title: Socialist Party of America

text: The experience of the civil rights movement and the coalition of labor unions and other progressive forces suggested that the United States was changing and that a mass movement of the democratic left was possible. In terms of electoral politics, Shachtman, Harrington and Kahn argued that it was a waste of effort to run electoral campaigns as Socialist Party candidates against Democratic Party candidates. They instead advocated a political strategy called "realignment" that prioritized strengthening labor unions and other progressive organizations that were already active in the Democratic Party. Contributing to the day-to-day struggles of the civil rights movement and labor unions had gained socialists credibility and influence and had helped to push politicians in the Democratic Party toward social-democratic positions on civil rights and the War on Poverty.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: The Socialist Party's 1972 convention had two co-chairmen, Bayard Rustin and Charles S. Zimmerman of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU); and a First National Vice Chairman, James S. Glaser, who were reelected by acclamation. In his opening speech to the convention, Rustin called for the group to organize against the "reactionary policies of the Nixon Administration" and also criticized the "irresponsibility and élitism of the 'New Politics' liberals".The party changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34. Renaming the party SDUSA was meant to be "realistic". "The New York Times" observed that the Socialist Party had last sponsored a candidate for President in 1956, who received only 2,121 votes cast in only six states. Because the party no longer sponsored candidates in presidential elections, the name "Party" had been "misleading" as "Party" had hindered the recruiting of activists who participated in the Democratic Party, according to the majority report. The name "Socialist" was replaced by "Social Democrats" because many Americans associated the word "socialism" with Soviet Communism. The party also wished to distinguish itself from two small Marxist parties, the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Labor Party.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: The Unity Caucus had a supermajority of votes and its position carried on every issue by a ratio of two to one. The convention elected a national committee of 33 members, with 22 seats for the majority caucus, eight seats for Harrington's "Coalition Caucus", two for the "Debs Caucus" and one for the independent Samuel H. Friedman. Friedman and the minority caucuses had opposed the name change.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: The convention voted on and adopted proposals for its program by a two-one vote. On foreign policy, the program called for "firmness toward Communist aggression", but on the Vietnam War the program opposed "any efforts to bomb Hanoi into submission" and instead endorsed negotiating a peace agreement, which should protect Communist political cadres in South Vietnam from further military or police reprisals. Harrington's proposal for an immediate withdrawal of American forces was defeated. Harrington complained that after its March 1972 convention the Socialist Party had endorsed George McGovern with a statement loaded with "constructive criticism". He also complained that the party had not mobilized enough support for McGovern. The majority caucus's Arch Puddington replied that the California branch had been especially active in supporting McGovern while the New York branch had instead focused on a congressional race.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: Late in October 1972, before the Socialist Party's December Convention, Harrington resigned as National Co-Chairman of the Socialist Party. Although little remarked upon at the time despite Harrington's status as "possibly the most widely known of the Socialist leaders since the death of Norman Thomas", it soon became clear that this was the precursor of a decisive split in the organization.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: Harrington had written extensively about the progressive potential of the so-called "New Politics" in the Democratic Party and had come to advocate unilateral withdrawal from the Vietnam War and positions more conservative party members saw as "avant-garde" on the questions of abortion and gay rights. This put him and his co-thinkers at odds with the party's younger generation of leaders, who espoused a strongly labor-oriented direction for the party and who were broadly supportive of AFL–CIO leader George Meany.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: In the early spring of 1973, Harrington resigned from the SDUSA. The same year, he and his supporters formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). At its start, DSOC had 840 members, of whom 2% served on its national board, while approximately 200 had been members of SDUSA or its predecessors whose membership was then 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington. Its high-profile members included Congressman Ron Dellums and William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists. In 1982, DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) upon merging with the New American Movement, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: The Union for Democratic Socialism was another organization formed by former members of the Socialist Party. David McReynolds, who had resigned from the Socialist Party between 1970 and 1971, along with many from the Debs Caucus, were the core members. In 1973, the UDS declared itself the Socialist Party USA.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: This is a brief representative sample of Socialist Party leaders not listed above as presidential or vice presidential candidates. For a more comprehensive list, see the list of members of the Socialist Party of America.


title: Socialist Party of America

text: Most of the socialist press was privately owned as the party was concerned that a single official publication might lead to censorship in favor of the editors' views, in much the same way Daniel DeLeon used "The People" to dominate the Socialist Labor Party. A number of papers carried the party's official notices in its first years, the most important being "The Worker" (New York), "The Appeal to Reason" (Girard, Kansas), "The Socialist" (Seattle and Toledo, Ohio), "The Worker's Call" (Chicago), "St. Louis Labor", and "The Social Democratic Herald" (Milwaukee). The party soon discovered that it needed a more regular means of communication with its members and the 1904 National Convention decided to establish a regular party organ. Over the next seven decades, a series of official publications were issued directly by the SPA, most of which are today available on microfilm in essentially full runs:


title: Socialist Party of America

text: The Socialist party did not win a presidential election during its tenure from 1904 to 1956 or receive a vote in the Electoral College.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Liberté, égalité, fraternité (), French for "liberty, equality, fraternity", is the national motto of France and the Republic of Haiti, and is an example of a tripartite motto. Although it finds its origins in the French Revolution, it was then only one motto among others and was not institutionalized until the Third Republic at the end of the 19th century. Debates concerning the compatibility and order of the three terms began at the same time as the Revolution. It is also the motto of the Grand Orient and the Grande Loge de France.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Some claim that Camille Desmoulins in number 35 of "Révolutions de France et de Brabant", published on July 26, 1790. Speaking of the festival of July 14, 1790, he described "the citizen-soldiers rushing into each other's arms, promising each other "liberty, equality, fraternity."" (French: "les soldats-citoyens se précipiter dans les bras l’un de l’autre, en se promettant liberté, égalité, fraternité.") invented the phrase, however it isn't confirmed as this is only the first official mention of the phrase.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Several months later, Maximilien Robespierre popularized the phrase in his speech "On the organization of the National Guard" (), on 5 December 1790, article XVI, which was disseminated widely throughout France by the popular Societies.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Credit for the motto has been given also to Antoine-François Momoro (1756–1794), a Parisian printer and Hébertist organizer, though in different context of foreign invasion and Federalist revolts in 1793,


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: it was modified to "Unity, indivisibility of the Republic; liberty, equality, brotherhood or death" () and suggested by a resolution of the Paris Commune (of which Momoro was elected member by his section du Théâtre-Français) on 29 June 1793 to be inscribed on Parisian house-fronts and imitated by the inhabitants of other cities. In 1839, the philosopher Pierre Leroux claimed it had been an anonymous and popular creation. The historian Mona Ozouf underlines that, although "Liberté" and "Égalité" were associated as a motto during the 18th century, "Fraternité" wasn't always included in it, and other terms, such as "Amitié" (Friendship), "Charité" (Charity) or "Union" were often added in its place.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: The emphasis on "Fraternité" during the French Revolution led Olympe de Gouges, a female journalist, to write the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen as a response. The tripartite motto was neither a creative collection, nor really institutionalized by the Revolution. As soon as 1789, other terms were used, such as ""la Nation, la Loi, le Roi"" (The Nation, The Law, The King), or ""Union, Force, Vertu"" (Union, Strength, Virtue), a slogan used beforehand by masonic lodges, or ""Force, Égalité, Justice"" (Strength, Equality, Justice), ""Liberté, Sûreté, Propriété"" (Liberty, Security, Property), etc.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: In other words, "liberté, égalité, fraternité" was only one slogan among many others. During the Jacobin revolutionary period, various mottos were used, such as "liberté, unité, égalité" (liberty, unity, equality); "liberté, égalité, justice" (liberty, equality, justice); "liberté, raison, égalité" (liberty, reason, equality), etc. The only solid association was that of "liberté" and "égalité", "fraternité" being ignored by the "Cahiers de doléances" as well as by the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. It was only alluded to in the 1791 Constitution, as well as in Robespierre's draft Declaration of 1793, placed under the invocation of (in that order) "égalité, liberté, sûreté" and "propriété" (equality, liberty, safety, property—though it was used not as a motto, but as articles of declaration), as the possibility of a universal extension of the Declaration of Rights: "Men of all countries are brothers, he who oppresses one nation declares himself the enemy of all." It did not figure in the August 1793 Declaration.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 defined liberty in Article 4 as follows:


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Equality, on the other hand, was defined by the Declaration in terms of judicial equality and merit-based entry to government (art. 6):


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" actually finds its origins in a May 1791 proposition by the "Club des Cordeliers", following a speech on the Army by the Marquis de Guichardin. A British marine held prisoner on the French ship "Le Marat" in 1794 wrote home in letters published in 1796:


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: The compatibility of "liberté" and "égalité" was not in doubt in the first days of the Revolution, and the problem of the antecedence of one term on the other not lifted. Thus, the Abbé Sieyès considered that only liberty ensured equality, unless the latter was to be the equality of all dominated by a despot; while liberty followed equality ensured by the rule of law. The abstract generality of law (theorized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his 1762 book "The Social Contract") thus ensured the identification of liberty to equality, liberty being negatively defined as an independence from arbitrary rule, and equality considered abstractly in its judicial form.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: This identification of liberty and equality became problematic during the Jacobin period, when equality was redefined (for instance by François-Noël Babeuf) as equality of results, and not only judicial equality of rights. Thus, Marc Antoine Baudot considered that French temperament inclined rather to equality than liberty, a theme which would be re-used by Pierre Louis Roederer and Alexis de Tocqueville, while Jacques Necker considered that an equal society could only be found on coercion.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: The third term, "fraternité", was the most problematic to insert in the triad, as it belonged to another sphere, that of moral obligations rather than rights, links rather than statutes, harmony rather than contract, and community rather than individuality. Various interpretations of "fraternité" existed. The first one, according to Mona Ozouf, was one of ""fraternité de rébellion"" (Fraternity of Rebellion), that is the union of the deputies in the "Jeu de Paume Oath" of June 1789, refusing the dissolution ordered by the King Louis XVI: "We swear never to separate ourselves from the National Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations." Fraternity was thus issued from Liberty and oriented by a common cause.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Another form of "fraternité" was that of the patriotic Church, which identified social links with religious links and based fraternity on Christian brotherhood. In this second sense, "fraternité" preceded both "liberté" and "égalité", instead of following them as in the first sense. Thus, two senses of Fraternity: "one, that followed liberty and equality, was the object of a free pact; the other preceded liberty and equality as the mark on its work of the divine craftsman."


