Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, or ROCOR until 2007 part of True Orthodoxy's Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, ROCA also referred to as Karlovatsky Synod, or "Karlovatsky group", or the Synod of Karlovci, is since 2007 a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ROCOR was established in the early 1920s as a de facto independent ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Eastern Orthodoxy as a result of some of the Russian bishops having lost regular liaison with the central church authority in Moscow due to the Russian Civil War and subsequent exile, a situation, effectively institutionalised by their rejection of the Moscow Patriarchate′s unconditional political loyalty to the Bolshevik regime in the USSR formally promulgated by the Declaration of 20 July 1927 of Metropolitan Sergius, deputy Patriarchal locum tenens. Metropolitan Antony, of Kiev and Galicia, was the founding First Hierarch of the ROCOR. After decades of separation, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia signed the Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate on 17 May 2007, restoring the canonical link between the churches effecting a split with the much diminished Russian Orthodox Church Abroad which remained within the True Orthodoxy movement.
The jurisdiction has around 400 parishes worldwide and an estimated membership of over 400,000 people. Of these, 232 parishes and 10 monasteries are in the United States, with 92,000 adherents and over 9,000 regular church attendees. ROCOR has 13 hierarchs, with male and female monasteries in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe and South America. In May 1919, at the peak of the military success of the White forces under Gen Anton Denikin, in the Russian city of Stavropol, controlled by the White Army a group of Russian bishops organised an ecclesiastical administration body, the Temporary Higher Church Administration in South–East Russia. On 7 November 1920, Patriarch of Moscow, his Synod, the Supreme Church Council in Moscow issued a joint resolution No. 362 instructing all Russian Orthodox Christian bishops, should they be unable to maintain liaison with the Supreme Church Administration in Moscow, to seek protection and guidance by organizing among themselves. In November 1920, after the final defeat of the Russian Army in South Russia, a number of Russian bishops evacuated from Crimea to Constantinople occupied by British and Italian forces.
After learning of the decision of Gen Pyotr Wrangel to keep his army, it was decided to keep the Russian ecclesiastical organisation as a separate entity abroad as well. The Temporary Church Authority met on 19 November 1920, aboard the ship Grand Duke Alexader Mikhailovich, presided over by Metropolitan Antony. Metropolitan Antony and Bishop Benjamin were appointed to examine the canonicity of the organization. On 2 December 1920, they received permission from Metropolitan Dorotheos of Prussia, Locum Tenens of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, to establish "for the purpose of the service of the population and to oversee the ecclesiastic life of Russian colonies in Orthodox countries a temporary committee under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate". On 14 February 1921, Metropolitan Antony settled down in the town of Sremski Karlovci, where he was given the palace of former Patriarchs of Karlovci. In the course of the subsequent few months, at the invitation of Patriarch Dimitrije of Serbia, the other eight bishops of the THCAA, including Anastasius and Benjamin, as well as numerous priests and monks, relocated to Serbia.
On 31 August 1921, the Council of Bishops of the Serbian Church passed a resolution, effective from 3 October, that recognised the THCAA as an administratively independent jurisdiction for exiled Russian clergy outside the Kingdom of SHS as well as those Russian clergy in the Kingdom of SHS who were not in parish or state educational service. With the agreement of Patriarch Dimitrije of Serbia, between 21 November and 2 December 1921, the "General assembly of representatives of the Russian Church abroad" took place in Sremski Karlovci, it was renamed the First All-Diaspora Council and was presided over by Metropolitan Anthony. The Council established the "Supreme Ecclesiastic Administration Abroad", composed of a patriarchal Locum Tenens, a Synod of Bishops, a Church Council; the Council decided to appoint Metropolitan Anthony the Locum Tenens, but he declined to accept the position without permission from Moscow and instead called himself the President of the SEAA. The Council adopted a number of resolutions and appeals, the two notable ones being addressed to the flock of the Russian Orthodox Church ″in diaspora and exile″ and to the International Conference in Genoa.
The former, adopted with a majority of votes (but not unanimously, Metropolitan Eulogius Georgiyevsky being the most prom
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party; the Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism, while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive Party, beginning a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party over the coming decades, leading to Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform, supporting social justice. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business and Southern conservative-populist anti-business wings.
