Richard Morris, OBE (born 8 October 1947) is an English archaeologist and historian who specialises in the study of churchyard and battlefield archaeology. Having been involved in the discipline since the early 1970s, he has worked at a number of British universities, including the University of Leeds and the University of Huddersfield, as well as publishing a series of books on the subject of archaeology. He has also held a number of significant positions within the British archaeological community. He was  director of the Council for British Archaeology from 1991 to 1999, and was Commissioner of English Heritage.

Morris studied English at Oxford University before proceeding to study music at the University of York, until he finally decided to go into archaeology as an academic vocation. His first book, Cathedrals and Abbeys of England and Wales, was published in 1979, and would be followed by two others on the same subject over the following decade, The Church in British Archaeology (1983) and Churches in the Landscape (1989). Morris then published three books on the role of the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, Guy Gibson (1994), Cheshire: The Biography of Leonard Cheshire VC OM (2000) and Breaching the German Dams (co-authored with Robert Owen, 2008), before returning to the topic of landscape archaeology with Time's Anvil: England, Archaeology and the Imagination (2012) and The Archaeology of English Battlefields: Conflict in the Pre-industrial Landscape (co-authored with Glenn Foard, 2012). Time's Anvil was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2013. He is currently chair of The Blackden Trust, a charitable organisation involved in historical and archaeological investigation of Blackden, the late-medieval home of novelist Alan Garner, in Cheshire.

Biography

Morris initially studied English at Oxford University, before going on to study music at the University of York, and then finally moving into the field of archaeology.

He serves as the chair of The Blackden Trust, a charitable organisation devoted to undertaking historical and archaeological research into the late medieval/early modern building at Blackden in Cheshire, which has been the home of novelist Alan Garner since 1957. In undertaking excavations at the site he has been aided by field archaeologist Mark Roberts of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

In 2003, Morris was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to archaeology. He served as director of the Institute for Medieval Studies, Leeds at the University of Leeds from 2003 to 2010. In 2007, he was awarded a personal chair from the University of Leeds, as Professor of Research in the Historic Environment. In 2010, he moved to the University of Huddersfield where he was Professor for Conflict and Culture from 2010-2015. Having retired in 2015, he currently serves as Professor Emeritus at Huddersfield.

Bibliography

Books

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links
University of Huddersfield staff entry
Debretts entry

English archaeologists
Living people
1947 births
Academics of the University of Leeds

Richard Morris (archaeologist)


George of the Jungle 2 is a 2003 comedy film and the sequel to the 1997 Disney film George of the Jungle. It was directed by David Grossman and written by Jordan Moffet. The film stars Thomas Haden Church, Julie Benz, Christina Pickles, Angus T. Jones, Michael Clarke Duncan, John Cleese, and introducing Christopher Showerman in his film debut as George.

Cleese and Church reprise their roles from the first film, while Brendan Fraser is replaced by Showerman for the role of George. George is also a secondary character in the film, with Church playing the lead role. The film focuses on George trying to save Ape Mountain from his evil nemesis Lyle.

Plot
Six years after socialite Ursula Stanhope left civilization to marry George of the Jungle, George has fathered George Jr. When the narrator doesn't recognize George, he quotes "Me New George. Studio too cheap to pay Brendan Fraser." George finds himself hard-pressed to fulfill the roles of jungle king, father, and husband.

George's stress level increases when the "Mean Lion" challenges him for leadership of the jungle, and when Ursula's mother Beatrice teams up with Ursula's ex-fiancé, Lyle van de Groot, in a plot to forcibly take away all that George holds most dear. To do this, Beatrice invites Ursula, George, and George Jr. to visit Las Vegas, which they accept. Throughout the visit, Beatrice and some of Ursula's fellow socialites try constantly to convince Ursula that George is unworthy of her affection. George, observing the threats but not his wife's resistance, begins to think himself unworthy of Ursula.

During the same time, George's mentor Ape has become a gambler and is in debt to several creditors, including Lyle. Upon discovering that Ape does not possess the exploitation rights of Ape Mountain, but George does, Lyle instead makes Ape work off his debts from the gambling for the next 17 years. He then engages Ape as a staged song performer and steals the deed to Ape Mountain from George's wardrobe. He thereafter sends two agents Sally and Kowalski to Ape Mountain, where they begin to demolish the jungle. The animals, terrified, turn to the Lion for guardianship.

