125 years ago today - Tuesday, Nov 5, 1895

[Apostle John Henry Smith]

I returned to Salt Lake City and went to the Polls and voted the Republican ticket straight for state, county, and city offices. I went home and went to bed. A daughter born to Josephine 20 minutes to 3 today.

[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]

125 years ago today - Nov 5, 1895

[Apostle Franklin D. Richards]

Went with my son Charles Seco(?) of Ter. and we polled our votes with Straight Democratic Tickets

[Diary Excerpts of Franklin D. Richards, 1887-1897, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

125 years ago today - Nov 5, 1895

[Apostle Francis M. Lyman]

Election Day ... I deposited my straight Republican ticket. ... Before retiring I learned that the State ticket Republicans had won by about 30 votes. 167 voted for Statehood and 43 against it, total 200. That is a light vote for Tooele. Democrats are dejected.

[Excerpts of Apostle Francis M. Lyman Diaries, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

190 years ago today - Circa Nov 5, 1830

This is the probable time of Joseph Sr.'s arrest and imprisonment. Lucy Smith says that Joseph Sr. was arrested on Thursday, the day following Hyrum's departure , and jailed in Canandaigua for thirty days .

[Vogel, Dan, Early Mormon Documents, Appendix B: Chronology, 1771-1831, http://amzn.to/T5nY8w]

30 years ago today - Nov 4, 1990.

Sunstone's June issue comes out about mid- October, containing a summary of news stories about the temple changes. Elbert Peck's stake president, Herbert Klopfer, informs him that Sunstone's coverage is inappropriate and confiscates Elbert's temple recommend. Daniel Rector, the publisher, has his temple recommend revoked at the same time.

[Anderson, Lavina Fielding, "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology," Dialogue, Vol.26, No.1]

40 years ago today - Nov 4, 1980

Florida elects Paula Hawkins as the first LDS woman to become a U.S. Senator and the first female Senator who is not a daughter or wife of a politician. She is also the first prominent LDS woman to publicly acknowledge that she was sexually abused as a child.

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

55 years ago today - Nov 4, 1965

[Council meeting] "Elder [Ezra Taft] Benson said ... that he was confident in his own mind from a study he had made of the Negro question that we are only seeing something being carried out today that was planned by the highest councils of the communist party twenty years ago, and that Martin Luther King is an agent, if not a power in the Communist party. He said that this whole thing is being directed and supported and promoted by agents of the Communist party, that the Negroes are being used in this whole question of Civil Rights, integration, etc., and that the NAACP are largely made up of men who are affiliated with from one to a dozen communist-front organizations, and he thought they would do anything in their power to embarrass the Church. Elder Benson thought we ought to be very careful what we do in the Negro field, whether it be in Nigeria, here, or any other place in the world, and he felt that so far as Brother Williams is concerned, his work in Nigeria [to establish the church] should be terminated and he be brought home to report."

[Minutes of Council Meeting as referenced in Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Write, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (2005)]

160 years ago today - Nov 4, 1860

Capt Gibson spoke two hours & gave a vary interesting account of his mission [and] the dealings of the Lord with him. ... He had an interview with the Jappaneese Embassay and was the ownly man in America who saw them that Could Communicate with them without interpeters ...

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

160 years ago today - Nov 4, 1860 (Afternoon)

[Brigham Young]

I curse the mean skunk at Camp Floyd in the name of Jesus Christ and they shall be cursed - your sheep, colts, hogs trample upon wheat after wheat and god blessed the earth to bring it to you ...

[The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]

175 years ago today - Nov 4, 1845

[Wilford Woodruff]

I retired to rest & dreamed of being in A ship & a great storm arose And it seemed as though the ship would be swallowed up but it out lived the storm. I also Saw A large serpent which brought forth other serpents.

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

190 years ago today - Nov 4, 1830

... -he asked Joseph [Smith, Jr.] whether he could not ascertain what his [Orson Pratt] mission was and Joseph answered that he would see. & asked Pratt and John Whitmer to go up stairs with him. and arriving there Joseph produced a small stone called a seer stone. and putting it into a hat soon commenced speaking [producing D&C 34].- Orson Pratt's recollection at David Whitmer home

[Palmyra Magic Timeline, http://www.exploringmormonism.com/palmyra-magic-timeline/]

45 years ago today - Nov 03, 1975

U.S. President Gerald Ford appoints Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft as his National Security Affairs (NSA) advisor, replacing Henry Kissinger, who had been both secretary of state and NSA advisor. Scowcroft is the first Latter-day Saint to serve in this top position. He serves again in this position under U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush (1989–93).

75 years ago today - Nov 03, 1945

President George Albert Smith meets with U.S. President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C., to obtain permission for the Church to send food and supplies to the Saints in war-torn Europe.

110 years ago today - Thursday, Nov 3, 1910

[John Henry Smith]

Politics is burning hot. Many dirty and unfair things are being said by both parties.

[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 - Nov 3, 1890 (Monday)

A contract was signed for the erection of the first beet sugar plant in Utah, to cost $400,000.

[Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]

140 years ago today - Nov 3, 1880

Pres[iden]t. A. Hatch of Wasatch [Utah] Stake was criticised for his aversion to Polygamy& letting Dr Russell denounce J[oseph]. F. Smith.

[Franklin D. 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]

170 years ago today - Nov 3, 1850

Fredericka Bremer wrote of a visit to Nauvoo, "We are now in sight of Nauvoo, formerly the capital of the Mormon district, and the magnificent ruin of their former temple is standing on its elevated site." .

[Brown, Lisle (compiler), Chronology of the Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction of the Nauvoo Temple]

185 years ago today - Nov 3, 1835

Eleven of the Twelve are chastened for not being sufficiently humble or equal in financial affairs and for criticizing William Smith.

[Kenney, Scott, Saints Without Halos, "Mormon History 1830-1844," http://web.archive.org/web/20120805163534/saintswithouthalos.com/dirs/d_c.phtml]

185 years ago today - Nov 3, 1835

Joseph receives a revelation for the Twelve, stating that they must humble themselves and be patient with his brother William. He then dedicates the School of the Elders, promising a "glorious endowment that God has in store for the faithful."

[Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]

25 years ago today - Nov 2, 1995

The announcement that Presiding Bishop Merrill J. Bateman will be the new president of BYU, effective 1 Jan. He is also appointed a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Despite Bateman's Ph.D. in economics from MIT, the appointment of a general authority to BYU's helm has the appearance of guaranteeing that the LDS hierarchy will not need to deal with a vigorous advocate for academic freedom at the largest LDS campus. This is how the Chronicle of Higher Education views it. Within months Bateman is the center of national controversy over his speech to BYU students against moral relativism, the published version of which lifts numerous phrases (without quotation marks) from a recently published article by neo-conservative scholar Gertrude Himmelfarb. She is cited (with quotation marks) for only one sentence and phrase of many that Bateman's speech/article interweaves with slight changes in a manner familiar to anyone who has read plagarized papers by freshman students. Bateman publicly apologizes to Himmelfarb and insists that the controversy is about "one" misplaced quotation mark, yet the public image remains that BYU's president participates in the "moral relativism" he condemns.

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