July 26, 1838 - At Kirtland the High Council unanimously passes the following resolutions: "1st. That the First Presidency shall have their expenses defrayed in going to and from Adam-ondi-Ahman, equally by the bishop of each place. 2nd. That all the travelling expenses of the First Presidency shall be defrayed. 3rd. That the bishop be authorized to pay orders coming from the East, inasmuch as they will consecrate liberally, but this is to be done under the inspection of the First Presidency. 4th. That the First Presidency shall have the prerogative to say to the bishop, whose orders shall or may be paid by him in this place, or in his jurisdiction."
July 26, 1843 - William Clayton writes: " . . . M[argaret, (Clayton's secret plural wife)] seems quite embittered against me in consequence of which I called her to me and asked her if she desired the covenant to be revoked if it were possible. To this she would not give me a satisfactory answer only saying if it had not been done it should not be. (meaning our union). I then asked if she would consent if A[aron Farr, (Margaret's recently-returned fiancée)] would take her under all circumstances; but she would not consent to have it revoked, saying she did it not for her sake but for the sake of the peace of my family. Under these circumstances I could not rest until I had ascertained w[h]ether the clovenant] could be revoked and although contrary to her wish I went to see President Joseph. I took A[aron] to talk with him and asked him some questions whereby I ascertained that he would be willing to take her under all circumstances. I reasoned considerable with him to prove that I had done right in all these matters so far as I knew it. I called the President [Joseph Smith] out and briefly stated the situation of things and then asked him if the C[ovenant] could be revoked. He shook his head and answered no. . . . I sympathize with her in her grief, but can't console her for she will not speak to me."
July 26, 1847 - Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff and five others explore the hills at the north end of the valley. They climb what is now called "Ensign Peak." Heber C. Kimball declares, "someday an ensign will be flown here" and waves his yellow bandana tied to Willard Richards' walking stick as a crude flag. There was no American flag among the pioneers.
Howard Egan writes in his diary of the beginning of Mormon agriculture in the Salt Lake Valley: "At 6 a.m. the bugle sounded for the brethren to collect their horses and cattle to recommence plowing and planting, the team to be relieved at intervals of every four hours during the day." The next day, he continued, "the bugle sounded as usual for the brethren to go to work plowing and planting."
July 26, 1857 - First Counselor Heber C. Kimball publicly prophesies: "And the President of the United States will bow to us and come to consult the authorities of this Church to know what he had best to do for his people." Latter occurs on Jan. 31, 1964.
Apostle George Albert Smith tells of a visit to Washington D.C.: "Just let me tell the truth--the naked facts as they exist in open day, to any person I would visit or meet and they would look at me with distrust; and it would be plainly manifest in their countenances . . ."
Brigham Young preaches: "I don't profess to be such a Prophet as were Joseph Smith and Daniel; but I am a Yankee guesser;"
July 26, 1864 - First foundation stones laid for the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
July 26, 1870 - Apostle Joseph F. Smith performs proxy sealing of Scotland's Queen Maude (or Matilda. b. 1104) as eternal wife to martyred prophet Joseph Smith. Similar ordinances are performed by Apostle Wilford Woodruff on Sept. 5, for eight political heroines or female rulers including Charlotte Corday (who murdered the radical Marat during the French Revolution) and Empress Josephine (wife of Napoleon). On Sept. 15 second counselor Daniel H. Wells seals two Catholic saints as wives to founding Mormon prophet: Saint Helena (mother of Roman emperor Constantine) and Saint Theresa (b. 1515 in Spain). These are first women of international prominence sealed as wives to Joseph Smith, but during fifty years after his death hundreds of deceased women are similarly joined to him, even though many had husbands during their lifetimes.
July 26, 1896 - At the funeral of Apostle Abraham H. Cannon, President Wilford Woodruff speaks upon the topic of "the plurality of wives and to the plurality of families that men possess in this Church. It is a subject I have left alone as a general thing in all my observations and instructions before the public. . . . We have had a plurality of wives and families. The principle was introduced to this people by the revelation of God through the Prophet Joseph Smith." Cannon had taken a secret post-manifesto plural wife, with Woodruff's permission, a few months before his death.
After the funeral Apostle John Henry Smith attends a meeting concerning Apostle Moses Thatcher, "It was stated by Moses Thatcher [Jr.] that he was adicted to the Morphine habbit and part of the time insane and that they must do something for him. . . . It was finally agreed to get him if possible to go of his own free will to a sanatarium in California, if he refused to do so then to insist on sending him any way."
July 26, 1922 - The First Presidency, reviews the case of a member and his wife who had been excommunicated by a high council court in Montpelier, Idaho. They had been charged with adultery. The verdict of guilty was overturned because "while there was strong presumptive evidence of guilt, no direct evidence had been produced."