The New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South. After the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most Southern whites and many Northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level; the once-powerful labor union element became less supportive after the 1970s. White Evangelicals and Southerners became Republican at the state and local level since the 1990s. People living in metropolitan areas, women and gender minorities, college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, such as Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and African Americans, tend to support the Democratic Party much more than they support the rival Republican Party; the Democratic Party's philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state.
It seeks to provide government regulation in the economy. These interventions, such as the introduction of social programs, support for labor unions, affordable college tuitions, moves toward universal health care and equal opportunity, consumer protection and environmental protection form the core of the party's economic policy. Fifteen Democrats have served as President of the United States; the first was President Andrew Jackson, the seventh president and served from 1829 to 1837. The most recent was President Barack Obama, the 44th president and held office from 2009 to 2017. Following the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats held a majority in the House of Representatives, "trifectas" in 14 states, the mayoralty of numerous major American cities, such as Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Portland and Washington, D. C. Twenty-three state governors were Democrats, the Party was the minority party in the Senate and in most state legislatures; as of March 2019, four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
Democratic Party officials trace its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. That party inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party arose in the 1830s with the election of Andrew Jackson. Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues, they have been more liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy, both parties have changed position several times; the Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. The party favored republicanism; the Democratic-Republican Party came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the Federalists disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans.
The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until the early 1830s, when the Whig Party became a national political group to rival the Democratic-Republicans. However, the Democratic-Republican Party still had its own internal factions, they split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828: Jacksonians believed the people's will had prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president; the Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics. Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party; the Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s, when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery.
In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Dem
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. At 165,250,000 square kilometers in area, this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of Earth's land area combined; the centers of both the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific, its mean depth is 4,000 meters. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 meters; the western Pacific has many peripheral seas. Though the peoples of Asia and Oceania have traveled the Pacific Ocean since prehistoric times, the eastern Pacific was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur.
The ocean's current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favorable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means "peaceful sea". Important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. About 3000 BC, the Austronesian peoples on the island of Taiwan mastered the art of long-distance canoe travel and spread themselves and their languages south to the Philippines and maritime Southeast Asia. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan. Trade, therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of this trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality. From 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean; the first contact of European navigators with the western edge of the Pacific Ocean was made by the Portuguese expeditions of António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão, via the Lesser Sunda Islands, to the Maluku Islands, in 1512, with Jorge Álvares's expedition to southern China in 1513, both ordered by Afonso de Albuquerque from Malacca.
The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean. He named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. In 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Spanish expedition to the Spice Islands that would result in the first world circumnavigation. Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters; the ocean was called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century. Although Magellan himself died in the Philippines in 1521, Spanish Basque navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano led the remains of the expedition back to Spain across the Indian Ocean and round the Cape of Good Hope, completing the first world circumnavigation in a single expedition in 1522. Sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, Papua New Guinea.
In 1542–43 the Portuguese reached Japan. In 1564, five Spanish ships carrying 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi, sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. For the remainder of the 16th century, Spanish influence was paramount, with ships sailing from Mexico and Peru across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines via Guam, establishing the Spanish East Indies; the Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries, linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history. Spanish expeditions discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the quest for Terra Australis, Spanish explorations in the 17th century, such as the expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, discovered the Pitcairn and Vanuatu archipelagos, sailed the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, named after navigator Luís Vaz de Torres. Dutch explorers, sailing around southern Africa engaged in discovery and trade.
In the 16th and 17th centuries Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers. As the only known entrance from the Atlantic, the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western side of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines; the 18th cen
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, the second most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Its name refers to an urban agglomeration of 9,992.5 km2, comprising a metropolitan area with 31 municipalities, is the common name for its city centre. The city occupies much of the coastline of Port Phillip bay and spreads into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley, it has a population of 4.9 million, its inhabitants are referred to as "Melburnians". The city was founded on 30 August 1835, in the then-British colony of New South Wales, by free settlers from the colony of Van Diemen’s Land, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837 and named in honour of the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. In 1851, four years after Queen Victoria declared it a city, Melbourne became the capital of the new colony of Victoria. In the wake of the 1850s Victorian gold rush, the city entered a lengthy boom period that, by the late 1880s, had transformed it into one of the world's largest and wealthiest metropolises.
