Millions of people around the world know him, yet this frontier prophet of the early 1800s found little honor and eventual martyrdom at the hands of an angry mob in his own country. Who was this Joseph Smith and what was it about his remarkable life story, which inspired such impassioned rancor or unflinching loyalty? This 90-minute docu-drama will touch Joseph's life from his birth in 1805 to his violent death in 1844. From his "vision" of deity in 1820 to his Book of Mormon translation and publication in 1829 to the formal organizing of the Mormon Church, and then to his gatherings of converts to settlements in New York, Ohio, Missouri and finally in Illinois. He was murdered in June 1844 in Carthage, Illinois. The faithful followers of this new religion completed the Temple, under construction, in nearby Nauvoo and then were forced to flee for their lives. It was a volatile time for this fledgling American born religion, but amidst a state governor's order for their "extermination," to their expulsion to a new settlement on the Mississippi, Joseph Smith formed a Church, which survived and flourished and remains today, one of the major Christian religions in American with a worldwide population nearing 16 million adherents.
