseph was secretly anointed and ordained by the Council of Fifty as King, Priest, and Ruler over Israel on Earth
1844: April; "King Follett" sermon on plurality of gods
1844: June 7; The first and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor was published. In it former church leaders, now dissenters, condemned Smith's secret polygamy, doctrine of plural gods, his political aspirations, and his ordination as king.
1844: June 10; As mayor of Nauvoo, Smith condemned the Expositor as a public nuisance, printing libelous statements against him, and ordered its destruction. This caused a great uproar in the community.
1844: June 18; Nauvoo placed under martial law.
1844: June 24; Joseph and Hyrum Smith surrendered to civil authorities to stand trial for "riot and treason"
1844: June 27: While incarcerated at Carthage Jail, Joseph and Hyrum were allowed to have several visitors. Two men smuggled guns into them. At approximately 5 p.m. a mob stormed the jail. Joseph and Hyrum shot back, and Joseph wounded a couple of men, one of whom was later said to have died. The mob killed Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and wounded John Taylor.
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