After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as interim seat of government of the new nation until Canberra became the permanent capital in 1927. Today, it is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region and ranks 15th in the Global Financial Centres Index; the city is home to many of the best-known cultural institutions in the nation, such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the National Gallery of Victoria and the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building. It is the birthplace of Australian impressionism, Australian rules football, the Australian film and television industries and Australian contemporary dance. More it has been recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a global centre for street art, live music and theatre, it is the host city of annual international events such as the Australian Grand Prix, the Australian Open and the Melbourne Cup, has hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Due to it rating in entertainment and sport, as well as education, health care and development, the EIU ranks it the second most liveable city in the world.
The main airport serving the city is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia, Australia's busiest seaport the Port of Melbourne. Its main metropolitan rail terminus is Flinders Street station and its main regional rail and road coach terminus is Southern Cross station, it has the most extensive freeway network in Australia and the largest urban tram network in the world. Indigenous Australians have lived in the Melbourne area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years; when European settlers arrived in the 19th-century, under 2,000 hunter-gatherers from three regional tribes—the Wurundjeri and Wathaurong—inhabited the area. It was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and a vital source of food and water; the first British settlement in Victoria part of the penal colony of New South Wales, was established by Colonel David Collins in October 1803, at Sullivan Bay, near present-day Sorrento. The following year, due to a perceived lack of resources, these settlers relocated to Van Diemen's Land and founded the city of Hobart.
It would be 30 years. In May and June 1835, John Batman, a leading member of the Port Phillip Association in Van Diemen's Land, explored the Melbourne area, claimed to have negotiated a purchase of 600,000 acres with eight Wurundjeri elders. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River, declaring that "this will be the place for a village" before returning to Van Diemen's Land. In August 1835, another group of Vandemonian settlers arrived in the area and established a settlement at the site of the current Melbourne Immigration Museum. Batman and his group arrived the following month and the two groups agreed to share the settlement known by the native name of Dootigala. Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines was annulled by Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales, with compensation paid to members of the association. In 1836, Bourke declared the city the administrative capital of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, commissioned the first plan for its urban layout, the Hoddle Grid, in 1837.
Known as Batmania, the settlement was named Melbourne in 1837 after the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose seat was Melbourne Hall in the market town of Melbourne, Derbyshire. That year, the settlement's general post office opened with that name. Between 1836 and 1842, Victorian Aboriginal groups were dispossessed of their land by European settlers. By January 1844, there were said to be 675 Aborigines resident in squalid camps in Melbourne; the British Colonial Office appointed five Aboriginal Protectors for the Aborigines of Victoria, in 1839, however their work was nullified by a land policy that favoured squatters who took possession of Aboriginal lands. By 1845, fewer than 240 wealthy Europeans held all the pastoral licences issued in Victoria and became a powerful political and economic force in Victoria for generations to come. Letters patent of Queen Victoria, issued on 25 June 1847, declared Melbourne a city. On 1 July 1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales to become the Colony of Victoria, with Melbourne as its capital.
The discovery of gold in Victoria in mid-1851 sparked a
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park and former U. S. Army military fort on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, it had been a fortified location since September 17, 1776, when New Spain established the presidio to gain a foothold in Alta California and the San Francisco Bay. It passed to Mexico, which in turn passed it to the United States in 1848; as part of a 1989 military reduction program under the Base Realignment and Closure process, Congress voted to end the Presidio's status as an active military installation of the U. S. Army. On October 1, 1994, it was transferred to the National Park Service, ending 219 years of military use and beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use. In 1996, the United States Congress created the Presidio Trust to oversee and manage the interior 80% of the park's lands, with the National Park Service managing the coastal 20%. In a first-of-its-kind structure, Congress mandated that the Presidio Trust make the Presidio financially self-sufficient by 2013.
