SOTW 4 Annotated for LDS Ch. 2 West Against East

Japan Re-Opens

With Japan opening its borders to outsiders, many Christian churches
were able to send missionaries to the natives there. The Latter-day
Saints waited until 1901 to send their first missionaries there,
although there were Saints who traveled to Japan as merchants and
sailors before the mission was opened.

The Crimean War

The unrest in Europe was a catalyst in the great number of emigrants
to the United States. Approximately ten percent of the Latter-day
Saints in Europe migrated in 1855, the time of the Crimean War. Many
of these became the handcart pioneers of whom we have heard so much
(Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1-4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, New
York: Macmillan, 1992, p.674).

Interestingly, the war had another influence on the Mormon community
in Utah. When the Russians were about to lose control of the city,
Sevastopol, they blew up their military stronghold rather than let the
British and French forces capture it. This action was greatly admired
by many of the Saints in Utah, who were frustrated with their
experiences in Europe, and may have prompted a similar decision by the
Saints in 1857 to destroy all that they had before they would let the
U.S. government commandeer their property for their troops ("The Move
South," Richard D. Poll , BYU Studies, vol. 29 (1989), Number 4 - Fall
1989, p.66).