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Another hesitation concerning the compatibility of the three terms arose from the opposition between liberty and equality as individualistic values, and fraternity as the realization of a happy community, devoid of any conflicts and opposed to any form of egotism. This fusional interpretation of Fraternity opposed it to the project of individual autonomy and manifested the precedence of Fraternity on individual will.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: In this sense, it was sometimes associated with death, as in "Fraternité, ou la Mort!" (Fraternity or Death!), excluding liberty and even equality, by establishing a strong dichotomy between those who were brothers and those who were not (in the sense of "you are with me or against me", brother or foe). Louis de Saint-Just thus stigmatized Anarchasis Cloots' cosmopolitanism, declaring "Cloots liked the universe, except France."


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: With Thermidor and the execution of Robespierre, "fraternité" disappeared from the slogan, reduced to the two terms of liberty and equality, re-defined again as simple judicial equality and not as the equality upheld by the sentiment of fraternity. The First Consul (Napoleon Bonaparte) then established the motto "liberté, ordre public" (liberty, public order).


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Following Napoleon's rule, the triptych dissolved itself, as none believed it possible to conciliate individual liberty and equality of rights with equality of results and fraternity. The idea of individual sovereignty and of natural rights possessed by man before being united in the collectivity contradicted the possibility of establishing a transparent and fraternal community. Liberals accepted liberty and equality, defining the latter as equality of rights and ignoring fraternity.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Early socialists rejected an independent conception of liberty, opposed to the social, and also despised equality, as they considered, as Fourier, that one had only to orchestrate individual discordances, to harmonize them, or they believed, as Saint-Simon, that equality contradicted equity by a brutal levelling of individualities. Utopian socialism thus only valued fraternity, which was, in Cabet's Icarie the sole commandment.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: This opposition between liberals and socialists was mirrored in rival historical interpretations of the Revolution, liberals admiring 1789, and socialists 1793. The July Revolution of 1830, establishing a constitutional monarchy headed by Louis-Philippe, substituted "ordre et liberté" (order and liberty) to the Napoleonic motto "Liberté, Ordre public". Despite this apparent disappearance of the triptych, the latter was still being thought in some underground circles, in Republican secret societies, masonic lodges such as the "Indivisible Trinity," far-left booklets or during the Canuts Revolt in Lyon. In 1834, the lawyer of the Society of the Rights of Man (Société des droits de l'homme), Dupont, a liberal sitting in the far-left during the July Monarchy, associated the three terms together in the "Revue Républicaine" which he edited:


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: The triptych resurfaced during the 1847 "Campagne des Banquets", upheld for example in Lille by Ledru-Rollin.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Two interpretations had attempted to conciliate the three terms, beyond the antagonism between liberals and socialists. One was upheld by Catholic traditionalists, such as Chateaubriand or Ballanche, the other by socialist and republicans such as Pierre Leroux. Chateaubriand thus gave a Christian interpretation of the revolutionary motto, stating in the 1841 conclusion to his "Mémoires d'outre-tombe":


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Neither Chateaubriand nor Ballanche considered the three terms to be antagonistic. Rather, they took them for being the achievement of Christianity. On the other hand, Pierre Leroux did not disguise the difficulties of associating the three terms, but superated it by considering liberty as the aim, equality as the principle and fraternity as the means. Leroux thus ordered the motto as Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, an order also supported by Christian socialists, such as Buchez.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Against this new order of the triptych, Michelet supported the traditional order, maintaining the primordial importance of an original individualistic right. Michelet attempted to conciliate a rational communication with a fraternal communication, "right beyond right", and thus the rival traditions of socialism and liberalism. The republican tradition would strongly inspire itself from Michelet's synchretism.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: With the 1848 February Revolution, the motto was officially adopted, mainly under the pressure of the people who had attempted to impose the red flag over the tricolor flag (the 1791 red flag was, however, the symbol of martial law and of order, not of insurrection). Lamartine opposed popular aspirations, and in exchange of the maintaining of the tricolor flag, conceded the Republican motto of "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité", written on the flag, on which a red rosette was also to be added.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Fraternity was then considered to resume and to contain both Liberty and Equality, being a form of civil religion (which, far from opposing itself to Christianity, was associated with it in 1848) establishing social links (as called for by Rousseau in the conclusion of the "Social Contract").


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: However, Fraternity was not devoid of its previous sense of opposition between brothers and foes, images of blood haunting revolutionary Christian publications, taking in Lamennais' themes. Thus, the newspaper "Le Christ républicain" (The Republican Christ) developed the idea of the Christ bringing forth peace to the poor and war to the rich.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: As soon as 6 January 1852, the future Napoleon III, first President of the Republic, ordered all prefects to erase the triptych from all official documents and buildings, conflated with insurrection and disorder. Auguste Comte applauded Napoleon, claiming equality to be the "symbol of metaphysical anarchism", and preferring to it his diptych ""ordre et progrès"" ("order and progress", which would then become the motto of Brazil, Ordem e Progresso). On the other hand, Proudhon criticized fraternity as an empty word, which he associated with idealistic dreams of Romanticism. He preferred to it the sole term of liberty.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Pache, mayor of the Paris Commune, painted the formula "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la mort" on the walls of the commune. It was only under the Third Republic that the motto was made official. It was then not dissociated with insurrection and revolutionary ardours, Opportunist Republicans such as Jules Ferry or Gambetta adapting it to the new political conditions. Larousse's "Dictionnaire universel" deprived fraternity of its "evangelistic halo" (Mona Ozouf), conflating it with solidarity and the welfare role of the state.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Some still opposed the Republican motto, such as the nationalist Charles Maurras in his "Dictionnaire politique et critique", who claimed liberty to be an empty dream, equality an insanity, and only kept fraternity. Charles Péguy, renewing with Lamennais' thought, kept fraternity and liberty, excluding equality, seen as an abstract repartition between individuals reduced to homogeneity, opposing "fraternity" as a sentiment put in motion by "misery", while equality only interested itself, according to him, to the mathematical solution of the problem of "poverty."


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Péguy identified Christian charity and socialist solidarity in this conception of fraternity. On the other hand, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, the most important French author of pseudo-scientific racism and supporter of eugenism, completely rejected the republican triptych, adopting another motto, ""déterminisme, inégalité, sélection"" (determinism, inequality, selection). But, according to Ozouf, the sole use of a triptych was the sign of the influence of the republican motto, despite it being corrupted in its opposite.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: During the German occupation of France in World War II, this motto was replaced by the reactionary phrase ""travail, famille, patrie"" (work, family, fatherland) by Marshal Pétain, who became the leader of the new Vichy French government in 1940. Pétain had taken this motto from the colonel de la Rocque's "Parti social français" (PSF), although the latter considered it more appropriate for a movement than for a regime.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Indian polymath and social reformer B.R. Ambedkar quoted "I Like the Religion That Teaches Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity".


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Following the Liberation, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) re-established the Republican motto "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", which is incorporated into both the 1946 and the 1958 French constitutions.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Many other nations have adopted the French slogan of "liberty, equality, and fraternity" as an ideal. B.R. Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution of India, included these words in the preamble to the Constitution of India, in the year 1950. Since its founding, "Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood" has been the lemma of the Social Democratic Party of Denmark. In the United Kingdom the political party the Liberal Democrats refer to "the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community" in the preamble of the party's Federal Constitution, and this is printed on party membership cards.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: Some former colonies of the French Republic (such as Haiti, Chad, Niger, and Gabon) have adopted similar three-word mottos.