July 26, 1937 - The SALT LAKE TRIBUNE publishes an interview with LDS President Heber J. Grant: "We never believed polygamy was wrong and never will. . . . "one of the cardinal rules of the Church is to obey the law. So long as polygamy is illegal we ourselves will strictly enforce the law." Grant had violated his 1891 amnesty agreement with the government by attempting unsuccessfully to take Fanny Woolley as a post-Manifesto plural wife and was found guilty of "unlawful cohabitation" in 1899.
July 26, 1943 - Ezra Taft Benson stops in Salt Lake City to change trains en route to Colorado. David O. McKay tells him "that the President of the Church wanted to see me a few moments. . . . It was only a few minutes later that President Grant took my right hand in both of his and looked into the depths of my very soul and said: 'Brother Benson, with all my heart I congratulate you and pray God's blessings to attend you; you have been chosen as the youngest Apostle of the Church.'"
July 26, 1953 - Arizona police and national guard raid polygamous commune at Short Creek, Arizona, arrest all its adults, and put its children in foster homes. First Presidency had ten days' advance notice of raid and informed Deseret News on July 24. Arizona Governor Howard Pyle explains in a radio address: "Here is a community--many of the women, sadly right along with the men--unalterably dedicated to the wicked theory that every maturing girl child should be forced into the bondage of multiple wifehood with men of all ages for the sole purpose of producing more children to be reared to become mere chattels of this totally lawless enterprise."
July 26, 2004 - Associated Press article about DNA research into the origins of Native Americans. Conclusion that Native Americans migrated from Mongolia/Siberia and not from Jerusalem leads apologetic Mormon scholars to contradict long-standing teaching and even scriptural references that Lamanites are the "principal ancestors" of Native American peoples and suggest that entire Book of Mormon concerns only a small, localized population that eventually died out. Former LDS bishop and geneticist Simon Southerton is featured in article. He says, "given the state of DNA research and increasing lay awareness of it, church leaders ought just to own up to the problems that continued literal teachings about the Book of Mormon present for American Indians and Polynesians. . . They should come out and say, 'There's no evidence to support your Israelite ancestry;' I don't have any problem with anyone believing what's in the Book of Mormon. Just don't make it look like science is backing it all up." The article is printed in many newspapers across the United States and around the world.
July 26, 2005 - SALT LAKE TRIBUNE article "Keeping members a challenge for LDS church" opens with, "The claim that Mormonism is the fastest-growing faith in the world has been repeated so routinely by sociologists, anthropologists, journalists and proud Latter-day Saints as to be perceived as unassailable fact. The trouble is, it isn't true."
July 26, 1843 - William Clayton writes: " . . . M[argaret, (Clayton's secret plural wife)] seems quite embittered against me in consequence of which I called her to me and asked her if she desired the covenant to be revoked if it were possible. To this she would not give me a satisfactory answer only saying if it had not been done it should not be. (meaning our union). I then asked if she would consent if A[aron Farr, (Margaret's recently-returned fiancée)] would take her under all circumstances; but she would not consent to have it revoked, saying she did it not for her sake but for the sake of the peace of my family. Under these circumstances I could not rest until I had ascertained w[h]ether the clovenant] could be revoked and although contrary to her wish I went to see President Joseph. I took A[aron] to talk with him and asked him some questions whereby I ascertained that he would be willing to take her under all circumstances. I reasoned considerable with him to prove that I had done right in all these matters so far as I knew it. I called the President [Joseph Smith] out and briefly stated the situation of things and then asked him if the C[ovenant] could be revoked. He shook his head and answered no. . . . I sympathize with her in her grief, but can't console her for she will not speak to me."
July 26, 1847 - Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff and five others explore the hills at the north end of the valley. They climb what is now called "Ensign Peak." Heber C. Kimball declares, "someday an ensign will be flown here" and waves his yellow bandana tied to Willard Richards' walking stick as a crude flag. There was no American flag among the pioneers.
Howard Egan writes in his diary of the beginning of Mormon agriculture in the Salt Lake Valley: "At 6 a.m. the bugle sounded for the brethren to collect their horses and cattle to recommence plowing and planting, the team to be relieved at intervals of every four hours during the day." The next day, he continued, "the bugle sounded as usual for the brethren to go to work plowing and planting."
July 26, 1857 - First Counselor Heber C. Kimball publicly prophesies: "And the President of the United States will bow to us and come to consult the authorities of this Church to know what he had best to do for his people." Latter occurs on Jan. 31, 1964.
Apostle George Albert Smith tells of a visit to Washington D.C.: "Just let me tell the truth--the naked facts as they exist in open day, to any person I would visit or meet and they would look at me with distrust; and it would be plainly manifest in their countenances . . ."