Having failed to convince Ursula to divorce George, Beatrice hires Armando, a master of hypnosis to hypnotize Ursula into having no memory of having known George. Armando brainwashes Ursula, giving her the idea that she had married Lyle. George, upon hearing from Beatrice that Ursula has left him, leaves his luck-charm with Ursula as she sleeps, then departs. He rescues Ape and leaves Las Vegas. Their departure triggers much commotion when the police force and the Animal Control Agency join forces to recapture them.

In San Francisco, Lyle fails to persuade Ursula that he is worthy of her affection. Ursula's memory, meanwhile, is stimulated by events similar to those in which George had played a major part. Later, George then tries to reconnect with Ursula and George Junior before leaving to rescue the jungle, remembering to use a bigger crate as a tip from Brendan Fraser, who was cramped during the first film. George gains Ursula's interest, but has trouble convincing her that he is her husband. Knocking her unconscious, George continues his journey back home with her, Ape, George Jr., and Rocky the kangaroo.

In the jungle, George overthrows the Mean Lion and tries to convince the other animals to join him in stopping the diggers, but fails in gaining their lost trust in him until the diggers become an immediate threat. George defeats the bulldozers with the help of George Junior, Ape, Shep, Rocky, and Tookie Bird.

Lyle's agents Sally and Kowalski come to destroy the tree house only to be defeated by George and Rocky. George is unable to defeat the digging machine until his son joins the fray. Lyle and Beatrice arrive to pick up Ursula and George Junior. George manages to defeat both of them by hanging Lyle in a tree and Beatrice is kissed by Ape. A defeated Lyle takes his anger out on the Narrator by insulting him. In response, the Narrator grabs him and removes him from the story for good. After that, George kisses Ursula, restoring her full memory of him. After reviving Ursula's friends in a similar fashion (for they had been hypnotized into forgetting George also) they subsequently renew their wedding vows and learn to find balance among George's duties.

During the credits, the Narrator's voice is heard lamenting about not having a loved one until he meets the female narrator from Mulan.

Cast
 Thomas Haden Church as Lyle Van de Groot, George's nemesis and Ursula's ex-fiance.
 Christopher Showerman as George, King of the Jungle. Showerman replaces Brendan Fraser, with characters referencing this throughout the film.
 Julie Benz as Ursula Stanhope, Queen of the Jungle. Benz replaces Leslie Mann.
 Christina Pickles as Beatrice Stanhope, Ursula's mother, George's mother-in-law, and George Jr's maternal grandmother. Pickles replaces Holland Taylor.
 Angus T. Jones as George Jr., Prince of the Jungle.
 Kelly Miracco as Betsy, Ursula's best friend
 Marjean Holden as Sally, one of Lyle's henchwomen
 Erika Heynatz as Kowalski, another one of Lyle's henchwomen
 Dean Vegas as an Elvis impersonator
 Paul Wayne as a Kenny Rogers impersonator
 John Kassir as Armando, the famous hypnotist and master of the hypnosis
 Abdoulaye N'Gom, Lamont Thompson, and Lydell M. Cheshier as Kip, N'Dugo, and Baleto, three porters from the previous film who take Beatrice to George's treehouse. Only N'Gmom and Cheshier reprise their roles while N'Dugu was previously portrayed by Michael Chinyamurindi in the previous film.
 Peta Sergeant as an attractive woman
 Scooper as Tookie

Voices
 John Cleese as Ape, an Eastern gorilla and George's friend/foster brother who is operating in Las Vegas
 Michael Clarke Duncan as Mean Lion, a lion who challenges George for reign over the jungle
 John Kassir as Rocky, a red kangaroo
 Kevin Greutert as Tookie, a toco toucan
 Kevin Michael Richardson as
 Grouchy Gorilla
 Chimpanzee
 Tress MacNeille as Tiger
 Dee Bradley Baker as
 Dexter the Monkey
 A Water Buffalo that once taught George how to swim.
 Keith Scott as Narrator

In-suit performers
 Kerry Casey as Grouchy Gorilla
 Shaun Mackay as Happy Gorilla

Release
Disney released George of the Jungle 2 direct-to-video on October 21, 2003. It later aired on Disney Channel. It also aired on Disney XD.  It was originally scheduled to be released on Summer 2003, but it was delayed to October 21, 2003. A week prior to release, Caterpillar Inc. sued Disney over concerns that the film's use of its trademark (appearing on the bulldozers) constituted damage to its reputation.  Caterpillar Inc. asked for a restraining order to prevent the release, but they were unsuccessful.