The Presidio achieved the goal in 2005, eight years ahead of the scheduled deadline. The park is characterized by many wooded areas and scenic vistas overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Pacific Ocean, it was recognized as a California Historical Landmark in 1933 and as a National Historic Landmark in 1962. The visitor centers are operated by the National Park Service: Presidio Visitor Center: offers changing exhibits about the Presidio, information about sights and activities in the park, a bookstore; the Presidio Transit Center is located adjacent to this visitor center and is served by the PresidiGo Shuttle and Muni bus routes. Battery Chamberlin: seacoast defense museum and artillery display at Baker Beach built in 1904. Fort Point: 1861 brick and granite fortification located under the Golden Gate Bridge; the visitor center, open on Friday and Sunday, offers video orientations, guided tours, self-guiding materials, a bookstore. Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center: This center offers hands-on marine-life exhibits, is located in a historic Coast Guard Station at the west end of Crissy Field.
The building was used by the Coast Guard from 1890 to 1990. Golden Gate Bridge Pavilion: opened May 2012 for the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pavilion is the first visitor center in the history of the Golden Gate Bridge, it is located just east of the southern end of the bridge. Hidden Presidio Outdoor Track: begins at Julius Kahn Playground and encircles the valley just below it.75 miles of dirt trails, wooden stairs, various altitudes. To view track course see Crissy Field Center is an urban environmental education center with programs for schools, public workshops, after-school programs, summer camps, more; the Center is operated by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and overlooks a restored tidal marsh. The facilities include interactive environmental exhibits, a media lab, resource library, arts workshop, science lab, gathering room, teaching kitchen, café and bookstore; the landscape of Crissy Field was designed by George Hargreaves. The project restored a functioning and sustaining tidal wetland as a habitat for flora and fauna, which were not in evidence on the site.
It restored a historic grass airfield that functioned as a culturally significant military airfield between 1919 and 1936. The park at Crissy Field expanded and widened the recreational opportunities of the existing 1 1⁄2-mile San Francisco shore to a broader number of Presidio residents and visitors. A major planned component of the Presidio's park attractions is the Tunnel Tops project, which would construct a 14-acre park on top of the tunneled portions of Doyle Drive; the park would contain several meadows and walking trails, along with viewpoints for major landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge. Negotiations between Caltrans, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, the Presidio Trust to finalize the land transfer for the park lasted from 2015 to 2018; the budget for the park is $100 million, funded with public funds from the Presidio Trust along with private contributions. Construction for the park is planned to start in October 2018 and the park is slated to be open for public use in 2021.
1776: Spanish Captain Juan Bautista de Anza led 193 soldiers and children on a trek from present day Tubac, Arizona, to San Francisco Bay. September 17, 1776: The Presidio began as a Spanish garrison to defend Spain's claim to San Francisco Bay and to support Mission Dolores. 1794: Castillo de San Joaquin, an artillery emplacement was built above present-day Fort Point, San Francisco, complete with iron or bronze cannon. Six cannons may be seen in the Presidio today. 1776–1821: The Presidio was a simple fort made of adobe and wood. It was damaged by earthquakes or heavy rains. In 1783, its company was only 33 men. Presidio soldiers' duties were to support Mission Dolores by controlling Indian workers in the Mission, farming and hunting in order to supply themselves and their families. Support from Spanish authorities in Mexico was limited. 1821: Mexico became independent of Spain. The Presidio received less support from Mexico. Residents of Alta California, which include the Presidio, debated separating from Mexico.
1827, January: Minor earthquake in San Francisco, some buildings were damaged extensively. 1835
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, United States, is a large urban park consisting of 1,017 acres of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development of Golden Gate Park. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20 percent larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is compared, it is over three miles long east to west, about half a mile north to south. With 13 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the fifth most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park in New York City, Lincoln Park in Chicago, Balboa and Mission Bay Parks in San Diego. In the 1860s, San Franciscans began to feel the need for a spacious public park similar to Central Park, taking shape in New York City. Golden Gate Park was carved out of unpromising sand and shore dunes that were known as the Outside Lands, in an unincorporated area west of San Francisco's then-current borders. Conceived ostensibly for recreation, the underlying purpose of the park was housing development and the westward expansion of the city.