Brigham Young preaches: "I don't profess to be such a Prophet as were Joseph Smith and Daniel; but I am a Yankee guesser;"
July 26, 1864 - First foundation stones laid for the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
July 26, 1870 - Apostle Joseph F. Smith performs proxy sealing of Scotland's Queen Maude (or Matilda. b. 1104) as eternal wife to martyred prophet Joseph Smith. Similar ordinances are performed by Apostle Wilford Woodruff on Sept. 5, for eight political heroines or female rulers including Charlotte Corday (who murdered the radical Marat during the French Revolution) and Empress Josephine (wife of Napoleon). On Sept. 15 second counselor Daniel H. Wells seals two Catholic saints as wives to founding Mormon prophet: Saint Helena (mother of Roman emperor Constantine) and Saint Theresa (b. 1515 in Spain). These are first women of international prominence sealed as wives to Joseph Smith, but during fifty years after his death hundreds of deceased women are similarly joined to him, even though many had husbands during their lifetimes.
July 26, 1896 - At the funeral of Apostle Abraham H. Cannon, President Wilford Woodruff speaks upon the topic of "the plurality of wives and to the plurality of families that men possess in this Church. It is a subject I have left alone as a general thing in all my observations and instructions before the public. . . . We have had a plurality of wives and families. The principle was introduced to this people by the revelation of God through the Prophet Joseph Smith." Cannon had taken a secret post-manifesto plural wife, with Woodruff's permission, a few months before his death.
After the funeral Apostle John Henry Smith attends a meeting concerning Apostle Moses Thatcher, "It was stated by Moses Thatcher [Jr.] that he was adicted to the Morphine habbit and part of the time insane and that they must do something for him. . . . It was finally agreed to get him if possible to go of his own free will to a sanatarium in California, if he refused to do so then to insist on sending him any way."
July 26, 1922 - The First Presidency, reviews the case of a member and his wife who had been excommunicated by a high council court in Montpelier, Idaho. They had been charged with adultery. The verdict of guilty was overturned because "while there was strong presumptive evidence of guilt, no direct evidence had been produced."
July 26, 1937 - The SALT LAKE TRIBUNE publishes an interview with LDS President Heber J. Grant: "We never believed polygamy was wrong and never will. . . . "one of the cardinal rules of the Church is to obey the law. So long as polygamy is illegal we ourselves will strictly enforce the law." Grant had violated his 1891 amnesty agreement with the government by attempting unsuccessfully to take Fanny Woolley as a post-Manifesto plural wife and was found guilty of "unlawful cohabitation" in 1899.
July 26, 1943 - Ezra Taft Benson stops in Salt Lake City to change trains en route to Colorado. David O. McKay tells him "that the President of the Church wanted to see me a few moments. . . . It was only a few minutes later that President Grant took my right hand in both of his and looked into the depths of my very soul and said: 'Brother Benson, with all my heart I congratulate you and pray God's blessings to attend you; you have been chosen as the youngest Apostle of the Church.'"
July 26, 1953 - Arizona police and national guard raid polygamous commune at Short Creek, Arizona, arrest all its adults, and put its children in foster homes. First Presidency had ten days' advance notice of raid and informed Deseret News on July 24. Arizona Governor Howard Pyle explains in a radio address: "Here is a community--many of the women, sadly right along with the men--unalterably dedicated to the wicked theory that every maturing girl child should be forced into the bondage of multiple wifehood with men of all ages for the sole purpose of producing more children to be reared to become mere chattels of this totally lawless enterprise."
July 26, 2004 - Associated Press article about DNA research into the origins of Native Americans. Conclusion that Native Americans migrated from Mongolia/Siberia and not from Jerusalem leads apologetic Mormon scholars to contradict long-standing teaching and even scriptural references that Lamanites are the "principal ancestors" of Native American peoples and suggest that entire Book of Mormon concerns only a small, localized population that eventually died out. Former LDS bishop and geneticist Simon Southerton is featured in article. He says, "given the state of DNA research and increasing lay awareness of it, church leaders ought just to own up to the problems that continued literal teachings about the Book of Mormon present for American Indians and Polynesians. . . They should come out and say, 'There's no evidence to support your Israelite ancestry;' I don't have any problem with anyone believing what's in the Book of Mormon. Just don't make it look like science is backing it all up." The article is printed in many newspapers across the United States and around the world.
July 26, 2005 - SALT LAKE TRIBUNE article "Keeping members a challenge for LDS church" opens with, "The claim that Mormonism is the fastest-growing faith in the world has been repeated so routinely by sociologists, anthropologists, journalists and proud Latter-day Saints as to be perceived as unassailable fact. The trouble is, it isn't true."
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