Reception
George of the Jungle 2 received generally negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 17% based on reviews from 6 critics.

Joe Leydon of Variety wrote "One of the finest and funniest made-for-video sequels ever released on the Disney label offers an unusually satisfying mix of kid-friendly broad comedy and knowing pop culture parody."  Michael Rankins of DVD Verdict wrote that the film "delivers cheap, fluffy, mostly painfree chuckles" and suggested that people watch Jay Ward's cartoons instead.  Aaron Beierle of DVD Talk rated the film 2 out of 5 and wrote, "Although not quite the dreadful affair that most will be expecting from this kind of a direct-to-video effort, there's simply not much story for the film to go on and the only witty moments are provided by the narrator".

References

External links

2003 comedy films
2003 direct-to-video films
2003 films
American comedy films
Direct-to-video sequel films
Disney direct-to-video films
Films based on television series
Films set in Africa
Films shot in Queensland
George of the Jungle
Live-action films based on animated series
Live-action films based on Jay Ward cartoons
Films about animals
Films about apes
Films about elephants
Films about kangaroos and wallabies
Films about lions
Films about tigers
Films about hypnosis
Films scored by J. A. C. Redford
Films set in Nevada
2000s English-language films
2000s American films

George of the Jungle 2


An  is a story-based video game that is targeted towards women. Generally one of the goals, besides the main story goal, is to develop a romantic relationship between the female main player character and one of the usually male, secondary lead characters.

History
The first otome game is generally acknowledged to be Angelique, released in 1994 by Koei in Japan for the Super Famicom, and created by Ruby Party, an all-woman development team division of Koei. The game was originally designed for pre-teen and younger teenage girls, but became unexpectedly popular with older teenagers and women in their 20s. In 2021, the series continues with Angelique Luminarise, in which the protagonist is a 25-year-old office worker. Angelique is credited with "set[ting] up the specifics and conventions of women's games: a focus on romance, easy controls and utilizing other multimedia." After Angelique came in 1997 the second otome game, Albaria no Otome which was created by Gimmick House and Magical Craft for PC-FX and later for PlayStation. The game has a very similar dynamic to its predecessor Angelique, with the protagonist Ashanty, a young woman who will have to choose between being the new sacred protector of a kingdom, or falling in love and living happily with one of her knights who will help her during the game. In 2002, Konami released its very successful Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side, which brought many new fans to the still-new genre. In 2006, Famitsu's listings for the Top 20 selling love games included seven otome games. Early games borrowed heavily from the iconography and story conventions of "retro shoujo manga", "the archetypical girly heroines, the emphasis on pure, sexless, tranquil romance and on a peaceful, stable setting", but as the category expanded, other narrative and gameplay elements were introduced, including action, adventure, combat and plots in which "the heroine can 'save the world' and 'get the guy' at the same time".

McKenzie & Co (1995) from American Laser Games and Girl's Club (1992) from Philips Interactive were simulation games for girls developed and released in the US in the past. The first Japanese otome game to be officially translated and sold in English was the visual novel Yo-Jin-Bo in 2006 for the PC.

Some publications that regularly cover otome games include B's LOG and Dengeki Girl's Style.

Style
The genre has many style elements in common with shōjo manga and josei manga, and plotwise they are often similar to harem manga. There are also games targeted towards women that are focused on romance between men, called , and sometimes there are yaoi (boys' love) elements in otome games, but the two genres are usually kept separate.

Otome games that are released on console and handheld platforms contain no pornographic content, as companies such as Sony and Nintendo do not allow it. There are games released on a PC platform which are rated 18+ for their sexual content. Some games were originally released for the PC with pornographic content, and were later toned down and re-released for the PS2.

Other common elements in otome games are the importance of voice acting, CG stills, and a small epilogue or set scene at the end of the game when a character is successfully finished.

Gameplay
Traditionally, the goal of these games is to have the desired partner fall in love and have a relationship with the player character, but the requirements for gaining a "good end" differ from game to game. While the plots of otome games differ greatly, there is usually a single female main character, and several good-looking males of varying "types".