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: The idea of the slogan "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" has also given an influence as natural law to the First Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:


title: Liberté, égalité, fraternité

text: "Libertad! Igualdad! Fraternidad!" is the title of an English-language poem by William Carlos Williams.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Joshua Tree National Park is an American national park in southeastern California, east of San Bernardino and Los Angeles and north of Palm Springs. It is named after the Joshua trees ("Yucca brevifolia") native to the Mojave Desert. Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Encompassing a total of – slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island – the park includes of designated wilderness. Straddling San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert. The Little San Bernardino Mountains traverse the southwest edge of the park.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The earliest known residents of the land in and around what later became Joshua Tree National Park were the people of the Pinto Culture, who lived and hunted here between 8000 and 4000 BCE. Their stone tools and spear points, discovered in the Pinto Basin in the 1930s, suggest that they hunted game and gathered seasonal plants, but little else is known about them. Later residents included the Serrano, the Cahuilla, and the Chemehuevi peoples. All three lived at times in small villages in or near water, particularly the Oasis of Mara in what non-aboriginals later called Twentynine Palms. They subsisted largely on plant foods supplemented by small game, amphibians, and reptiles while using other plants for making medicines, bows, arrows, baskets, and other articles of daily life.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: A fourth group, the Mojaves, used the local resources as they traveled along trails between the Colorado River and the Pacific coast. In the 21st century, small numbers of all four peoples live in the region near the park; the Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians, descendants of the Chemehuevi, own a reservation in Twentynine Palms.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: In 1772, a group of Spaniards led by Pedro Fages made the first European sightings of Joshua trees while pursuing native converts to Christianity who had run away from a mission in San Diego. By 1823, the year Mexico achieved independence from Spain, a Mexican expedition from Los Angeles, in what was then Alta California, is thought to have explored as far east as the Eagle Mountains in what later became the park. Three years later, Jedediah Smith led a group of American fur trappers and explorers along the nearby Mojave Trail, and others soon followed. Two decades after that, the United States defeated Mexico in the Mexican–American War (1846–48) and took over about half of Mexico's original territory, including California and the future parkland.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: In 1870, white settlers began grazing cattle on the tall grasses that grew in the park. In 1888, a gang of cattle rustlers moved into the region near the Oasis of Mara. Led by brothers James B. and William S. McHaney, they hid stolen cattle in a box canyon at Cow Camp. Throughout the region, ranchers dug wells and built rainwater catchments called "tanks", such as White Tank and Barker Dam.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: In 1900, C. O. Barker, a miner and cattleman, built the original Barker Dam, later improved by William "Bill" Keys, a rancher. Grazing continued in the park through 1945. Barker Dam was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1975.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Between the 1860s and the 1940s, miners worked about 300 pit mines, mostly small, in what later became the park. The most successful, the Lost Horse Mine, produced gold and silver worth about $5 million in today's currency. Johnny Lang and others, the original owners of the Lost Horse Mine, installed a two-stamp mill to process ore at the site, and the next owner, J.D. Ryan, replaced it with a 10-stamp steam-powered mill. Ryan pumped water from his ranch to the mill and cut timber from the nearby hills to heat water to make steam. Most of the structures associated with the mine fell apart, and for safety reasons the National Park Service plugged the mine, which had collapsed.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The Desert Queen Mine on Keys' Desert Queen Ranch was another productive gold mine. In the early 1930s, Keys bought a gasoline-powered two-stamp mill, the Wall Street Mill, and moved it to his ranch to process ore. The ranch and mill were added to the NRHP in 1975 and the mine in 1976. Some of the mines in the park yielded copper, zinc, and iron.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: On August 10, 1936, after Minerva Hoyt and others persuaded the state and federal governments to protect the area, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the power of the 1906 Antiquities Act to establish Joshua Tree National Monument, protecting about . In 1950, the size of the park was reduced by about to open the land to more mining. The monument was redesignated as a national park on October 31, 1994, by the Desert Protection Act, which also added . In 2019, the park expanded by under a provision included in the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT) has conserved within the park. These inholdings were private ownership within the national park that they were able to purchase. They also acquire private properties bordering federally protected properties. MDLT has sold of acquired private property to the national park service which is more than any other similar organization.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. Potential natural vegetation types, Joshua Tree National Park has two categories, a creosote bush potential vegetation type with a desert shrubland potential vegetation form in most of the area, and a juniper/pinyon pine potential vegetation type with a Great Basin montane forest/southwest forest potential vegetation form on the higher elevations of the western side of the park.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The higher and cooler Mojave Desert is the special habitat of "Yucca brevifolia", the Joshua tree for which the park is named. It occurs in patterns from dense forests to distantly spaced specimens. In addition to Joshua tree forests, the western part of the park includes some of the most interesting geologic displays found in California's deserts. The dominant geologic features of this landscape are hills of bare rock, usually broken up into loose boulders. These hills are popular among rock climbing and scrambling enthusiasts. The flatland between these hills is sparsely forested with Joshua trees. Together with the boulder piles and Skull Rock, the trees make the landscape otherworldly. Temperatures are most comfortable in the spring and fall, with an average high/low of , respectively. Winter brings cooler days, around , and freezing nights. Snows occur occasionally at higher elevations. Summers are hot, over during the day and not cooling much below until the early hours of the morning.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Joshua trees dominate the open spaces of the park, but in among the rock outcroppings are piñon pine, California juniper ("Juniperus californica"), "Quercus turbinella" (desert scrub oak), "Quercus john-tuckeri" (Tucker's oak), "Quercus cornelius-mulleri" (Muller's oak), "Cylindropuntia chuckwallensis" (chuckwalla cholla), and "Opuntia chlorotica" (dollarjoint pricklypear).


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: These communities are under some stress, however, as the climate was wetter until the 1930s, with the same hot and dry conditions that provoked the Dust Bowl affecting the local climate. These cycles were nothing new, but the original vegetation did not prosper when wetter cycles returned. The difference may have been human development. Cattle grazing took out some of the natural covers and made it less resistant to the changes.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: There are fewer Joshua tree seedlings surviving in the park. It is forecasted that by 2099, under the high emission scenario, the park will increase in temperature by 8 °F. This would make most of the national park unsuitable for Joshua tree growth. Under the low emission scenario, 80% of suitable Joshua tree habitat could be lost.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The desert tortoise population has decreased due to habitat loss and climate change. Lizards in the park are also at risk. Bird species have declined 43% according to studies conducted in 1908–1968 and 2013–2016.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Below , the Colorado Desert encompasses the eastern part of the park and features habitats of creosote bush scrub, ocotillo, desert saltbush, and mixed scrub including yucca and cholla cactus (Cylindropuntia bigelovii). Some areas of such cactus are dense enough to appear as natural gardens. The lower Coachella Valley is on the southeastern side of the park with sandy soil grasslands and desert dunes.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The only palm native to California, the California fan palm ("Washingtonia filifera"), occurs naturally in five oases in the park, rare areas where water occurs naturally year-round, and all forms of wildlife abound.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Invasive plants, such as cheat grass and red brome, contribute to the worsening of wildfires. During wetter periods fills in below and among the pines and oak. In drier times, they die back but do not quickly decompose. This makes wildfires hotter and more destructive, which kills some of the trees that would have otherwise survived. When the area regenerates, these non-native grasses form a thick layer of turf that makes getting a roothold harder for the pine and oak seedlings.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Fountain grass was introduced to the park in the 1990s. This grass competes with native grasses for water and nutrients.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: According to the Köppen climate classification system, Joshua Tree National Park has a hot desert climate ("BWh"). According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the plant hardiness zone at the Cottonwood Visitor Center at 3081 ft (939 m) elevation is 8b, with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of .


