Lds church History Timeline
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| Elder George Albert Smith receives the Silver Buffalo, the highest award presented by the Boy Scouts of America, in recognition of his outstanding service.
July 5 Elijah Abel, son of Enoch Abel and grandson of Elijah Abel, is ordained a priest despite the priesthood ban for men of African descent. September 23 Anthony W. Ivins dies. October 11 J. Reuben Clark Jr. and Alonzo A. Hinckley are ordained Apostles. 1935 President Heber J. Grant and his counselors reply to the late James E. Talmage's son, Sterling, telling him that “The Earth and Man” presents well-considered views but is not binding on the Church. They also claim that its publication was opposed by all but one of the other Brethren, President Ivins, but this contradicts all earlier first-hand accounts including President Grant's. The Presiding Bishopric announces a goal of performing one million priesthood assignments within the year, hoping to involve the youth more completely in church activity. Certificates of achievement are provided for local quorums meeting specified standards. April 20 The First Presidency assigns stake president Harold B. Lee, due to his success with the Pioneer Stake storehouse, to introduce churchwide the welfare program they have already devised years ago. President Lee prays and receives inspiration that no new organization is needed because the Church already possesses everything it needs to implement the plan. June 30 The Laie Hawaii Stake, the first stake in Hawaii, is formed. August 20 Young Gordon B. Hinckley is assigned by Elder Joseph F. Merrill to inform President Heber J. Grant and his counselors of the critical need for teaching materials in missionary work. They hold a fifteen-minute meeting with him that ends up stretching for an hour as they raise questions. August 22 Gordon B. Hinckley is asked to come work for the Church as secretary of the newly organized Radio, Publicity, and Mission Literature Committee, which also includes six of the Twelve Apostles. The Committee's purpose is to direct the preparation of missionary lectures, tracts, and other literature, as well as scripts for radio programs. September 29 Elijah Abel, son of Enoch Abel and grandson of Elijah Abel, is ordained an elder despite the priesthood ban for men of African descent. 1936 The annual output of church welfare projects increases to include 37,661 bottles of fruit, 175,621 cans of fruit or vegetables, 134,425 pounds of fresh vegetables, 105,000 pounds of flour, 1,393 quilts, and 363,640 items of clothing. Fast offerings also increase. While visiting in the Los Angeles area, Elder John A. Widtsoe recognizes the value of the Deseret Club in the lives of students, and brings it under the sponsorship of the Church Board of Education. It is organized on campuses where there are not enough Church members to justify a full Institute of Religion program. Eventually it is replaced by the Latter-day Saint Student Association. The First Presidency directs the Snowflake Stake in northeastern Arizona to open formal missionary work among the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes. Soon other stakes become similarly involved. Four missionaries in Germany are recruited as basketball judges for the Berlin Olympics. Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, receives its first meetinghouse. April At General Conference, all stakes are instructed to organize a mission, and supervision of these missions is assigned to the First Council of the Seventy. Baptisms and member activity, as well as overall spirituality, sharply increase as a result. April 5 A portion of General Conference is broadcast to Europe via international shortwave radio. April 6 Following the close of General Conference, the Church Security Plan, soon renamed the Church Welfare Plan, is introduced to stake presidencies and ward bishoprics in a special meeting. Unlike the New Deal and similar legislation it embodies principles of self-reliance. The immediate goal is established of providing sufficient food and clothing for all the needy in the Church, and challenging members to increase their fast offerings. May Elder Melvin J. Ballard is invited to Washington, D.C. to explain the Church Security Plan to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They each pledge full cooperation with the other's efforts to meet the challenges of the Depression, and President Roosevelt says he hopes the Church's success will inspire other groups to launch similar programs. October The First Presidency reviews basic principles underlying the Church Security Plan, stating that their purpose is to abolish the curse of idleness and the evils of a dole, and re-establish work as the ruling principle in the lives of church membership. December 22 Alonzo A. Hinckley dies. 1937 Elder LeGrand Richards ends his presidency of the Southern States Mission and leaves the missionaries with an outline titled “The Message of Mormonism”, intended to help them study and present the gospel in a systematic and logical manner. It is used by a number of missions and stake missionaries, and thirteen years later is expanded to create the book A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. The Co-operative Securities Corporation is created to hold title to Church