On 3/12 in New Mormon History...

[New Mormon History]

Historic events in New Mormon History on 3/12

1896: The First Presidency gives James E. Talmage "an instruction" to smoke tobacco to relieve his persistent insomnia. Apostle Heber J. Grant is present and gives "his acquiescence" but dates the meeting as 11 Mar. Talmage is then president of the University of Utah and becomes an apostle in 1911. His diary is silent about using this tobacco remedy for insomnia which he occasionally mentions from 1896 on.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1942: A First Presidency letter bans foreign-language meetings in the United States. Directed particularly at German-speaking Mormons, this restriction ends thrity years later as conversion and immigration brings to U.S. congregations thousands of Europeans, Latin-Americans, and Asians who speak little or no English.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1961: The first non-English-speaking stake is organized at The Hague in the Netherlands, which is also the first stake in continental Europe.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1976: African-American Robert Lee Stevenson is elected vice-president of BYU students.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1987: An announcement that the church's Hotel Utah will be remodeled into an additional office building for the LDS bureaucracy. When completed in 1991, renamed the "Joseph Smith Memorial Building" has 75,000 square feet of floor space.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1988: A First Presidency statement supports Child Abuse Prevention Month and encourages Mormons to combat this "pernicious problem."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn

1995: The Quorum of the Twelve sustains Gordon B. Hinckley as church president with Thomas S. Monson and James E. Faust as counselors, this is the longest period without an organized First Presidency since 1898. Hinckley is the first LDS president since Joseph Fielding Smith who has worked his entire adult life in church bureaucracy, church-controlled businesses, and headquarters administration.
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.