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Joshua Tree is becoming hotter and drier due to climate change. From 1895 to 2016 the annual precipitation has dropped by 39% and the annual temperature has increased by 3 °F. Because of the hotter and drier conditions, there are more wildfires in the park.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The park's oldest rocks, Pinto Gneiss among them, are 1.7 billion years old. They are exposed in places on the park's surface in the Cottonwood, Pinto, and Eagle Mountains. Much later, from 250 to 75 million years ago, tectonic plate movements forced volcanic material toward the surface at this location and formed granites, including monzogranite common to the Wonderland of Rocks, parts of the Pinto, Eagle, and Coxcomb Mountains, and elsewhere. Erosion eventually exposed the harder rocks, gneiss, and granite, in the uplands and reduced the softer rocks to debris that filled the canyons and basins between the ranges. The debris, moved by gravity and water, formed alluvial fans at the mouths of canyons, and "bajadas", where the alluvial fans overlapped.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The rock formations of Joshua Tree National Park owe their shape partly to groundwater, which filtered through the roughly rectangular joints of the monzonite and eroded the corners and edges of blocks of stone, and to flash floods, which washed away covering ground and left piles of rounded boulders. These prominent outcrops are known as inselbergs.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Of the park's six blocks of mountains, five—the Little San Bernardino, Hexie, Pinto, Cottonwood, and Eagle—are among the Transverse Ranges, which trend generally east–west in locations between the Eagle Mountains on the east and the northern Channel Islands, in the Pacific Ocean west of Santa Barbara, on the west. Tectonic forces along the San Andreas Fault system compressed and lifted the crust material that formed these ranges. The San Andreas Fault itself passes southwest of the park, but related parallel faults, including the Dillon, Blue Cut, and Pinto, run through the park, and movements along them have caused earthquakes. The easternmost range in the park, the Coxcomb Mountains, runs generally north–south and is part of the Basin and Range Province.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Nine established campgrounds exist in the park, two of which (Black Rock Campground and Cottonwood Campground) provide water and flush toilets. A fee is charged per night for each camping spot. Reservations are accepted at Black Rock Campground, Cottonwood Campground, Indian Cove Campground, and Jumbo Rocks Campground for October through May, while the other campgrounds are first-come, first-served. Backcountry camping, for those who wish to backpack, is permitted with a few regulations.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Several hiking trails are within the park, many of which can be accessed from a campground. Shorter trails, such as the one-mile hike through Hidden Valley, offer a chance to view the beauty of the park without straying too far into the desert. A section of the California Riding and Hiking Trail meanders for through the western side of the park. The lookout point at Keys View, towards the south of the park, offers views of the Coachella Valley, the Salton Sea, the San Andreas Fault, the Santa Rosa Mountains, and the city of Palm Springs.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Due to graffiti on at least 17 sites on trails, officials have closed them to the public. The closed sites include Native American sites, Rattlesnake Canyon, and Barker Dam. They blame the increase in vandalism on the increased use of social media.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The park is popular with rock climbers and was originally a winter practice area while Yosemite Valley and other parts of the Sierra Nevada were snowbound, but later became an area of interest in its own right. Its thousands of named climbing routes contain all levels of difficulty. The routes are typically short, the rocks being rarely more than in height, but access is usually a short, easy walk through the desert, and doing several interesting climbs in a single day is possible. The rocks are all composed of quartz monzonite, a very rough type of granite, made even more so as no snow or ice polishes it as in places such as Yosemite.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Some routes are permanently closed, while others are closed temporarily to protect sensitive wildlife in certain seasons. Climbing and bouldering routes that are permanently closed include Energy Crisis, the Schwarzenegger Wall, Zombie Woof Rock, the Maverick Boulder formation, Pictograph Boulder, Shindig, Lonely Stones Area #3, and the Shipwreck formation, Indian Wave Boulders (except for Native Arete), and Wormholes. , seasonal closures include the Slatanic Area, Towers of Uncertainty, Patagonia Pile, and Jerry's Quarry.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The total visitors more than doubled from 2013 to 2019. Awareness of the wildflower bloom in the spring has brought increased visitation.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The paved main road allows visitors to drive to major attractions and through the park. The unpaved roads may require a vehicle with high ground clearance, and four-wheel drive. An example is the Geology Tour Road in the center of the park. Visitors with a four-wheel-drive vehicle can use this road for a self-guided tour with stops that describe the region's geology.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: More than 250 bird species inhabit or visit the park, including resident desert birds such as the greater roadrunner, cactus wren, northern mockingbird, LeConte's thrasher, verdin, and Gambel's quail. About 78 species nest and raise their young within the park. Many migrating species spend only a short time feeding and resting at Joshua Tree, mainly in the winter, as the park lies along an inland stretch of the Pacific Flyway. Other species descend from their usual habitats in the mountains to escape winter snow.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Birdwatching spots include fan palm oases, the Barker Dam, and Smith Water Canyon. Queen Valley and Lost Horse Valley also provide good birdwatching, with a different range of species due to the lack of water, including the ladder-backed woodpecker and oak titmouse. A USGS bird checklist from 2006 contained 239 species in the park.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Joshua Tree is a popular observing site in Southern California for amateur astronomy and stargazing, along with nearby Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The park's elevation and dry desert air, along with the relatively stable atmosphere in the region, often make for excellent seeing conditions.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: The park is well known for its naturally dark night skies, which are far away from and largely free of the light pollution typical in urban areas.  In 2017, the International Dark-Sky Association designated Joshua Tree a Dark Sky Park.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: On clear nights around new moon, the sky darkness of Joshua Tree is rated a class 2–4 on the Bortle scale. This ranges from an "average dark sky" (class 2) in the easternmost region of the park to a sky quality typical of a rural/suburban transition (class 4) in the western regions near Palm Springs. In the easternmost regions of the park, visitors with optimal vision can expect to see the Andromeda (M31) and Triangulum (M33) galaxies with unaided eyes. The central Milky Way appears highly structured to the naked eye from this site, and zodiacal light appears as a faint yellowish glow when visible. In the western regions of the park, the Andromeda Galaxy is still visible, and only the brightest structures around the Galactic Center of the Milky Way can be distinguished; zodiacal light is visible halfway to the zenith.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Birds, lizards, and ground squirrels are most likely to be seen because they are largely active during the day. However, at night desert animals come out to roam. Mostly nocturnal animals include snakes, bighorn sheep, kangaroo rats, coyotes, bobcats, and black-tailed jackrabbits. The desert tortoise is a threatened reptile species that inhabits creosote bush lowlands in the Mojave Desert. The tortoise is well adapted to the arid conditions and rarely drinks water; instead, most of their water is obtained from the plants they consume. Bobcats are a dominant force in the ecosystem. The California tree frog, "Pseudacris cadaverina", is found in the rocky, permanent water sources created by the Pinto Fault along the northern edge of the park. The red-spotted toad, "Bufo punctatus", is a true denizen of the desert, where it spends most of its life underground. Found from one end of the park to the other, it appears after good, soaking rains. Golden eagles hunt in the park regularly. The roadrunner is an easily recognized resident. The call of Gambel's quail can frequently be heard. The tarantula "Aphonopelma iodium", the green darner "Anax junius", and the giant desert scorpion "Hadrurus arizonensis" are arthropods that can grow to be more than long. The yucca moth "Tegeticula synthetica" is responsible for pollinating the Joshua trees after which the park is named.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Animals that thrive in Joshua Tree often have special adaptations for dealing with limited water and high summer temperatures. The smaller mammals and all reptiles take refuge from the heat underground. Desert mammals make more efficient use of their bodies’ water supply than the human body. Reptiles are physiologically adapted to getting along with little water, and birds can fly to water sources when they need to drink. Nevertheless, the springs and seeps in the park are necessary for the survival of many animals. Most reptiles and many small rodents and insects go into an inactive state of hibernation during the winter. However, winter is the time of greatest bird concentrations in the park, because of the presence of many migrant species.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: Of the park's total land area of , are designated wilderness and managed by the National Park Service (NPS) in accordance with the Wilderness Act. The NPS requires registration for overnight camping at specific locations called registration boards. Other requirements include the use of a camp stove (since open campfires are prohibited) and employing Leave No Trace camping techniques (also known as "pack it in, pack it out"). Although bicycles are not allowed in wilderness areas, horses are, but a permit must be obtained in advance for travel in the backcountry. Cellular signals are weak to non-existent and should not be depended on while visiting the park.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: On April 1, 2015, graffiti artist André was convicted and fined for vandalizing a boulder in the park. André posted photos of his vandalism on social media. Casey Schreiner, of the hiking blog site Modern Hiker, and some of his readers aided the National Park Service in tracking down and identifying André's vandalism. Before the conviction, André had attempted to silence the reporting with legal threats.


title: Joshua Tree National Park

text: During the 2018–2019 federal government shutdown, reports of vandalism spiked as visitors allegedly chopped down Joshua trees, set illegal fires, drove off-road, and spray-painted rocks. Only eight park rangers were on duty during the government shutdown. Park botanists subsequently determined that one of three Joshua trees reported to have been cut down or damaged during the shutdown had been felled prior to the shutdown.


title: John Rolfe

text: John Rolfe (1585 – March 1622) was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia in 1611.


title: John Rolfe

text: John Rolfe is believed to have been born in Heacham, Norfolk, England, in about 1585. At that time, Spain held a virtual monopoly on the lucrative tobacco trade. Most Spanish colonies in the New World were located in southern climates more favorable to tobacco growth than the English settlements (founded in the early 17th century, notably Jamestown in 1607). As the consumption of tobacco had increased, the balance of trade between England and Spain began to be seriously affected. Rolfe was one of a number of businessmen who saw the opportunity to undercut Spanish imports by growing tobacco in England's new colony in Virginia. He had somehow obtained seeds to take with him from a special popular strain, then being grown in Trinidad, South America, even though Spain had declared a penalty of death to anyone selling such seeds to a non-Spaniard.


title: John Rolfe

text: At one point in time it was believed that John was the son of John Rolfe and his wife Dorothy Mason Rolfe. However, historians have now determined that this relationship is incorrect. One major inconsistency that shows they are not his parents is that John is known to have had a brother named Henry. After John's death, his brother Henry Rolfe petitioned the Virginia Company for funds from John's Virginia estate, to help pay for the care of John's son Thomas Rolfe who was then in Henry's care. Dorothy Mason Rolfe and her husband John Rolfe are not known to have had a son named Henry.


title: John Rolfe

text: A project of the proprietary Virginia Company of London, Jamestown had been established by an initial group of settlers on 14 May 1607. This colony proved as troubled as earlier English settlements. Two return trips with supplies by Christopher Newport arrived in 1608, while another large relief fleet was dispatched in 1609, carrying hundreds of new settlers and supplies across the Atlantic. Heading the Third Supply fleet was the new flagship of the Virginia Company, the "Sea Venture", carrying Rolfe and his wife, Sarah Hacker.


title: John Rolfe

text: The Third Supply fleet left England in May 1609 destined for Bermuda with seven large ships, towing two smaller pinnaces. In the southern region of the North Atlantic, they encountered a three-day-long storm, thought to have been a severe hurricane. The ships of the fleet became separated. The new "Sea Venture", whose caulking had not cured, was taking on water faster than it could be bailed. The Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers, took the helm and the ship was deliberately driven onto the reefs of Bermuda to prevent its foundering. All aboard, 150 passengers and crew, and 1 dog, survived. Most remained for ten months in Bermuda, subsequently also known as "The Somers Isles", while they built two small ships to continue the voyage to Jamestown. A number of passengers and crew, however, did not complete this journey. Some had died or been killed, lost at sea (the "Sea Venture's" long boat had been fitted with a sail, and several men sent to take word to Jamestown, and they were never heard from again), or left behind to maintain England's claim to Bermuda. Because of this, although the Virginia Company's charter was not extended to Bermuda until 1612, the Colony at Bermuda dates its settlement from 1609. Among those left buried in Bermuda were Rolfe's wife and his infant daughter, Bermuda Rolfe.


