1820s: Joseph Smith experiences visions and revelations.
1830: Joseph Smith founds the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York; the Book of Mormon is published.
1831: Smith has revelation on polygamy; church moves base to Ohio and Missouri.
1839: LDS church flees persecution to Illinois.
1843: Smith's disclosure of a "celestial plural marriage" doctrine increases persecution.
1844: Smith is killed by a mob in an Illinois jail.
1845: Mormons migrate to territories of Utah and Arizona.
1852: Polygamy becomes an official tenet of the LDS religion.
1862: Congress passes the Morrill Act to criminalize polygamy in U.S. territories.
1879: Supreme Court rules in Reynolds v. United States that a Mormon was properly convicted of bigamy, rejecting arguments that anti-polygamy statutes violate religious freedom.
1882: Congress passes the Edmunds Act, making plural marriage in U.S. territories a felony; more than 1,300 Mormons are jailed in Utah.
1887: Congress adopts the Edmunds-Tucker Act requiring plural wives to testify against husbands and abolishing women's suffrage in Utah territory.
1890: LDS church renounces plural marriages.
1896: Utah becomes a state after adopting a constitution that says "polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited."
1904: LDS church imposes excommunication for polygamy.
1912: Arizona attains statehood with a constitutional ban on polygamy.
1913: A splinter group, eventually known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, settles in Short Creek (now Colorado City).
1935: Six polygamists are arrested at Short Creek for unlawful cohabitation.
1944: Federal agents conduct another anti-polygamy sweep in Short Creek.
1953: The most famous Short Creek raid breaks up families and incarcerates husbands.
1984: A conflict within the FLDS sect leads to schism, with The Work of Jesus Christ group moving to Centennial Park.
2003-08: Attorneys general in Arizona and Utah launch a joint campaign against child marriages and other crimes in Colorado City and Hildale. The effort leads to convictions of key FLDS figures.
2003: FLDS begin migration to Eldorado, Texas.
2004: FLDS church leader Warren Jeffs excommunicates 21 men, stripping them of wives, children and homes.
2007: Jeffs, known as the prophet, is convicted of rape as an accomplice for marrying a minor girl to an adult man.
2008: Texas authorities raid the FLDS compound in Texas, taking custody of 416 children. State Supreme Court orders children returned to parents.
Sources: Brigham Young University online timeline of Mormon history; Arizona Republic archives; Salt Lake Tribune chronology; "The Constitutionality of Polygamy Prohibitions" by Joseph Bozzuti.
