committed and was baptized a member of church. once he joined the church, he was a fully devoted member. when he committed to something he committed wholeheartedly. he took many small roles and responsibilities. and when joseph smith revealed the office of the 12 apostles me he was one of the men that was a missionary. in illinois, that core of apostles became more and more important in the leadership of the church. when joseph smith died, brig yum -- brigham young was the leader.

of the core of apostles. there were others that were vying for the leadership of the church. it was a difficult and confusing time for church members. they were not sure if we should have another president of the church. how do you replace a man like joseph smith. ? smithbut he is the one who got the majority of the saints. he gathered the majority of the saints together and said we have the authority to lead the church. joseph smith gave us all the priesthood that is needed to lead this church and we're going to take these people to the west. he was a very interesting man. he was a great leader. one of the great liters in the 19th century in america. there are interesting things about him, for instance, he tended to lead by example. if you are going on a trek, he is at the forefront. if you have to dig out of a mud hole, he was the first one with the shovel. that generated respect and love among the people. he was just -- he was very, very

capable. he was able to envision a future, envision what they needed to do and figure out how to get it done. he was also an individual who had a deep spiritual core to him. there were a number of people in nauvoo when he spoke who said as he was speaking he started to look like joseph smith. they felt that was a sign that a mantle of leadership fell on his shoulders. in 1847, he was sustained, that means he was proposed by the core of the 12 apostles voted to sustain him as president of the church. in 1847, brigham young led a group of group to the valley. they were paving the way, they

were finding the best routes, they were sent here to find a way and get things started. once they established a fort and got family settled and crops planted, many of the men turned around and went back to the missouri river. there was about 11,000, 12,000 people waiting to come. he went back to organize this massive migration that was about to come more than 1,000 miles to the salt lake valley. the ultimate goal in settling the salt lake valley or all of utah territory was to establish as what the latter day saints referred to as zion. it was planned to be an ideal community. in a way it was a utopian community. it was meant to be a religious city. it was meant to have equality

and justice and peace and harmony and love. in order to do that, they felt like they had to be away from ors to lay out their towns in this ordered system that joseph smith had established that we call the city of zion where the streets are uniform. it is laid out by the compass at the heart of the community. they were really about trying to build the kingdom of god on earth. in 1850, brigham young was appointed by the president of the united states. -- governor of the utah territory by millard fillmore. he took that to heart. one of the challenges in the territorial government is while you might have a local person be a governor or be in a few -- in a key position, most of the

territory officials are outsiders so they were brought from around the united states. somebody who was owed a political favor for some reason so they were sent here to utah. there was a great clash between bring ham young and the outside territory officials. there are probably faults on both sides. young on the other hand was used to running things his way. some of the territorial officials worse ground rules. -- were scoundrels. when the territorial officials came in he was.as open to working with them. -- he was not as open to working with them. the money for the treasury got here much long before the treasurer got here so he was spending the money for the treasury and all of these conflicts started to arise. if you are to say what are the challenges in his personality? i think one of them is he was plain spoken.

he said exactly what he thought even if it was very abrasive. he was not afraid who he said it to. he was not one to play political games. he just rejected that. when he doesn't get along with the territorial officials and word gets back to washington, d.c. and complaints back and forth, you just have conflict starting to build and tension starting to build. of the united states at that time was buchanan sent an army about 3,000 u.s. soldiers. to utah. that was a major part of the army at that time to put down what they perceived as the mormon rebellion. they were going to burn their houses. most of the people left the valley and there was a man standing in front of his house

ready to burn it to the ground. the army passed through peacefully and set up fort south of salt lake city. one of the issues that the federal government was concerned about was the report of plural marriage or polygamy as it is widely known. it was disturbing to many people. also the mormon tendency towards communal practices and controlling local politics. there were no political parties or there was one political party and it was part of the church government. brigham young was in the political government. brigham young was the governor. he was one of the most -- is probably most well-known because he practiced polygamy. it was revealed buy joseph smith.

when he was first taught that concept, it was difficult for him to accept. he later recalled that he looked out the window and saw a hearse carrying a body to the cemetery and he wished he was in the coffin. that was his initial reaction but overtime he accepted that doctrine and became most widely known practitioners of that doctrines. he had 55 wives total and to explain that you have to understand the mormon concept. people can be sealed for married for this life but if you are sealed you can be sealed for eternity. that means that marriage will continue into the next life.

so many of the women he was married to was just a matter of women wanting to be married to him for eternity and not for life. how many wives did he have in his household? he was married twice monogamously. his first wife died and he had 24 wives that were he considered part of his household. the family sometimes says 27 and you can argue endlessly about the numbers and what it all means. the idea of salvation was really the core thing that motivated him. you look at his sermons and over and over again he is constantly encouraging and sometimes per rating people to live better lives and give up sin and get on their knees and repent.