title: John Rolfe

text: In May 1610, the two newly constructed ships set sail from Bermuda, with 142 castaways on board, including Rolfe, George Somers, Stephen Hopkins, and Sir Thomas Gates. On arrival at Jamestown, they found the Virginia Colony almost destroyed by famine and disease during what has become known as the Starving Time. Very few supplies from the Third Supply had arrived because the same hurricane that caught the "Sea Venture" badly affected the rest of the fleet. Only 60 settlers remained alive. It was only through the arrival of the two small ships from Bermuda, and the arrival of another relief fleet commanded by Lord De La Warr on 10 June 1610, that the abandonment of Jamestown was avoided and the colony survived. After finally settling in Rolfe began his long-delayed work with tobacco.


title: John Rolfe

text: In competing with Spain for European markets, there was another problem beside the warmer climates the Spanish settlements enjoyed. The native tobacco from Virginia was not liked by the English settlers, nor did it appeal to the market in England. However, Rolfe wanted to introduce sweeter strains from Trinidad, using the hard-to-obtain Spanish seeds he brought with him. In 1611, he was the first to commercially cultivate "Nicotiana tabacum" tobacco plants in North America; export of this sweeter tobacco beginning in 1612 helped turn the Virginia Colony into a profitable venture. He named his Virginia-grown strain of the tobacco "Orinoco", possibly in honour of tobacco popularizer Sir Walter Raleigh's expeditions in the 1580s up the Orinoco River in Guiana in search of the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado. The appeal of Orinoco tobacco was in its nicotine, and the conviviality of its use in social situations.


title: John Rolfe

text: In 1612, Rolfe established Varina Farms, a plantation along the James River about upstream from Jamestown and across the river from Sir Thomas Dale's progressive development at Henricus. The first harvest of four barrels of tobacco leaf was exported from Virginia to England in March 1614. Soon afterwards, Rolfe and others were exporting vast quantities of the new cash crop. New plantations began growing along the James River, where export shipments could use wharves along the river.


title: John Rolfe

text: Rolfe married Pocahontas, daughter of the local Native American leader Powhatan, on 5 April 1614. Earlier that same year, Pocahontas chose to convert to Christianity, she was baptized by Alexander Whitaker and chose "Rebecca" as her new baptismal name. Richard Buck officiated their wedding. Powhatan gave the newlyweds property just across the James River from Jamestown. They never lived on the land, which spanned thousands of acres, and instead lived on Rolfe's plantation, Varina Farms. Their son, Thomas Rolfe, was born in January 1615.


title: John Rolfe

text: John Rolfe and Rebecca continued cultivating tobacco with success. In 1616 they were sent to England as guests of the Virginia Company to promote colonization and investment in Virginia. They were accompanied by baby Thomas as well as by deputy-governor of the colony, Sir Thomas Dale, and 12 members of Rebecca's tribe, including her brother-in-law Uttamatomakkin. They sailed aboard the "Treasurer", commanded by Captain Samuel Argall, and arrived at the port of Plymouth, England on 12 June 1616. They toured England, promoting the colony, Queen Anne and others were reportedly charmed by Rebecca, and investment in the Virginia Company increased. During their visit, John Rolfe wrote "A True Relation of the state of Virginia Lefte by Sir Thomas Dale Knight in May Last 1616" the manuscript was published in 1617 and further touted the viability of the colony in Virginia. After nine months in England, the party prepared to return to Virginia but were delayed by bad weather. Finally setting sail in March of 1617, the party had to immediately make port in Gravesend because Rebecca was gravely ill. Rebecca died and was buried at St George's Church, Gravesend on 21 March 1617. Their small son Thomas was sick as well, it was determined he was too ill to survive a voyage. Pressured to return to Virginia, John Rolfe appointed Sir Lewis Stukley as guardian to his son and returned to Virginia with Uttamatomakkin. Stukley had custody of Thomas Rolfe until his uncle Henry Rolfe could take over his care. It was intended that Thomas would return to Virginia once he recovered his health. Unfortunately, John Rolfe would never see his son again. Thomas did recover his health but remained in England until reaching adulthood.


title: John Rolfe

text: Rolfe returned to Virginia and resumed his work with tobacco. In 1617 20,000 pounds of Orinoco tobacco was sent to England and in 1618 an additional 40,000 pounds were sent. About 1619, Rolfe married Jane Pierce, daughter of English colonist Captain William Pierce, who had survived the shipwreck of the Sea Venture along with John in 1609. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1620, who married John Milner of Nansemond, Virginia, and died in 1635. John Rolfe died in March of 1622, immediately before the Indian massacre of 1622. His widow Jane later married English Captain Roger Smith.


title: John Rolfe

text: The land given by Powhatan (now known as Smith's Fort Plantation, located in Surry County) was willed to Thomas Rolfe, who in 1640 sold at least a portion of it to Thomas Warren. Smith's Fort was a secondary Fort to Jamestown, begun in 1609 by John Smith.


title: John Rolfe

text: Thomas Rolfe, who had grown up in England, returned to Virginia as an adult and married Jane Poythress. Poythress's English parents were Francis Poythress and Alice Payton. Thomas and Jane Rolfe had one child, Jane Rolfe, who married Robert Bolling and had a son, John Bolling, in 1676. Jane Rolfe died shortly after giving birth. John Bolling married Mary Kennon, daughter of Richard Kennon and Elizabeth Worsham of Conjurer's Neck. The couple had six surviving children, each of whom married and had surviving children.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Watership Down is a 1978 British animated adventure-drama film, written, produced and directed by Martin Rosen and based on the 1972 novel by Richard Adams. It was financed by a consortium of British financial institutions and was distributed by Cinema International Corporation in the United Kingdom. Released on 19 October 1978, the film was an immediate success and it became the sixth-most popular film of 1979 at the UK box office.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: It features the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Harry Andrews, Simon Cadell, Nigel Hawthorne and Roy Kinnear, among others, and was the last film work of Zero Mostel, as the voice of Kehaar the gull. The musical score was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson. Art Garfunkel's hit song "Bright Eyes" was written by songwriter Mike Batt.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: In Lapine language mythology, the world was created by the god Frith. All animals were grass eaters, living harmoniously. The rabbits multiplied, and their appetite led to a food shortage. Frith ordered the rabbit prince, El-Ahrairah, to control his people, but was scoffed at. In retaliation, Frith gave special gifts to every animal, making some into predators to hunt the rabbits. Satisfied that El-Ahrairah had learned his lesson, Frith gave rabbits the gifts of speed and cunning.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: In the present, in a warren near Sandleford, a rabbit seer named Fiver has an apocalyptic vision and takes his older brother Hazel to beg the chief for evacuation. The chief dismisses them, and orders Captain Holly, the head of the warren's Owsla police force, to stop those trying to leave. Fiver and Hazel along with other rabbits named Bigwig, Blackberry, Pipkin, Dandelion, Silver, and Violet manage to escape, passing a sign (meaningless to them) confirming that a residential development is coming.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: They journey through the woods, avoiding several dangerous situations; until Violet – the group's only doe – is killed by a hawk. The others eventually meet a rabbit named Cowslip, who invites them to his warren, where a farmer leaves Cowslip's group ample vegetables. They are grateful, but Fiver leaves when he senses something unsettling in the atmosphere. Bigwig follows, berating Fiver for causing tension when a snare catches Bigwig. Bigwig's friends manage to free him, and Fiver learns that the farmer is protecting and feeding Cowslip's warren so that he can snare rabbits for his own meals. The group returns to its journey.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: The rabbits discover Nuthanger Farm, which contains a hutch of domesticated does. Before they can free the females, the farm cat and dog chase them away. Later, they are found by Captain Holly, who recounts the destruction of Sandleford by humans as well as vicious rabbits called the "Efrafans". Fiver finally finds the hill he envisioned, Watership Down, where the group settles in with Hazel as their new chief.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: They soon befriend an injured black-headed seagull named Kehaar, who flies out in search of does. That night, the rabbits return to Nuthanger Farm to free the does, but an attempt to free them fails which ends with Hazel getting shot. Fiver follows a vision of the mythical Black Rabbit to his injured brother. Kehaar returns and, while pecking out buckshot from Hazel's leg with his beak, reports of the many does at the large Efrafa warren. Captain Holly describes it as a dangerous totalitarian state, but Hazel feels they must go there. Bigwig infiltrates the warren and is made an Owsla officer by their cruel chief, General Woundwort. Bigwig recruits several potential escapees to his cause, including Blackavar and Hyzenthlay. With Kehaar's help, the escapees find a boat to float down the river. That night, Kehaar leaves for his homeland with the gratitude of the warren.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Efrafan trackers eventually find Watership Down. Woundwort rejects Hazel's offer of peace and demands that all deserters must be turned over or Watership Down will be wiped out. While the Watership rabbits barricade their warren, Fiver slips into a trance, in which he envisions a dog running loose in the woods. His mumblings inspire Hazel to try and release the farm dog and lead it to the Efrafans. When they arrive at the farm, Hazel unties the dog and releases it while Blackberry, Dandelion and Hyzenthlay use themselves as bait to make the animal follow them. Meanwhile, when the Efrafans break through the warren's defences, Woundwort goes in alone; Blackavar attacks him but is easily killed. Bigwig ambushes Woundwort and they fight to a standstill. When the dog arrives and starts attacking the Efrafans, Woundwort abandons Bigwig and fearlessly attacks the dog. However, no trace of Woundwort is ever found, which leaves his fate a mystery.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Several years later, an elderly Hazel is visited by a strange ghostly rabbit, who invites him to join his own Owsla, assuring him of Watership Down's perpetual safety. Reassured, Hazel accepts and dies peacefully. His spirit follows the visitor through the woodland and trees towards the Sun, which metamorphoses into Frith, and the afterlife, as Frith's parting advice to El-Ahrairah is heard once more.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Film rights were purchased by producer Martin Rosen. He did this with the assistance of a merchant banker, Jake Eberts, who enjoyed the experience so much it launched Eberts's career in the film industry. The option for the film rights was £50,000.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Rosen estimated the budget at $2.4 million. Eberts raised $1 million from the Pearson company and clients of the merchant bank Lazard.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Production of the film began in 1975 by a new animation studio, formed in London by Rosen. It was originally going to be directed by John Hubley, who left after disagreements with the film's producer Martin Rosen. His work can still be found in the film, most notably in the "fable" scene. He was replaced by Rosen who thereby made his directorial debut.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: The backgrounds and locations, especially Efrafa and the nearby railway, are based on the diagrams and maps in Richard Adams's original novel. Most of the locations in the movie either exist or were based on real spots in Hampshire and surrounding areas.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: The musical score was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson, Morley replacing Williamson after the composer had fallen behind and only composed the prelude and main title theme in sketch form. A list of the musical cues for the film can be found on the composer's website, which also gives information about the different composers working on the project.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: The soundtrack includes Art Garfunkel's British No. 1 hit, "Bright Eyes", which was written by the British singer and songwriter Mike Batt. He also wrote other songs for the film which were not used. The composer recorded three songs with vocals by Garfunkel, but only "Bright Eyes" made it to the film. The song "When You're Losing Your Way in the Rain" has a very similar feeling and arrangement, and was recorded by the former Zombies vocalist Colin Blunstone in 1979. Garfunkel's version was heard years later, on the "Watership Down" TV series soundtrack released in 2000. The song, like many others which appeared on the TV soundtrack, was never used in the show.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: "Watership Down" was first released to the UK on 19 October 1978, and was later released in the United States on 1 November 1978, for the latter, the movie was distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: The film was very successful at the box office. According to financier Jake Eberts, the investors who put up the $50,000 development finance "got their money back with interest, plus an additional $450,000, making a total of ten times their investment". Other investors in the film reportedly received a return of 5,000% on their investment.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were divided on their opinions of "Watership Down" on their show "Sneak Previews". Siskel thought that the film was too long, but that otherwise he found "most of it very effective" due to the film's success at situating the audience in the rabbits' point of view which put him "in touch with the delicate and brutal balance of nature". He also called the film "more mature than what we usually expect or get from an animated feature film". However, Ebert felt that the realism of the story, which he liked, did not match with the style of animation which he described as "soft-edged, cuddly and like a cartoon'.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Some critics commented on the film's success as an adaptation, such as "The Observer"s Philip French, who wrote that "the novel's texture isn't there and the characters never take on strong pictorial identities". Later in the review he elaborated that the rabbit characters are "blandly drawn" and concluded that the film as a whole is "difficult to enthuse over". In "The Times", David Robinson also criticised the film's translation to the screen as inaccessible for "People who come to the film without the assistance of the book", as they "may well have a little difficulty with the special lore and language of Richard Adams' rabbit civilisation" and with the fictional Lapine language spoken by the rabbits. Robinson nevertheless complimented the voice acting and the "fresh and pleasant" animation design. "The Globe and Mail"s Jay Scott, on the other hand, described the animation backgrounds of the film as "second-rate shopping mall watercolor landscapes" but praised the film's allegorical aspects (drawing comparisons between the villain General Woundwort and Adolf Hitler), the realistic and compassionate approach to its rabbit characters, and the voice cast.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: The "Daily Mail"s Margaret Hinxman also praised the voice acting, the "delicious" music, and called the background landscapes "superb", but concluded that "Watership Down is by no stretch of the imagination a Disney-type animation feature film. Sadly, I have to say, if it had been I might have enjoyed it more." However, other critics drew favourable comparisons with Disney, notably Julian Fox in Films and Filming, who called "Watership Down" "far and away the most exciting and totally involving animated feature since Disney's peak years ("ie" that period which ended with "Pinocchio", "Dumbo" and "Bambi")." He praised in particular the aesthetics, sound design, and the film's way of humanising the rabbit characters without over-anthropomorphising them. "The Guardian"s Derek Malcolm also complimented Kehaar the seagull's "most Disney-like" animation style even though he found the film as a whole to be "old-fashioned" and the song "Bright Eyes" to be "more than a trifle bland".


