40 years ago today - Sep 9, 1977

An entrepreneur purchases the only LDS chapel in Washington D.C. from the Church for $300,000 and the same day, sells the building Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church for $475,000. The building, dedicated in 1933 by Heber J. Grant, had been abandoned for two years. Local church leaders felt the building was too costly to refurbish. Rev. Moon, who is accepted by his followers as the new messiah, "sanctifies" the building on Sep 12.