On 4/4 in New Mormon History...

[New Mormon History]

Historic events in New Mormon History on 4/4

1880: John Taylor and the Twelve vote to accept as the "Word of the Lord" a revelation on plural marriage received by Apostle Wilford Woodruff on 26 Jan. 1880. Text available but never canonized or officially published. Presiding Patriarch John Smith (b. 1832) is the only general authority to oppose the adoption of this revelation.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1899: Franklin D. Richards tells a quarterly meeting of the apostles that God "revealed to the Prophet true Masonry as we have it in our temples."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1925: Heber J. Grant warns the general priesthood meeting against the Ku Klux Klan, and remarks: "It is beyond my comprehension how people holding the priesthood will want to associate themselves with the Ku Klux Klan or any other [similar] organization."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1931: Heber J. Grant announces that the church will give whatever assistance it can to aid the criminal prosecution of polygamists.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1951: George Albert Smith dies.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1959: second counselor J. Reuben Clark tells general conference that "whenever you begin to make great expenditures of money, there is always some lack of wisdom, sometimes a lack of foresight, occasionally, oh so occasionally in this Church, a lack of integrity."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1981: Conference sustains the first Hispanic Latin American as a general authority, the First Quorum of the Seventy's Angel Abrea.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1982: Counselor Gordon B. Hinckley tells general conference: "Of course, there are aberrations in our history. There are blemishes to be found, if searched for, in the lives of all men, including our leaders past and present. But these are only incidental to the magnitude of their service and to the greatness of their contributions. Keep before you the big picture, for this cause is as large as all mankind and as broad as all eternity."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1984: R. Craig Smith, Mormon CIA agent, is arrested for espionage. Acquitted in 1986, his biographical exoneration is published the next year in Utah by the manager of the Dale Carnegie Training Programs. Four years earlier the government convicted the first CIA agent, non-LDS, to be arrested for espionage.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1987: Conference sustains Douglas J. Martin of New Zealand as the first general authority from the South Pacific. Also John R. Lasater is the first Vietnam War veteran and the highest-ranking veteran (general) to become a general authority.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1987: First counselor Gordon B. Hinckley tells the priesthood session of conference that "marriage should not be viewed as a therapeutic step to solve problems such as homosexual inclinations or practices..." This reverses the decades-long policy formulated by Spencer W. Kimball.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1988: Arizona's state senate convicts Governor Evan Mecham of "high crimes and misdemeanors," thus removing him from office. Mecham is the first Mormon office-holder to be impeached (February 1988), and the first to be convicted by the senate and constitutionally removed from office. Every LDS legislator (all Republicans) voted against his impeachment; there were no Mormons in Arizona senate by the mid 1990s.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1992: Apostle Richard G. Scott tells the general conference that LDS women should avoid "morbid probing into details of past acts, long buried and mercifully forgotten," and that "the Lord may prompt a victim to recognize a degree of responsibility for abuse." Among his concluding remarks: "Remember, false accusation is also a sin," and "bury the past." The unspoken background to his remarks is that in recent years current stake presidents and temple workers have been accused of child abuse by their now adult children. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that suicide-prevention lines are swamped with telephone calls by women in the days after Scott's remarks.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn



To see the whole database in chronological order, Click here. Note that I'm not done entering all the information. While most of these facts come from Quinn's book, I'm seeking the primary sources for each, but this will take a long time.