title: Watership Down (film)

text: In a joint review of "Watership Down" and Ralph Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings", animation historian Michael Barrier described both films as "very stupid movies, of a special kind" and that "the films themselves show no sign that any intelligence was at work in making them" due to their "grim literalism" in adapting their source texts. He did describe "Watership Down" as the "least offensive" of the two but nevertheless characterised the animation style as "graceless" and expressed disappointment that the vision of the film's original director John Hubley was never fully realised. "Newsweek"s David Ansen also drew comparisons with "The Lord of the Rings", but while he disliked Bakshi's film he was more effusive about "Watership Down", which he said "has the relentless momentum of a good war movie" and "is swift of foot, graced with wit, and capable of touching the hearts of both children and adults".


title: Watership Down (film)

text: In a review of the DVD edition, "Film Freak Central"s Walter Chaw praised the film for offering an "unusually thoughtful" alternative to Disney animated films of the era: ""Watership Down" arose in that extended lull between Disney's heyday and its late-Eighties resurrection. ... "Watership Down" points to the dwindled potential for American animation to evolve into what anime has become: a mature medium for artistic expression of serious issues." Chaw commended the film's frankness, honesty, and themes of friendship and loyalty, concluding that, in spite of the film's violent elements, "the picture may be "more" appropriate for young children than a legion of condescendingly sugarcoated Disney fare."


title: Watership Down (film)

text: "Watership Down" has developed a reputation as a distressing children's text, with Ed Power of "The Independent" describing the film in a 40th anniversary retrospective as a "classic" but which "arguably traumatised an entire generation". In 2016, the British broadcaster Channel 5 faced criticism after broadcasting the film in a pre-watershed slot on Easter Sunday, which was seen to be in poor taste due to the film's representations of violence inflicted upon rabbits, and with many people on social media expressing concern about child viewers being distressed (though it is unclear whether any children were actually negatively affected). Despite the criticism, Channel 5 broadcast "Watership Down" on Easter Sunday again the following year.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Despite the film's reputation as traumatising, regulators and critics in 1978 expressed little concern about the film's potentially negative effects on children. When the film was first submitted to the British Board of Film Classification, the BBFC passed the film with a 'U' certificate (suitable for all ages), deciding that "Animation removes the realistic gory horror in the occasional scenes of violence and bloodshed, and we felt that, while the film may move children emotionally during the film's duration, it could not seriously trouble them once the spell of the story is broken, and that a 'U' certificate was therefore quite appropriate." This choice has been quite controversial though, and in 2012, the BBFC acknowledged that it had "received complaints about the suitability of Watership Down at 'U' almost every year since its classification". In 2022, the BBFC re-classified the film with a PG rating for "mild violence, threat, brief bloody images, language".


title: Watership Down (film)

text: Like the BBFC, film critics in 1978 characterised "Watership Down" as suitable for children in spite of its potentially distressing aspects. "The Spectator"s Ted Whitehead described it as "a straightforward children's adventure story". Scott in "The Globe and Mail" wrote that "Parents are more apt to feel squeamish about this than their children: there is nothing as devastating as the death of Bambi's mother. In "Watership Down", some of the rabbits are unlucky and some live to old age. When they do die, the deaths are treated with sympathy but not morbidity. The message is that life is hard, and difficult, but that it's fun, and rewarding, too." Malcolm in "The Guardian" dismissed concerns about the film's suitability for children by stating that "It is not true, as had already been hinted at by some, that the film is too violent and disturbing for children. What, pray, about some of Grimms' fairy tales?" Fox in "Films and Filming" was one of the few critics to express caution by saying that, because of the "graphic horror", "one could scarcely recommend the film to the "very" young".


title: Watership Down (film)

text: More recently, film critics and scholars have defended "Watership Down"s potential value for child audiences. Children's media scholar Catherine Lester argues that the violence is "never without a specific narrative or moral purpose" and that discussions of the film's effect upon children require "greater nuance" that acknowledges the complexity and variety of children as viewers and how they respond to films. Gerard Jones, in his essay on the film for the Criterion Collection, admits that the film "has troubled me ever since I first saw it" at the age of twenty-one, but that he believes it is an important film for viewers of all ages because it "asks us to spend time with those elements of existence that we will always find most troubling (and haunting and moving), and that we so rarely allow our children's culture or our own entertainment to dwell on." He cites as an example the non-violent death of Hazel from old age at the end of the film, which he calls "as joyous as it is poignant".