Gameplay occasionally does not particularly focus on romance, even if there are several characters whose "routes" can be followed.

In the visual novel examples of the genre, the player proceeds in the story by selecting dialogue or action choices which affect their relationships in a decision tree format. In simulation otome games, there is also other gameplay which affects the plot, either by playing minigames or by raising stats. The main character often has several parameters, such as looks, style, intelligence, talent, etc., that can be raised through various activities in normal gameplay. The potential partners usually require a certain parameter or parameters to be at a certain level for them to fall in love with the main character. There is also often a pure dating aspect of gameplay in simulations. This involves asking or being asked on dates by the love interest, doing an activity with them, and responding to their questions or comments. The player has a choice of responses, and a correct answer will raise your standing with that character.

One feature that has become common in otome games is , which is to have voice acting throughout the entire game. The love interests are often voiced by well-known voice actors. At certain points, or when the player passes certain requirements, special events can occur, often with a "CG" (computer graphic) as a reward. This CG is a set picture featuring the love interest and sometimes the main character in a pose, and some dialogue.

Most otome games' heroines are not voiced, due to the budget concerns of voicing all their dialogue. However, there are some games featuring fully voiced heroines, such as Norn9 or Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time.

Other media adaptation

Manga
Otome games have strong links with shōjo manga, with popular titles often spawning a manga series (e.g. Neo Angelique and Meine Liebe), and popular manga series getting adapted to videogames (such as Nana).  Some examples of simultaneous releases of a manga and otome game also exist, such as Angelique and Full House Kiss. It's also common to find dōjinshi featuring popular characters from otome games.

Anime
Some popular games have also been adapted to anime, OVAs, or series, such as Angelique, Diabolik Lovers and Uta no Prince-sama.

Notable otome games

Notable otome game developers and publishers

See also
 Otomechikku, a genre of manga

References

External links

 B's Log: monthly Japanese-language magazine focusing on female-targeted games (mostly otome and BL)
 Dengeki Girl's Style: Japanese language magazine about female-targeted games released in even months (mostly otome and BL)

Romance video games
Video game genres

Otome game


Robin van Aggele (born 30 July 1984 in Hilversum) is an Olympic and national-record-holding swimmer from the Netherlands and the most all-round Dutch swimmer since Marcel Wouda.

He was part of the Dutch relay team that set a short-course European Record in the 4×100 m Free Relay (3:09.18) at the 2008 Short Course Worlds, along with Robert Lijesen, Bas van Velthoven and Mitja Zastrow in 3:09.18. They finished second in this event, behind the team from the United States who set the World Record.

Swimming career
Robin van Aggele made his international debut at the European SC Championships 2004 in Vienna. At the World LC Championships 2005 in Montreal he finished 14th in the 200 m individual medley and 11th in the 400 m individual medley. Later that year he finished 4th in the 100 m individual medley at the European SC Championships 2005 just 0.01 s behind Vytautas Janušaitis.

In 2006 van Aggele qualified for the European LC Championships 2006 but didn't start because he had trained to hard and was too tired to compete. In Helsinki he won his first international medal with the Dutch relay team in 4×50 m freestyle finishing 3rd. At the World LC Championships 2007 he reached a 10th place in the 50 m breaststroke as best result. At the national championships in June he nominated himself for the 200 m individual medley in Beijing 2008. At the end of the year he confirmed his nomination and qualified for the games at Dutch Open Swim Cup. One week later he won a bronze medal with the 4×50 m medley team at the European SC Championships 2007 in Debrecen.

Spring 2008
In 2008 his first big tournament of the year was in his home country, the European LC Championships 2008 which was held in Eindhoven. After a disappointing start of the tournament, he came back strong breaking the 100 m butterfly national record of Joris Keizer bringing it to 52.20 and finishing 4th in the final. At the last day of the tournament he finished 4th again this time in the 4×100  medley relay together with Nick Driebergen, Thijs van Valkengoed and Mitja Zastrow swimming a national record in 3:37.00. A few weeks later he won a silver medal at the World SC Championships 2008 in Manchester with the 4×100 m freestyle team. He also reached 3 individual finals in the 50 and 100 m breaststroke and the 100 m individual medley.

