On this day, June 27, 1844, Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was murdered by a mob at an Illinois jail.
Smith, 38, had founded the church after claiming to have discovered the Book of Mormon in New York.
The religious movement grew, but Smith was banished to Illinois, where he established a community in Nauvoo.
Smith ordered his police to ransack a dissenting Mormon group’s printing press.
Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were jailed in nearby Carthage.
An anti-Mormon mob broke into their jail cell and shot both brothers.
Five men were charged in the Smiths’ deaths, but all were found not guilty by a jury.
Today, the church is the fourth-largest Christian church in America and boasts more than 14 million members worldwide.