title: Watership Down (film)

text: A picture book adaptation was also produced, titled "The Watership Down Film Picture Book". Two editions of the book were published, one a hardcover, the other a reinforced cloth-bound edition. The contents include film stills linked with a combination of narration and extracts from the script, as well as a preface by Adams and a foreword by Rosen.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: "Watership Down" was initially released on VHS in the UK by Thorn EMI Video, then later by Guild Home Video and later by PolyGram Video. It was given a DVD release in 2001 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and another in 2005 from Warner Home Video.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: In the US, "Watership Down" was first released on CED in 1981 and was given a VHS release in 1983 by Warner Home Video. The film was re-released a number of times on VHS in the US by Warner Home Video, including through their Warner Bros. Classic Tales label, and was released on DVD in the US in 2002 and again in 2008. The 2002 DVD release was later duplicated for Warner Bros' 2005 DVD release in the UK, with the only difference being the film being converted to PAL format.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: A UK Blu-ray for the film was planned to be released in 2010 but, due to a rights dispute between Euro-London Films, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros., the release was cancelled. Warner eventually put out a BD release in Germany, where it held distribution rights. The UK Blu-ray was eventually released in 2013 by Universal using the same HD master as on Warner's 2008 DVD and 2011 German Blu-ray release. In 2014, Euro-London Films acquired the remaining US rights from Warner Bros. (who had held US distribution rights since the 1980s) and licensed the film to The Criterion Collection for release on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming in 2015 and Janus Films for theatrical repertory runs.


title: Watership Down (film)

text: The British Film Institute planned to release the film as a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in the UK in February 2023, but cancelled the release due to external issues beyond their control.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of (US$ in 2020 dollars). It is the oldest ballpark in MLB west of the Mississippi River, and third-oldest overall, after Fenway Park in Boston (1912) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (1914), and is the largest baseball stadium in the world by seat capacity. Often referred to as a "pitcher's ballpark", the stadium has seen 13 no-hitters, two of which were perfect games.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: The stadium hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1980 and 2022—as well as games of 10 World Series (1963, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1988, 2017 and 2018). It also hosted the semifinals and finals of the 2009 and 2017 World Baseball Classics, as well as exhibition baseball during the 1984 Summer Olympics. The stadium hosted a soccer tournament on August 3, 2013, featuring four clubs: the hometown team Los Angeles Galaxy, and Europe's Real Madrid, Everton, and Juventus. The Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks played a regular season game in 2014 as part of the NHL Stadium Series.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: It is sometimes referred to as “Blue Heaven on Earth,” a nickname coined by Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: In the mid-1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers team president Walter O'Malley had tried to build a domed stadium in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, but was unable to reach an agreement with city officials for the land acquisition, and eventually reached a deal with the city of Los Angeles. The land for Dodger Stadium had been seized from local owners and inhabitants in the early 1950s by the city of Los Angeles, using eminent domain with funds from the federal Housing Act of 1949. The city had planned to develop the Elysian Park Heights public housing project, which included two dozen 13-story buildings and more than 160 two-story townhouses, in addition to newly rebuilt playgrounds and schools, and a college.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Before construction could begin on the housing project, the local political climate changed greatly when Norris Poulson was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1953. Proposed public housing projects such as Elysian Park Heights lost most of their support as they became associated with socialist ideals. Following protracted negotiations, the city purchased the Chavez Ravine property back from the Federal Housing Authority at a drastically reduced price, with the stipulation that the land be used for a public purpose. It was not until June 3, 1958, when Los Angeles voters approved a "Taxpayers Committee for Yes on Baseball" referendum, that the Dodgers were able to acquire of Chavez Ravine from the city. Los Angeles forcefully evicted residents from their homes, mainly Hispanics. While Dodger Stadium was under construction, the Dodgers played in the league's largest capacity venue from 1958 through 1961 at their temporary home, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which could seat in excess of 90,000 people.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Los Angeles–based Mike Davis, in his seminal work on the city, "City of Quartz", describes the process of gradually convincing Chavez Ravine homeowners to sell. With nearly all of the original Spanish-speaking homeowners initially unwilling to sell, developers resorted to offering immediate cash payments, distributed through their Spanish-speaking agents. Once the first sales had been completed, remaining homeowners were offered increasingly lesser amounts of money, to create a community panic of not receiving fair compensation, or of being left as one of the few holdouts. Many residents continued to hold out despite the pressure being placed upon them by developers, resulting in the Battle of Chavez Ravine, a ten-year struggle by the residents to maintain control of their property, which they ultimately lost.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium was the first Major League Baseball stadium since the initial construction of the original Yankee Stadium to be built using 100% private financing, and the last until Oracle Park in San Francisco opened in 2000. Ground was broken for Dodger Stadium on September 17, 1959. The tops of local ridges were removed, and the soil was used to fill in Sulfur and Cemetery Ravines to provide a level surface for a parking lot and the stadium. A local elementary school (Palo Verde) was simply buried rather than demolished, and sits beneath the parking lot northwest of third base. A total of of earth were moved in the process of building the stadium. A total of 21,000 precast concrete units, some weighing as much as 32 tons, were fabricated onsite and lowered into place with a specially built crane to form the stadium's structural framework. The stadium was originally designed to be expandable to 85,000 seats by expanding the upper decks over the outfield pavilions; the Dodgers have never pursued such a project.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium was also the home of the Los Angeles Angels from 1962 through 1965. To avoid constantly referring to their landlords, the Angels called the park Chavez Ravine Stadium (or just "Chavez Ravine"), after the geographic feature in which the stadium sits.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: At the conclusion of the 2005 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers made major renovations during the subsequent off-season.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: The largest of these improvements was the replacement of nearly all the seats in the stadium. The seats that were removed had been in use since 1975 and helped give the stadium its unique "space age" feel with a color palette of bright yellow, orange, blue, and red. The new seats are in the original (more muted) 1962 color scheme consisting of yellow, light orange, turquoise, and sky blue. 2,000 pairs of seats were made available for purchase at $250, with the proceeds going to charity.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: The baseline seating sections have been converted into retro-style "box" seating, adding leg room and a table. Other repairs were made to the concrete structure of the stadium. These improvements mark the second phase of a multi-year improvement plan for Dodger Stadium.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Between 2003 and 2005, Dodger Stadium upgraded with LED video displays. The large main video display measures high by wide.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: In 2008, the Dodgers announced a $412 million project to build a Dodger museum, shops, and restaurants around Dodger Stadium. In a press release, the team described the various features of the renovation as follows:


title: Dodger Stadium

text: In the 2008–2009 off-season, the upper levels of the stadium were supposed to be renovated to match the repairs and improvements made to the field level. The improvements were to include the removal of the trough urinals in the men's restrooms, new concession stands and earthquake retrofitting to the concrete structure. It was also to include the replacement of the outfield scoreboards and monitors with new HD monitors. Due to the 2009 World Baseball Classic hosted at Dodger Stadium, these renovations were put on hold. The divorce of Frank and Jamie McCourt, as well as a weak economy, were the reasons for the postponement.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: To pay for an outstanding loan with the Dodgers former owner News Corporation, former owner Frank McCourt used Dodger Stadium as collateral to obtain a $250 million loan.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: In 2008, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to give the Dodger Stadium area bounded by Academy Rd, Lookout Dr. and Stadium Way its own zip code, 90090 (as of July 2009). This also gives the area a new name, Dodgertown. The signs from the former Dodgertown spring training facility in Vero Beach, Florida will likely be integrated into the $500 million project.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Following the sale of the Dodgers in 2012, the team brought in the architect, urban planner, and stadium specialist Janet Marie Smith to lead renovations efforts to the 50-year-old stadium. Renovations to Dodger Stadium began in the winter of 2012. Both video boards were replaced with High Definition screens, and new clubhouses and weight rooms were installed. The restrooms, concession stands, sound system and batting cages were also improved and renovated.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodgers owner Guggenheim Partners internally discussed moving the Dodgers to a new stadium at a Downtown Los Angeles site proposed by the Anschutz Entertainment Group to allow an NFL team to build a stadium at the Dodger Stadium site. Guggenheim Partners also considered allowing an NFL team to build a stadium next to Dodger Stadium. The NFL eventually chose to build SoFi Stadium in the City of Inglewood.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: The extensive renovations to Dodger Stadium were ready for the 2013 season and included new HD hexagonal video and scoreboards, a new sound system, wider concourses, more standing room viewing areas, improved restrooms and a children's playground amongst others.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Between the 2013 and 2014 seasons, more renovations were put in place. Dodger Stadium was the beneficiary of improvements such as wider concourses in the pavilions, new restaurants "Think Blue Bar-B-Que" and "Tommy Lasorda’s Trattoria", dedicated team store buildings replacing the tents that previously served as team stores, bullpen overlooks with overlook bars, and tree relocation at the top of the stadium.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: On July 23, 2019, a press conference was held with the presentation of the $100 million renovation to the ballpark, which includes a center field plaza with a children's playground located between the left field and right field bleachers, the relocation of the Jackie Robinson statue from the left field entrance to the center field playground, as well as a display honoring the Legends of Dodger Baseball, along with a sports bar and a beer garden. Also included are new elevators and escalators which connect the outfield bleachers with the field, loge and reserve levels and a new stadium center main entrance. The renovation was completed while the 2020 regular season was delayed.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium was one of the last baseball-only facilities built before the dawn of the multi-purpose stadium. It was built near the convergence of several freeways near downtown Los Angeles, with an expansive parking lot surrounding the stadium. With the construction of many new MLB ballparks in recent years, it is now the third-oldest park still in use, and the oldest on the West Coast.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium offered several innovative design features. One of these was a covered and screened section of dugout-level seats behind home plate. Dodger owner Walter O'Malley was inspired to incorporate this feature into the Dodger Stadium design after having seen it at Tokyo's Korakuen Stadium during the Brooklyn Dodgers' postseason goodwill tour of Japan in 1956. The original dugout seating area was replaced by more conventional box seating in a 1999 renovation, but this feature has been replicated at Progressive Field in Cleveland and Angel Stadium of Anaheim.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Two of Dodger Stadium's most distinctive features are the wavy roof atop each outfield pavilion and the top of a 10-story elevator shaft bearing the Dodger logo rising directly behind home plate at the top of the uppermost seating level.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: A unique terraced-earthworks parking lot was built behind the main stands, allowing ticket-holders to park at roughly the level of their seats, minimizing use of ramps once inside. The stadium was also designed to be earthquake-resistant, an important consideration in California, and it has withstood several serious earthquakes.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium was originally equipped with two large Fair Play electronic scoreboard units above the left- and right-field pavilions. The right-field board displayed in-game information. The left-field board displayed scores of out-of-town games and other messages. Smaller auxiliary scoreboards were installed at field level on the box seat fences beyond the first- and third-base dugouts during the inaugural 1962 season. The left-field message board was replaced by a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision video board in 1980. The field-level auxiliary scoreboards were replaced by larger units installed on the facade of the Loge (second) seating level in 1998; these, in turn, were replaced by a video ribbon board in 2006. Field-level out-of-town scoreboards were installed on the left- and right-field walls in 2003.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Strobe lights were added in 2001; they flash when the Dodgers take the field, after a Dodger home run, and after a Dodger win. In 2018, blue strobe lights were added.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: In addition to those of Don Drysdale (53), Sandy Koufax (32), and Don Sutton (20), the retired numbers of Pee Wee Reese (1), Jackie Robinson (42), Duke Snider (4), Tommy Lasorda (2), Walter Alston (24), Roy Campanella (39), Jim Gilliam (19) and Gil Hodges (14) are mounted on the club level facade near the left field foul pole. On April 15, 2017, to mark the 70th anniversary of Robinson's major league debut, the Dodgers unveiled a bronze statue of the player in the stadium's left-field plaza. The sculpture depicts Robinson sliding into home plate as a rookie. Also honored on the left field line in addition to the retired numbers are broadcasters Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrin.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Built on top of the historic Los Angeles neighborhood of Chavez Ravine in Solano Canyon, the stadium overlooks downtown Los Angeles and provides views of the city to the south, the green tree-lined hills of Elysian Park to the north and east, and the San Gabriel Mountains beyond the outfield pavilions. Due to dry summers in Southern California, rainouts at Dodger Stadium are rare. Prior to 1976, the Dodgers were rained out only once, against the St. Louis Cardinals, on April 21, 1967, ending a streak of 737 consecutive games without a postponement. On April 12, 1976, the second home rainout ended a streak of 724 straight games. April 19–21, 1988 saw three consecutive rainouts, the only time consecutive games have been rained out at Dodger Stadium. No rainouts occurred between April 21, 1988, and April 11, 1999 – a major league record of 856 straight home games without a rainout. That record has since been broken, with no rainouts since April 17, 2000, 1,471 consecutive games through October 3, 2019