2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics were a big disappointment for van Aggele; he was eliminated in the heats of the 100 m butterfly, 200 m breaststroke and the 200 m individual medley. One month after the Games he announced to join Swimclub AZ&PC and started training under the guidance of Fedor Hes, who helped him already in his Beijing preparations.

Personal bests

See also
 List of swimmers
 List of European records in swimming
 List of Dutch records in swimming
  :nl:Robin van Aggele — his entry on Dutch Wikipedia

References

External links
 Official website: www.robinvanaggel.nl

1984 births
Living people
Dutch male medley swimmers
Dutch male breaststroke swimmers
Dutch male butterfly swimmers
Olympic swimmers for the Netherlands
Swimmers at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Sportspeople from Hilversum
Dutch male freestyle swimmers
Medalists at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m)
21st-century Dutch people

Robin van Aggele


John Ogar Odey (November 1, 1959 – 7 October 2018) was appointed Nigerian minister of information and communications in July 2007, and became minister for environment in December 2008 after President Umaru Yar'Adua reshuffled his cabinet.

Biography
Odey graduated with a B.Sc. in banking and finance from the University of Calabar in 1986.
He has been active within the media, with positions such as general manager for South-South Communication and chairman of News Agency of Nigeria.
He was appointed National Publicity Secretary of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in 2004.

He served as minister of information and communications and then as minister for the environment in the cabinet of Umaru Yar'Adua. In March 2010, he handed over to the permanent secretary for the ministry of environment after Vice President Goodluck Jonathan dissolved his cabinet.

Death
Odey died on Sunday, October 7, 2018 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, UAE, after a cancer-related illness that made him travel out of the country for medication.

Burial

Odey's remains were taken home on Tuesday November 6, 2018, for eternal rest in his hometown, Okpoma, Yala Local Government Area of Cross River State amid tears and testimonies. The body arrived at about 5pm, and was taken to the Christ the King Catholic Church in Okpoma for Mass in his honour. He was buried in Okpoma on Wednesday November 7, 2018.

References

1959 births
2018 deaths
Information and communications ministers of Nigeria
National Working Committee people
Federal ministers of Nigeria
University of Calabar alumni
Deaths from cancer in Nigeria

John Odey


William Wallace (died 1631) was a Scottish master mason and architect. He served as King's Master Mason under James VI.

From 1615, Wallace is known to have been the leading mason working on the King's Lodgings at Edinburgh Castle. On 18 April 1617 he was appointed King's Master Mason, holding this post until his death. Wallace was commissioned in 1618 to rebuild the north range of Linlithgow Palace, which had collapsed in 1605. He was responsible for design as well as building, and executed the new range in an Anglo-Flemish style, which he helped to popularise in Scotland.

He followed this with works to Winton House, near Pencaitland, for George Seton, 3rd Earl of Winton, which he undertook from 1620 to 1627. In 1621 he was made a burgess of Edinburgh, and later served as Deacon of the Edinburgh Masons Lodge. From 1628 until his death Wallace was engaged on the design and construction of Heriot's Hospital, a school, again in the Anglo-Flemish style. He was almost certainly the principal designer of the building, which was continued after his death by William Aytoun. One of Wallace's last works was carving the monument to John Byres of Coates in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh, unpaid for at his death, and his will also includes debts for works at Moray House for the Countess of Home.

In addition, Pinkie House and the original, unexecuted, design for Drumlanrig Castle have been attributed to Wallace on stylistic grounds, although no documentary evidence exists to confirm his involvement.

References

Colvin, Howard  A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840 John Murray, 1978, citing will, National Archives of Scotland.

Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland
Year of birth missing
1631 deaths
17th-century Scottish people
17th-century Scottish architects
Burgesses in Scotland
Scottish stonemasons
People of Linlithgow Palace

Foto by die eerste

William Wallace (mason)


Friedrich Schlie (12 December 1839, Brüel, Mecklenburg-Schwerin - 21 July 1902, Bad Kissingen)  was a German art historian and archaeologist.

Life
As the son of a Kantor and teacher, Schlie was taught by private tuition until his graduation examination in Rostock in 1863. He then studied philology and art history at the University of Rostock and University of Munich, graduating in 1867. Next he worked for 2 years as an auxiliary secretary at the Prussian Archaeological Institute in Rome. From 1869 he worked as a teacher at the several secondary schools in Mecklenburg before in 1877 becoming director of the Schweriner Kunstmuseum.