The tireless field engineer William Hammond Hall prepared a survey and topographic map of the park site in 1870 and became its commissioner in 1871. He was named California's first state engineer and developed an integrated flood control system for the Sacramento Valley; the park drew its name from nearby Golden Gate Strait. The plan and planting were developed by Hall and his assistant, John McLaren, who had apprenticed in Scotland, home of many of the 19th-century's best professional gardeners. John McLaren, when asked by the Park Commission if he could make Golden Gate Park "one of the beauty spots of the world," replied saying, "With your aid gentleman, God be willing, that I shall do." He promised that he'd "go out into the country and walk along a stream until he found a farm, that he'd come back to the garden and recreate what nature had done." The initial plan called for grade separations of transverse roadways through the park, as Frederick Law Olmsted had provided for Central Park, but budget constraints and the positioning of the Arboretum and the Concourse ended the plan.
In 1876, the plan was replaced by one for a racetrack, favored by "the Big Four" millionaires: Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, Charles Crocker. Stanford, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, was one of the owners of the Ocean Railroad Company, which ran from Haight Street across the park to its south border out to the beach and north to a point near Cliff House, it was Gus Mooney. Many of Mooney's friends staked claims and built shanties on the beach to sell refreshments to the patrons of the park. Hall resigned, the remaining park commissioners followed. In 1882 Governor George C. Perkins appointed Frank M. Pixley and editor of The Argonaut, to the board of commissioners of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Pixley was adamant that the Mooney's shanties be eliminated, he found support with the San Francisco Police for park security. Pixley favored Stanford's company by granting a fifty-year lease on the route that closed the park on three sides to competition; the original plan, was back on track by 1886, when streetcars delivered over 47,000 people to Golden Gate Park on one weekend afternoon.
The first stage of the park's development centered on planting trees in order to stabilize the dunes that covered three-quarters of the park's area. In order to transform the sand dunes into Greenland, John McLaren grew bent grass seeds obtained from France for two years. Once the seeds were grown, he planted them over the sand to hold the ground together. After this success, McLaren was able introduce new species of plants to the land, is credited to have added over 700 new types of trees to California within the span of one year. By 1875, about 60,000 trees Eucalyptus globulus, Monterey pine, Monterey cypress, had been planted. By 1879, that figure more than doubled to 155,000 trees over 1,000 acres. Within his lifetime, McLaren is credited to have planted over two million trees within northern California as a whole. Another accomplishment of John McLaren is his creation of an open walking space along the Pacific shoreline on the western boundary of the park. Despite obstacles such as heavy tides and winds that carried sand inland towards the park, McLaren was able to build an esplanade by stacking thousands of tree boughs over the course of 20 years.
When he refused to retire at the customary age of 60 the San Francisco city government was bombarded with letters: when he reached 70, a charter amendment was passed to exempt him from forced retirement. On his 92nd birthday, two thousand San Franciscans attended a testimonial dinner that honored him as San Francisco's number one citizen, he lived in McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park until he died in 1943, aged 96. There is a street close to Golden Gate Park named after him. In 1903, a pair of Dutch-style windmills were built at the extreme western end of the park; these pumped water throughout the park. The north windmill was restored to its original appearance in 1981 and is adjacent to Queen Wilhelmina tulip garden, a gift of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands; these are planted with other flowers in appropriate seasons. The Murphy Windmill in the southwest corner of the park was restored in September 2011. After the earthquake shook San Francisco in 1906, Golden Gate Park became a site of refuge for many who found themselves without shelter.
The undeveloped Outside Lands became a prime location to house these masses of pe
Cliff House, San Francisco
The Cliff House is a restaurant on Point Lobos Avenue perched on the headland above the cliffs just north of Ocean Beach, in the Outer Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It has had five major incarnations since its beginnings in 1858, it now overlooks the site of the former Sutro Baths and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, operated by the National Park Service. On the terrace of the Cliff House is a room-sized camera obscura. Cliff House has had five major incarnations since its beginnings in 1858; that year, Samuel Brannan, a prosperous ex-Mormon elder from Maine, bought for $1,500 the lumber salvaged from a ship that foundered on the basalt cliffs below. With this material he built the first Cliff House; the second Cliff House was built in 1863, leased to Captain Junius G. Foster, it was a long trek from the city and hosted horseback riders, small game hunters or picnickers on day outings. With the opening of the Point Lobos toll road a year the Cliff House became successful with the Carriage trade for Sunday travel.
