Joseph Smith, Jr.

Joseph Smith, Jr. (23 December 1805 – 27 June 1844) was the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, a group of churches whose adherents regard him as a prophet. During the late 1820s he became the leader of a small group of followers who believed that an angel had given him a book of golden plates containing a religious history of ancient American peoples. Smith said he had translated the writing on the plates from an unknown language into English; and in 1830, he published the translation as the Book of Mormon and organized what he said was a restoration of the early Christian church 1