Friedrich Schlie received several honours, being made a Hofrat in 1882, Professor in 1891 and Geheimer Hofrat in 1899. He was a corresponding member of the Archaeological Institute in Rome and Berlin, as well as a permanent member of the committee of the international art historical congress. He also worked for the Society of Mecklenburgische History and Antiquity. In the years 1898 to 1902, he published his comprehensive five volume work "Kunst- und Geschichtsdenkmäler des Großherzogtums Mecklenburg-Schwerin" (Art and Art History of the Great-Dukedom of Mecklenburg-Schwerin"). He was also a friend and promoter of the famous archeologist Heinrich Schliemann.

A 1902 marble bust of Schlie by Ludwig Brunow is to be found in the Staatl. Museum Schwerin.

Sources
Hans-Günter Buchholz: Die Archäologenfreundschaft zwischen Heinrich Schliemann und Friedrich Schlie. Der Briefwechsel zweier bedeutender Archäologen, Mitteilungen aus dem Heinrich-Schliemann-Museum Ankershagen 3 (1995)

External links

1839 births
1902 deaths
People from Ludwigslust-Parchim
People from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
German classical scholars
German art historians
Archaeologists from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
German male non-fiction writers
19th-century German male writers
19th-century German archaeologists
19th-century German historians

Friedrich Schlie


{{Infobox venue
| stadium_name = Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum
| nickname = The Coliseum Milk Bowl  The Black Hole| former_names = Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum (1966–1998, 2008–2011, 2016–2019, 2020, 2023-present)Network Associates Coliseum (1998–2004)McAfee Coliseum (2004–2008)Overstock.com Coliseum (2011) O.co Coliseum (2011–2016)RingCentral Coliseum (2019–2020, 2020–2023)
| logo_image = Oakland Alameda Coliseum logo.png
| image = Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in 2023.png
| caption = Oakland Coliseum in 2023
| address = 7000 Coliseum Way
| location = Oakland, California
| coordinates =
| pushpin_map = USA California Oakland#USA California#USA
| pushpin_relief = yes
| pushpin_map_caption = Location in Oakland##Location in California##Location in the United States
| publictransit =  AC Transit: 45, 46L, 73 , 90, 98, 646, 657, 805 Alameda County East Oakland Shuttle  Amtrak: Capitol Corridor at Oakland Coliseum  BART:  at Coliseum Harbor Bay Business Park Shuttle
| owner = Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority (City of Oakland and Alameda County)
| operator = AEG
| seating_capacity = Baseball: 46,847 (expandable to 56,782 without tarps)Concerts: 47,416 or 64,829 (depending on configuration)
| record_attendance = Baseball: 56,310 (July 21, 2018, Athletics vs Giants) Football: 62,784 (January 14, 2001, Raiders vs Ravens)
| dimensions = Left field Left center Center field Right center Right field Backstop
| surface = Tifway II Bermuda Grass
| scoreboard =  high by  wide
| broke_ground =
| opened =
| renovated = 1995–1996, 2017
| construction_cost = $25.5 million($ in  dollars)$200 million (1995–96 renovation)($ in  dollars)
| architect = Skidmore, Owings & MerrillHNTB (1995–96 renovation)
| structural engineer = Ammann & Whitney
| services engineer = Syska & Hennessy, Inc.
| general_contractor = Guy F. Atkinson Company
| tenants = Oakland Athletics (MLB) 1968–presentOakland Raiders (AFL/NFL) 1966–1981, 1995–2019Oakland Clippers (NPSL/NASL) 1967–1968Oakland Stompers (NASL) 1978Oakland Invaders (USFL) 1983–1985San Jose Earthquakes (MLS) 2008–2009
| website =
}}

Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is a multi-purpose stadium in Oakland, California, United States, and the home ballpark of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball. It is part of the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Complex, with the adjacent Oakland Arena, near Interstate 880. In 2017, the playing surface was dedicated as Rickey Henderson Field in honor of Major League Baseball Hall of Famer and former Athletics left fielder Rickey Henderson.