The builders of the toll road constructed a two-mile speedway beside it where well-to-do San Franciscans raced their horses along the way. On weekends, there was little room at the Cliff House hitching racks for tethering the horses for the thousands of rigs. Soon, omnibus and streetcar lines made it to near Lone Mountain where passengers transferred to stagecoach lines to the beach; the growth of Golden Gate Park attracted beach travellers, in search of meals and a look at the sea lions sunning themselves on Seal Rocks just off the cliffs, to visit the area. In 1877, the toll road, now Geary Street, was purchased by the city for around $25,000. In 1883, after a few years of downturn, the Cliff House was bought by Adolph Sutro, who had solved the problems of ventilating and draining the mines of the Comstock Lode and become a multimillionaire. After a few years of quiet management by J. M. Wilkens, the Cliff House was damaged by a dynamite explosion when the schooner, ran aground on January 16, 1887.
The blast was demolished the entire north wing of the tavern. The building was repaired, but was completely destroyed by fire on Christmas night 1894 due to a defective flue. Wilkens was unable to save the guest register, which included the signatures of three Presidents and dozens of illustrious world-famous visitors; this incarnation of the Cliff House, with its various extensions, had lasted for 31 years. In 1896, Adolph Sutro built a new Cliff House, a seven-story Victorian Chateau, called by some "the Gingerbread Palace", below his estate on the bluffs of Sutro Heights; this was the same year work began on the famous Sutro Baths in a small cove north of the Restaurant. The baths included six of the largest indoor swimming pools, a museum, a skating rink and other pleasure grounds. Great throngs of San Franciscans arrived on steam trains, bicycles and horse wagons on Sunday excursions. Sutro purchased some of the collection of stuffed animals and historic items from Woodward's Gardens to display at both the Cliff House and Sutro Baths.
The 1896 Cliff House survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage, but burned to the ground on the evening of September 7, 1907, after existing for only 11 years. After the fire, Dr. Emma Merritt, Sutro's daughter, commissioned Reid & Reid to rebuild the restaurant in a neo-classical style, it is the basis of the structure seen today. In 1914, the guidebook Bohemian San Francsco described it as " one of the great Bohemian restaurants of San Francisco.... While you have thought you had good breakfasts before this, you know that now you are having the best of them all." In 1937, George and Leo Whitney purchased the Cliff House, to complement their Playland-at-the-Beach attraction nearby, extensively remodelled it into an American roadhouse. From 1955 until 1961, a sky tram operated across the Sutro Baths basin, taking up to 25 visitors at a time from Point Lobos, enhanced by an artificial waterfall, to the outer balcony of the Cliff House. In the 1960s, upon the closing of Playland, the Musée Mécanique, a museum of 20th-century penny arcade games, was moved into the basement of the Cliff House.
The building was acquired by the National Park Service in 1977 and became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In 2003, as part of an extensive renovation, many of Whitney's additions were removed and the building was restored to its 1909 appearance. A new two-story wing was constructed overlooking what were by the ruins of the Sutro Baths.. During the site restoration, the Musée Mécanique was moved to Fisherman's Wharf. More than thirty ships have run aground on the southern shore of the Golden Gate below the Cliff House; when the Cliff House became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1977, the National Park Service contracted with Dan and Mary Hountalas as official concessionaires of the property. The NPS renewed its contract with the Hountalas family, under the name Peanut Wagon, in 1998. Peanut Wagon continues to manage Cliff House operations and worked with the Park Service for the extensive site restoration, completed in 2004; the Cliff House features two restaurants, the casual dining Bistro Restaurant and the more formal Sutro's.
Additionally, the Terrace Room serves a Sunday Brunch buffet. There is a gift shop in the building, the historic camera obscura is on a deck overlooking the ocean. During the 2013 government shutdown, the US Park Service ordered; the owners were forced to close again. They reopened with permission on October 12, 2013; the area around Cliff House is part of the setting of Jac
United States
California![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}
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