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium has never increased its seating capacity, and was the only current MLB park (through 2005) that had never done so, due to a conditional-use permit that limits Dodger Stadium's seating capacity to 56,000. Whenever higher revenue lower seats were added some in the upper deck or pavilion were removed to keep the number the same. Through the sale of standing room only tickets, the Dodgers' 2009 home opener drew 57,099 fans, the largest crowd in stadium history. Following a number of incidents in the early 1970s in which fans showered Cincinnati Reds left fielder Pete Rose with beer, bottles, cups, and trash, the sale of beer was discontinued in both pavilions. Beer sales were reinstated in the right field pavilion in 2008, when that section was converted into the All You Can Eat Pavilion. Fans seated in that section can eat unlimited hot dogs and peanuts and also have access to free soft drinks. There is a charge for beer.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: With the retirement of the original Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium in 2008, the park reigned as the largest capacity ballpark in the Majors.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: As of 2010, there are a total of 2,098 club seats and 68 luxury suites. Both of these amounts will increase once the renovations are complete, with the necessary offset to comply with its conditional-use permit.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Due to renovations made in the 2012–2013 offseason, the current maximum capacity of Dodger Stadium is less than 56,000, although the team's president, Stan Kasten, refuses to provide an exact number. A 53,393 attendance is considered a sellout. The high water mark since the renovations is 56,800 in Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 2008 NLCS. The team's 2013 media guide and website still report the capacity as 56,000.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: For various reasons, Dodger Stadium has long enjoyed a reputation as a pitchers' park. At first, the relatively deep outfield dimensions were a factor, with the power alleys being about . Home plate was moved toward center field in 1969, but that move also expanded foul ground by , a tradeoff which helped to offset the increased likelihood of home runs caused by the decreased field dimensions. Also, during evening games, as the sun sets, the surrounding air cools quickly due to the ocean climate, becoming more dense. As a result, deep fly balls that might otherwise be home runs during the day instead often remain in play becoming outs. The park has been home to 12 no-hitters, while players have hit for the cycle just twice in Dodger Stadium.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Recently, Dodger Stadium has been more neutral with respect to home runs. The stadium does depress doubles and triples quite a bit, due to its uniform outfield walls and relatively small "corners" near the foul poles. However, the extremely short outfield walls near the foul poles also make some balls that would bounce off the wall in other parks go for home runs. With some expansion of the box seat area and the removal of significant foul territory, the ballpark has become more neutral, favoring neither pitchers nor hitters. Baseball-Reference's Park Factor measurement of 102 for the 2006 and 2007 seasons is evidence of this.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Although the distance to center field has been marked at 395 feet since 1973, it is still actually to center, as has been the case since 1969. The two signs erected in 1973 are to the left and right of dead center. However, curvature of the fence between the posted distance signs is not exactly radial from home plate, thus the distance from home plate directly to center field is most likely farther than the posted . As of 2012, distance to center field is indicated , and is located virtually exactly at the center field point.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: With the opening of Citi Field and the demolition of Shea Stadium in 2009, Dodger Stadium became the only stadium with symmetrical outfield dimensions remaining in the National League and only one of four total in Major League Baseball. The other three symmetrical fields are Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium, Toronto's Rogers Centre, and Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, all in the American League.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Pitchers such as Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Fernando Valenzuela, and Orel Hershiser became superstars after arriving in Los Angeles. The pitcher's edge is also evident in the fact that 13 no-hitters have been thrown in the stadium, including two perfect games (by the Dodgers' Sandy Koufax in 1965, and by Dennis Martínez of the former Montreal Expos in ). Bo Belinsky threw the first ever no-hitter in Dodger Stadium on May 5, 1962, while pitching for the Los Angeles Angels (that club referred to the park as "Chavez Ravine".)


title: Dodger Stadium

text: The park's significant advantage was eroded somewhat since 1969, in general because MLB rules were changed after the "Year of the Pitcher" to lower the maximum height of the pitcher's mound, and more specifically because the Dodgers moved the diamond about 10 feet (3 m) towards center field. This also gave the fielders more room to catch foul balls, so there was some tradeoff. Following the 2004 season, the stadium underwent a renovation which significantly reduced the amount of foul territory. Seats were added which were closer to home plate than the pitcher's mound, the dugouts were moved closer to the field, and previously open space down the foul lines was filled with new seats.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: The Dodgers won the 1963 World Series over the New York Yankees, sweeping the Yankees by winning game 4 by a score of 2–1. So far, this remains the only time the Dodgers ever clinched a World Series at Dodger Stadium.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Until 1988, Dodger Stadium had never hosted a seventh game of a postseason series. The Dodgers won Game 7 of the 1988 National League Championship Series over the New York Mets, 6–0.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: In keeping with the decision of Major League Baseball to schedule postseason games for neutral, "bubble" sites in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dodger Stadium hosted all games between the Houston Astros and the Oakland Athletics in the 2020 American League Division Series.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: The 2020 World Series, which pitted the Dodgers against the Tampa Bay Rays, was played in the neutral site of Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. To accommodate local fans, Dodger Stadium staff set up two high HD video screens in the parking lot and allowed up to 950 cars to enter for each World Series game. An entrance fee of $75 per car was charged, with no more than 6 occupants per car. Audio play-by-play was broadcast over an FM station. No food or drink was sold, and participants were prohibited from bringing alcohol or "partying away from their car". An estimated 2,000 fans attended each game.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Six home runs have been hit completely out of Dodger Stadium. Outfielder Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit two of those home runs. Stargell hit a home run off the Dodgers' Alan Foster on August 5, 1969, that completely cleared the right field pavilion and struck a bus parked outside the stadium. Stargell then hit a home run off Andy Messersmith on May 8, 1973, that landed on the right field pavilion roof and bounced into the parking lot. Dodger catcher Mike Piazza hit a home run off Frank Castillo of the Colorado Rockies on September 21, 1997, that landed on the left field pavilion roof and skipped under the left field video board and into the parking lot. On May 22, 1999, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire cleared the left field pavilion with a home run off the Dodgers' Jamie Arnold. On May 12, 2015, Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins hit a home run over the left-field roof off Mike Bolsinger and most recently, on September 30, 2021, Fernando Tatís Jr. hit a ball out of the stadium off the top of the left field pavilion roof.


title: Dodger Stadium

text: Dodger Stadium has also staged other sporting events such as boxing, a basketball game featuring the Harlem Globetrotters and a ski-jumping exhibition, as well as the baseball competition of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games and is currently designated to host softball and baseball for the 2028 Olympic Games with Angel Stadium.