Security System properties and to coordinate its finances. It also makes loans to individuals who cannot borrow from banks or other ordinary channels. With the encouragement of the First Presidency, the Relief Society sponsors courses in sewing, baking, and food preservation. Individual instruction is provided in the home, and group classes convene at welfare canning or sewing centers. March 3 The Idaho Falls Idaho Temple, originally known only as the Idaho Falls Temple, is announced. March 6 The Los Angeles California Temple, originally known only as the Los Angeles Temple, is announced, but the groundbreaking is delayed for over a decade with the outbreak of World War II. March 23 Land for the Los Angeles California Temple is purchased from the Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company. April President J. Reuben Clark Jr. urges the Saints to avoid debt and to have on hand a year's supply of food, clothing, and, where possible, fuel. April 8 Albert E. Bowen is ordained an Apostle. 1938 Brigham Young University, Ricks College, and the LDS Business College lose their separate boards of trustees and are brought under the direct supervision of the General Church Board of Education to achieve more centralized control. The Church restores Carthage Jail, where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred, to its original condition. April 14 Sylvester Q. Cannon, son of George Q. Cannon, is ordained an Apostle. August 8 In response to charges of humanistic ideas entering the curriculum, President J. Reuben Clark Jr. sets forth the mission of the Church's educational program to an assembly of teachers at Aspen Grove near the BYU campus. In an address titled “The Charted Course of the Church in Education”, he insists that the fundamental truths of Jesus Christ's divine mission and the Restoration must be declared fearlessly, and that doubt must not be sown in the hearts of trusting students. September The Church initiates the Deseret Industries thrift store program with Stuart B. Eccles as its first manager. Its aims are to provide another opportunity to help the needy, to reduce waste by keeping possessions in use as long as possible, to provide employment opportunities for old or handicapped members, and to provide good quality items at low cost. September 2 Elder J. Golden Kimball is killed in a single-vehicle auto accident in the Nevada desert fifty miles east of Reno, becoming the only General Authority ever to die in an accident. Some speculate that this is due to his sinful habits of swearing and breaking the Word of Wisdom. September 14 As troops mass on both sides of the German-Czech border and war seems inevitable, the First Presidency orders the evacuation of all missionaries from both countries. The tensions are later resolved at a meeting in Munich where Hitler is allowed to annex western Czechoslovakia, and the missionaries return. November 22 For his eighty-second birthday, President Heber J. Grant receives a copper box filled with one thousand silver dollars to give to his favorite charity. He has them placed in paperweights and sold to raise money for the construction of a planned Primary Children's Hospital that will replace the current one. 1939 A Committee of Correlation and Coordination, headed by three members of the Twelve, is appointed by the First Presidency to study the Church's auxiliary programs and discard any duplication or overlapping in their objectives. President Heber J. Grant is invited to Boise, Idaho, where fifteen prominent local businessmen offer to the Church any available site in Boise to build Idaho's first temple. President Grant chooses Idaho Falls instead due to the concentration of membership in eastern Idaho, but tells them that when membership increases in the Boise area a temple will be built there as well. President J. Reuben Clark Jr. uses his State Department contacts to keep church leaders apprised of developments in Europe on an almost hourly basis. Ezra Taft Benson moves to Washington, D.C., to serve as the executive secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. July 11 Four missionaries in Czechoslovakia are arrested by the German Gestapo and held in Pankrac Prison, normally reserved for political prisoners. Their mission president, Wallace F. Toronto, spends the next six weeks working persistently for their release. July 30 Elder Melvin J. Ballard passes away. August 23 Wallace F. Toronto succeeds in securing the release of the four missionaries arrested by the Gestapo in Czechoslovakia. August 24 The First Presidency orders the evacuation of missionaries from Germany and Czechoslovakia for a second time. Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, who is in Europe conducting the annual tour of missions, is instructed to take charge. Most Czechoslovakian missionaries, along with President Toronto's wife and children, leave immediately for Denmark, but he remains behind to help the recently imprisoned elders recover their passports and other possessions. August 25 In Germany, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith and mission president M. Douglas Wood receive the First Presidency's telegram ordering the evacuation, and direct all missionaries to leave for Holland at once. Most of them, knowing they cannot take German currency out of the country, use their excess funds to purchase cameras and other goods. August 26 Holland closes its borders to almost all foreigners, fearing that the influx of refugees will seriously deplete its already short food supply, and German radio warns that by the next night all railroads will be under military control and no guarantees can be made for civilian travel. Seventeen out of thirty-one West German missionaries, unable to afford tickets to the alternate evacuation point in Copenhagen, Denmark, are stranded. Mission President Wood assigns a missionary named Norman George Seibold to find the lost thirty-one missionaries, unaware of how many have made it out safely. They have no idea where to start looking, so Elder Seibold takes a train through the countryside, relying on spiritual inspiration to know which stops to get off at. August 28 Mission President Wood learns that fourteen of the missionaries have made it to Holland, and receives a telegram from Elder Seibold stating that the others will arrive in Denmark this evening. August 31 Mission President Toronto and his missionaries conclude their business in Czechoslovakia, but before they are able to leave, one of them is rearrested and again thrown in prison. President Toronto is inspired and able to show them that it is a case of mistaken identity, and the elder is promptly released. President Toronto and the missionaries board a special train sent to evacuate the British delegation, the last train to leave Czechoslovakia. September 1 Mission President Toronto and the missionaries pass through Berlin and board the last ferry from Germany to Denmark. Germany invades Poland, causing the outbreak of World War II. It was anticipated over seventy-seven years previous when Orson Hyde prophesied that the demon of war would remove his headquarters to the banks of the Rhine. December 19 Ground is broken for the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple by David Smith. 1940 Weekly genealogy meetings are discontinued and their purpose is incorporated into the Sunday School curriculum. At the same time the Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine is discontinued and its purpose incorporated into the Improvement Era. Herbert Klopfer is called as the president of the East German Mission. He is also drafted into military service and stationed in Berlin, so that he is able to conduct mission business from his military office. June 16 Matthias Cowley dies. September Japan signs a ten-year mutual assistance treaty with Germany and Italy and begins occupying French Indochina. October Prompted by the vulnerability of Britain's overseas holdings and Japan's recent occupation of French Indochina, the First Presidency withdraws all missionaries from the South Pacific and South Africa. Communications remain open, however, and the mission presidents are allowed to stay. October 19 The site for the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple is dedicated by President David O. McKay. 1941 The Church stops sending new missionaries to South America. The Institute director in southern California reports that five high schools in the Los Angeles are have more than one hundred LDS students each, and several others approach that number. However, wartime restrictions preclude Seminary programs from being developed for them. February 9 Reed Smoot, Apostle and Republican Senator, dies. April The First Presidency announces the appointment of a new group of General Authorities called Assistants to the Twelve, to help the Twelve Apostles with the increased administrative burden of a growing church. Five are initially called: Marion G. Romney, Thomas E. McKay, Clifford E. Young, Alma Sonne, and Nicholas G. Smith. Hugh B. Brown is appointed as servicemen's coordinator for the Church. Having attained the rank of major in the Canadian army during World War I, he is able to capitalize on this title in making contact with military authorities. April 10 Harold B. Lee is ordained an Apostle. Summer Seventeen-year-old German Latter-day Saint Helmuth Hübener begins illegally listening to BBC radio broadcasts and discovers the truth about the Nazi regime. He recruits three friends, two of them fellow Mormons, to help him produce and secretly distribute anti-fascist texts and leaflets sharing this information. October 19 The capstone of the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple is laid, completing its exterior, and the interior is expected to be completed by the end of next year. However, World War II shortages begin less than two months later and delay completion for four more years. December 7 Japan launches a pre-emptive strike on Pearl Harbor, a naval base in Hawaii, to dissuade the United States from entering the war. December 8 The United States declares war on Japan, then on Germany. Its involvement further delays the Church's temple building and missionary efforts, and prevents much business from being conducted. December The First Presidency's annual Christmas message declares that only through living the gospel of Jesus Christ will enduring peace come to the world. They exhort members to keep all cruelty, hate, and murder out of their hearts even during battle. 