It was also the home of the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League from 1966 until 1981, when the team moved to Los Angeles, and again from 1995 until 2019, when the team moved to Las Vegas. Since then, the stadium has been primarily used for baseball. It was the last remaining stadium in the United States shared by professional baseball and football teams. It has also occasionally been used for soccer, including hosting selected San Jose Earthquakes matches in 2008 and 2009, and during the 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

The Coliseum has a seating capacity of up to 63,132 depending on its configuration; an upper deck dubbed "Mount Davis" by fans was added as part of a 1996 renovation for the Raiders' return to Oakland. In 2006, citing a desire to provide a more "intimate" environment, the Athletics blocked off the entirety of the Coliseum's third deck during its games, which artificially limited its capacity to 34,077 (making it the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball). On April 11, 2017, with Dave Kaval as the then-new team president, the Athletics began to reopen some of the sections in the third deck, and open the Mount Davis deck for selected marquee games; this configuration makes it, by contrast, the largest baseball stadium in the United States by capacity.

The current state of Oakland Coliseum has been widely criticized; fans and players alike consider the Coliseum to be poorly maintained and out of date. Along with Tropicana Field, it is often cited as one of the worst ballparks in Major League Baseball and consistently takes the last or second-to-last spot in rankings of stadiums. Major League Baseball has cited the need to replace Oakland Coliseum and Tropicana Field as one of the primary obstacles to future MLB expansion.

The Athletics are currently in the process of relocating to Las Vegas and plan to vacate the Coliseum following the expiration of their lease at the conclusion of the 2024 season.

Stadium history
Planning and construction
Business and political leaders in Oakland had long been in competition with neighboring San Francisco, as well as other cities in the West, and worked for Oakland and its greater East Bay suburbs to be recognized nationally as a viable metropolitan area with its own identity and reputation, distinct and separate from that of San Francisco. Professional sports was seen as a primary way for the East Bay to gain such recognition. As a result, the desire for a major league stadium in the city of Oakland intensified during the 1950s and 1960s.

By 1960, a non-profit corporation was formed to oversee the financing and development of the facility rather than city or county government issuing taxpayer-backed bonds for construction. Local real estate developer Robert T. Nahas (who had been president of Oakland's chamber of commerce) headed this group, which included other prominent East Bay business leaders such as former US Senator William Knowland and Edgar F. Kaiser, and which later became the governing board of the Coliseum upon completion. It was Nahas' idea that the Coliseum be privately financed with ownership transferring to the city and county upon retirement of the construction financing.

Nahas served 20 years as President of the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Board. On the death of Nahas, Jack Maltester, a former San Leandro mayor and Coliseum board member, said, "If not for Bob Nahas, there would be no Coliseum, it's really that simple." Nahas had to be a diplomat dealing with the egos of Raiders owner Al Davis, Athletics owner Charles O. Finley, and Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli.

Preliminary architectural plans were unveiled in November 1960, and the following month a site was chosen west of the Elmhurst district of East Oakland alongside the recently completed Nimitz Freeway. A downtown site adjacent to Lake Merritt and the Oakland Auditorium was also originally considered. The Port of Oakland played a key role in selection of the East Oakland site. The Port gave  at the head of San Leandro Bay to the East Bay Regional Park District, in exchange for  of park land across the freeway. The Port then donated that land to the City of Oakland as the site for the complex.

The Oakland Raiders of the American Football League moved to Frank Youell Field, a makeshift stadium near downtown Oakland, in 1962, and the Coliseum was already being heralded in the local media as the Raiders' future permanent home. Baseball was also a major factor in the planning of the Coliseum. As early as 1961, the American League publicly indicated that it wished to include Oakland in its West Coast expansion plans. In 1963, American League president Joe Cronin suggested that Coliseum officials model some aspects of the new ballpark after Dodger Stadium, which impressed him, though these expansion plans seemed to fade by the middle of the decade.

After approval from the city of Oakland as well as Alameda County by 1962, $25 million in financing was arranged. Plans were drawn for a stadium, an indoor arena, and an exhibition hall in between them. The architect of record was the San Francisco office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with Myron Goldsmith the principal design architect and the general contractor was Guy F. Atkinson Company. Preliminary site preparation began in the summer of 1961. Construction began in the spring of 1962. The construction schedule was delayed for two years due to various legal issues and cost overruns; the original design had to be modified slightly to stay within budget.

