Millennial fervor gripped many people around the world during the first half of the nineteenth century. While Christians expected the return of Christ, a wave of expectation swept through Islam that the Lord of the Age would appear. Both Christians and Muslims believed that a new spiritual age was about to begin. In Persia, this messianic expectation reached a dramatic climax on May 23, 1844, when a twenty-five-year-old merchant from Shiraz--the BC b--announced that He was the bearer of a long-promised Divine Revelation destined to transform the spiritual life of the human race. Against a backdrop of wide-scale moral decay in Persian society, the BC b's declaration aroused hope and excitement among all classes. He quickly attracted thousands of followers. Why He did so, and why the events of over 150 years ago - including the BC b's execution and the massacre of some 20,000 of His followers - have relevance today, is one of the great and dramatic untold stories of our time.