The history of the Mormons is neither long nor complicated. Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith in western New York, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the settled United States after Smith’s assassination in Illinois in 1844, establishing their new Zion in the Utah Territory. The refractory, polygamist Mormons spent most of the 19th century warring with American power; then most of the 20th trying to assimilate into mainstream America.
