Church of Christ, the original church of the Latter Day Saint movement, was organized by Joseph Smith and others at either Fayette or Manchester, New York on April 6, 1830.
The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, later renamed Community of Christ, is organized by Joseph Smith III and others at Amboy, Illinois on April 6, 1860.
The  Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was dedicated by Wilford Woodruff on April 6, 1893. Â
Church of Latter-day Saints Day        Â
It was on April 6, 1830, in Fayette, New York, that a small  group led by Joseph Smith organized the "Church of Christ," the first  church of what would become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day  Saints (LDS). The anniversary date of April 6 has become known as Church  of Latter-day Saints Day.
Joseph Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni visited him in a  vision in 1823 and told him about a Hebrew text that had been lost for  1,500 years. The text recounted the story of Israelites who had lived in  the Americas during the time before Christ and had prophets similar to  those in the Old Testament. Smith said he was told the text had been  engraved on gold plates in the fourth century by a Native American  historian, and that the plates were buried in a nearby hill. He said he  excavated them four years later after Moroni told him where they were.  Smith translated the text into English and it was published as The Book of Mormon  in 1830, the same year he organized the church. On account of this  book, members of the church are often called Mormons, although the  church discourages the use of the term.
The church taught there would be a Second Coming of Christ which  would be followed by a "1,000-year reign of peace." Because of this,  Smith wanted to establish a "Zion," or kingdom of God, in the western  United States. Mormon communities were set up in Ohio, Illinois, and  Missouri, with the latter being chosen as the location for Zion. In  1839, Smith founded the city of Nauvoo in Illinois. The group there  faced hostility from non-Mormons, and after Smith pushed back against  dissidents within the church, the hostility and resentment from  non-Mormons heightened even more, and Smith was arrested. Smith and his  brother were murdered in a jail cell by an anti-Mormon mob in nearby  Carthage, Illinois, on June 27, 1844.
Smith's successor as church president, Brigham Young, set out from  Nauvoo and headed west with a group of 148 Mormons in 1846. They arrived  in Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah in July 1847. Young said, "this  is the place," and the group settled. Young sent missionaries across  North America and Europe, and new members were encouraged to move to  Utah.
The settlement applied for statehood in 1849 and was denied, but  Young was made governor of the new Territory of Utah. Further efforts to  gain statehood in the 1850s went nowhere once it became publicly known  that Mormons practiced polygamy and that they wished to form a  theocratic government. Then, the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place,  during which Mormons killed members of a wagon train. In response, the  military arrived and a non-Mormon governor was put in charge of the  territory.
Young died in 1877 and church leadership was taken over by John  Taylor, and then by Wilford Woodruff. In 1890, during Woodruff's  presidency, the church announced it was banning polygamy in the United  States, in order to follow the country's law. (Polygamy was still  allowed outside of the United States and it continued in locations like  Mexico.) Utah was admitted as a state in 1896.
Today there are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day  Saints all around the world. In the early twenty-first century, church  membership was at about 16 million. The church is still headquartered in  Salt Lake City, Utah, and more members reside in the United States than  in any other country. Over 150 groups have sprouted off of the LDS for  various doctrinal and political reasons. The biggest is the Community of  Christ, which was known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of  the Latter-day Saints until 2001. It is headquartered in Independence,  Missouri, the location that Smith had designated as Zion.
The Book of Mormon and the King James Version of the Bible  are the two most important texts in the Church of Jesus Christ of  Latter-day Saints. Other important texts are Pearl of Great Price and Doctrines and Covenants.  The church teaches of a "Godhead" of three beings: Father, Son, and  Holy Ghost. But unlike Christians, who see them as part of the Trinity,  they teach that they are separate entities.
Like Christianity, they teach that Jesus Christ came to Earth to die  for everyone's sins and that he rose from the dead, but they also teach  that people's own actions have an effect on their future. They teach  that faithful members will become gods themselves and that Christ will  return and rule on Earth for 1,000 years. After this, the Earth will  become a celestial sphere and the highest kingdom of heaven, where the  righteous will live. Others will live in lesser kingdoms known as  "terrestrial" and "telestial."
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