we don't have a lot of stories about brigham young. one daughter told a story how she was out in the stables with her father and a hired man left a fine saddle on the floor and it was kicked around and getting dusty. he had a quick temper and a quick tongue. he chewed out the stable hand who left it there. then he stomped in the house where she followed along and he went into his bedroom slammed the door. she could hear him say bring ham get on your knees now and repent. that helps you get a sense of how important he felt personal behavior was and how much he

yearned for having the acceptance of his father in heaven. brigham young died in the lion house of salt lake city. in 1877. he had been declining a number of years. he suffered from rheumatism, at one point he had to have all of his teeth pulled and he had dentures. his final illness, some people -- some kind of intestinal thing, some people thought it was a appendicitis but it was not sure what actually took his life. he is a very interesting character. he left strict instructions about his funeral. he wanted his coffin to be a certain size, so many inches taller than he was and so many inches to the side. he wanted to turn over if he wanted.

he wanted a pillow under his head. he gave strict instructions, no black. he did not want his wives or children to wear black. he was going home to his heavenly home. there was a grand funeral held in the salt lake taber knack kill and his body was carried up the street to the small cemetery on his own estate where he lies buried still today. brigham young remains one of the most influential people in american history because of his vision on what could be built here in the american west. almost 400 mormon settlements in, not only utah but idaho, nevada, california, arizona. they spread far and wide. they built important infrastructure and he had that vision that brought tens of

thousands of people here to the american west to establish these mormon communities and to build a society that was striving to be as christian as they could possibly be. >> find out where c-span's local content vehicles are going next online at www.c-span.org/local content. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span three. >> when i started covering congress, you had people like senator russell long, wilbur ,ills, danny rostenkowski howard baker -- people who were giants in their own way.

a couple of those guys got themselves into trouble but overall, these were people -- they were all very intelligent. they knew how to craft legislation. he knew how to do a deal and they all worked with whoever the president was. whether it was their party or the other party -- yes, there were politics, but at the end of the day, they found a way to come together and make decisions for the good of the country. today, you don't see that anymore. i think the quality of members of congress in the house and senate in terms of their intelligence and their work ethic has diminished. there are still great people and i should not malign -- there are wonderful members on both sides but i think they are a minority. increasingly, people are driven by the politics and by their own self survivor -- cell survival. -- self survival. the hardest work they do is raising money, it's not crafting

deals -- is making speeches and positioning themselves to get reelected. >> emmy award-winning journalist lisa myers is leaving washington, d.c. behind. find out why sunday night at 8:00 on "q&a." >> one of the things people don't always recognize is that during the war of 1812, it was fought from 1812 until after 1814, early 1815. americaeally about reestablishing its independence against the british. this was sort of our second american revolution. this flag is the object for g pens theis scott words which became our national anthem. in 1995 of the flag made to look old and restored. there was a whole bottom section that was reconstructed.

when the flag was moved into the space, there was a deliberate decision by the curators not to do that again. what we wanted was that the flight becomes a metaphor for the country. it is tattered and torn but it still survives on the message is the survival of the country and the flight we are not trying to make it look pretty. we are trying to make it look like it has endured its history and it still can celebrate its history. the 200thar marks anniversary of the british naval bombardment of fort mchenry during the war of 1812. learn more about the flag francis scott key wrote about while we tour the smithsonian's star-spangled than her exhibit, sunday night at 6:00 and 10 p.m. eastern, part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> the idea behind 215-250

instead of trying to sell the whole history of st. louis, we important vitally things. consider trying to do that and failing, we decided if we gave snapshots of st. louis history that would give people a glimpse of all the diverse things that have happened here and they can use their imagination to fill in the rest. we chose a 50 people, 50 places, 50 moments, 50 images, and 50 objects and try to choose the most diverse selection possible. >we are standing in the 50 50jects section of the 250/2 display and some people call this the real history. this is where the object is right in front of you. brewing is such a huge part of st. louis history. it's an amazing story with lots of different breweries and the most famous became anheuser-busch which became the largest in the world.

in the era of anheuser-busch talking about millions of barrels produced each year, we think they are producing so much beer -- this is from an era where things were a little bit simpler as fun to show people this object and gauge their response. in the days before they had cans or bottle caps, they put corks on top of bottles and somebody had to sit on this thing and do it by hand. you can see it's got foot petals on the bottom which is where the operator would push down with his feet to give the core can afford to go into the bottle and it's got three holes for three different sized bubbles. >> next weekend, the history and literary life of st. louis, the gateway to the west, on book tv and c-span3's american history tv. cameraman for hearst corporation was assigned

to cover the invasion of france in 1944. this was compiled by mr. lieb from his color films. the national archives restored the film together with the 1976 audio recording of his lecture. it was his last lecture before he passed away. the film and audio were donated to the national archives in 1984 by warrenlieb, his son. the one place that intrigued me was my first trip to london and the house of our lament and big ben. -- the house of our lament and big ben -- parliament and big ben. the pictures are more than a quarter of the century old and that thing that amused the boys stationed all over england was westminster abbey. there were quite a few