1942 Attendance at General Conferences are limited to specifically invited priesthood leaders, and the Tabernacle is closed to the public. The Relief Society's centennial celebration is postponed due to the war. The annual Hill Cumorah pageant is canceled for the duration of the war. The Church agrees not to call young men of draft age on missions. Afterward, most of those called are women and high priests, and members are forced to take more responsibility for sharing the gospel with those around them. The site for a future temple in Oakland, California is finally purchased after fourteen years of negotiations due to various obstacles. January The First Presidency suspends all stake leadership meetings for the duration of the war. February 5 Helmuth Hübener is arrested by the Gestapo after a Nazi Party member at his workplace catches him trying to translate his pamphlets into French and give them to prisoners of war. April The First Presidency releases an official statement in General Conference, comprehensively and authoritatively reviewing the Church's attitude on war. It promises that as long as servicemen on either side are righteous and pure in heart, God will not hold them accountable for having to kill their enemies in the service of their country's leaders. The statement is widely distributed in pamphlet form. April 27 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks of the need for increased taxes, wage and price controls, and rationing of gasoline and other strategic materials. The Church has already prepared for this with its restrictions on auxiliary meetings and travel, and with the food storage encouraged of members beginning four and a half years ago. Elder Harold B. Lee is convinced this was the result of revelation. August 11 Helmuth Hübener is tried at the Volksgerichtshof in Berlin, found guilty of conspiracy to commit high treason and treasonous furthering of the enemy's cause, and sentenced to death by beheading. The court tries him as an adult despite his age because he has shown evidence of a highly developed mind. Two of his friends are given prison sentences. October A Church Servicemen's Committee is organized with Elder Harold B. Lee as chairman. Its purpose is to work with United States military officials to secure the appointments of Latter-day Saint chaplains. Army and navy officials are reluctant to appoint chaplains who do not meet the usual requirements of being professional clergymen, but the Army Chief of Chaplains favorably remembers how a local Mormon bishop has cared for the spiritual well-being of servicemen in his area, and gradually the appointments are approved. October 27 Helmuth Hübener's lawyers fail to reduce his sentence to life imprisonment. He writes a letter to a fellow member of his congregation, in which he expresses his trust in God's judgment and a better world. Later that day he is beheaded by guillotine at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Later a youth center and pathway in Hamburg are named in his honor, and an exhibit in the converted prison shares his story. Arthur Zander, a local LDS leader and member of the Nazi Party known for posting “Jews Not Welcome” on the meetinghouse door, posthumously excommunicates Helmuth Hübener to make a point. He will not be reinstated until after the war. November George Jumbo, a Navajo Latter-day Saint, travels to Salt Lake City for back surgery. Before returning home he visits President Heber J. Grant with his wife, Mary, who pleads for missionaries to be sent amongst their people. With tears in his eyes, President Grant asks Elder George Albert Smith to arrange it and make sure that it increases rather than fading away. Winter The Beehive Girls donate 228,000 hours collecting scrap metal, fats, and other needed materials, making scrapbooks and baking cookies for soldiers, and tending children for mothers working in defense industries. A special “Honor Bee” award is offered for such service. 1943 Elder Richard R. Lyman is excommunicated. Since the cessation of sending new missionaries to South America two years earlier, none remain on the continent. Missionary work is now limited to North America and Hawaii, and their numbers are reduced as more and more young men are drafted into military service. Only 261 missionaries are called to serve. Mutual Improvement Association youth in the United States and Canada raise more than three million dollars to purchase fifty-five badly needed rescue boats to save the lives of downed airmen. Elder John A. Widtsoe publishes his book Evidences and Reconciliations, which says among other things that evolution may be accepted with no difficulty but should not be the foundation of a life philosophy. Herbert Klopfer, president of the East German Mission, is ordered to the Western front. He leaves his mission affairs and family in the hands of his two counselors. He then visits some Saints in Denmark, who fear him at first because of his German uniform but come to trust him as he bears his testimony of the gospel. April President Heber J. Grant announces the purchase of the site for a temple in Oakland, California, which shall be constructed in due course. May 29 Sylvester Q. Cannon dies. June 21 Rudger Clawson dies. October 7 Spencer W. Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson are ordained Apostles. 1944 Herbert Klopfer, president of the East German Mission, is listed as missing in action on the Eastern front. 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