In 1965, it was rumored that the Cleveland Indians might leave Cleveland for a West Coast city (such as Oakland), but the Indians stayed in Cleveland. Charlie Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics, unhappy in Kansas City, was impressed by Oakland's new stadium and personally convinced to consider Oakland by Nahas. After several unsuccessful attempts and amid considerable controversy, Finley eventually got permission to relocate the Athletics to Oakland in 1968. One year later, the A's replacement, the Kansas City Royals, began play as an expansion team.

Stadium name changes
For over three decades (1966–1998), the stadium was first known as Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum.

In September 1997, UMAX Technologies agreed to acquire the naming rights to the stadium. However, following a dispute, a court decision reinstated the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum name. In 1998, Network Associates agreed to pay US$5.8 million over five years for the naming rights and the stadium became known as Network Associates Coliseum, or, alternately in marketing and media usage as, "the Net".

Network Associates renewed the contract in 2003 for an additional five years at a cost of $6 million. In mid-2004, Network Associates was renamed McAfee, restoring its name from before its 1997 merger with Network General, and the stadium was renamed McAfee Coliseum accordingly.

McAfee was offered a renewal of the naming contract in 2008, but it was declined. The name reverted to the pre-1997 name of Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum on September 19, 2008. The stadium retained its original name until April 27, 2011, when it was renamed Overstock.com Coliseum via a six-year, $7.2 million naming rights deal with online retailer Overstock.com.

The Coliseum was renamed O.co Coliseum on June 6, 2011, after Overstock.com's marketing name. However, due to a contract dispute with the Athletics regarding the Overstock/O.co naming rights deal, the A's continued to refer to the stadium as the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum in all official team communications and on team websites.

Overstock opted out of the final year on their naming rights deal on April 2, 2016, and the stadium once again became the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum.

The Athletics dedicated the Coliseum's playing surface "Rickey Henderson Field" in honor of MLB Hall of Famer and former Athletic Rickey Henderson as part of Opening Day on April 3, 2017.

RingCentral placed a bid for the naming rights on May 14, 2019, for a $1 million annual payment. The Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Authority gave its approval of the new naming-rights deal on May 31, 2019, pending formal approval from Major League Baseball. New signage was in place by the time that the Golden State Warriors hosted the 2019 NBA Finals at the neighboring Oracle Arena on June 5.

In August 2019, the head of the Coliseum Authority, Scott McKibben, abruptly resigned his position after allegations emerged that he had requested a $50,000 fee from RingCentral in exchange for negotiating the naming rights deal. McKibben was subsequently charged by the Alameda County district attorney's office with violating conflict-of-interest laws, including one felony and one misdemeanor count. On January 17, 2020, the RingCentral naming rights deal was rescinded by the Coliseum Authority. In late 2020, a new three year naming rights deal with RingCentral was agreed to.

On April 1, 2023, the Coliseum terminated its sponsorship with RingCentral, reverting to its original name.

Design

The Coliseum features an underground design where the playing surface is not only below ground level, it is  below sea level. Consequently, fans entering the stadium find themselves walking on to the main concourse of the stadium at the top of the first level of seats. This, combined with the hill that was built around the stadium to create the upper concourse, means that only the third deck is visible from outside the park.

Configurations

In its baseball configuration, the Coliseum has the most foul territory of any ballpark in Major League Baseball. Thus, many balls that would reach the seats in other ballparks can be caught for outs at the Coliseum. The distance to the backstop was initially , but was reduced to  in 1969.

From 1968 through 1981 and in 1995, two football configurations were used at the stadium. During Raider preseason games and all regular season games played while the baseball season was still going on, the field was set up from home plate to center field (east/west). Seats that were down the foul lines for baseball games became the sideline seats for football games, which started up to  away from the field (most football-only stadiums have sideline seats that start half that distance away). Once the A's season ended, the orientation was switched to north–south: i.e. the football field ran from the left field line to the right field line; seats were moved from behind first and third base to create corners for the end zone to fit into (these seats were then placed to fill in the space that was normally behind home plate and near the foul poles for baseball games). Temporary football bleachers were then added in front of the baseball bleachers to form the sideline on the east (visitors') side, and the baseball bleachers were not sold. Raiders season ticket holders would thus have two season ticket locations in different parts of the stadium that roughly corresponded to the same location in relation to the field. After stadium expansion in 1996, the field ran north–south throughout the season.

Seating capacity

Eventual replacements
 Athletics

Athletics owner Lewis Wolff made the first official proposal for a new ballpark in Oakland to the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Authority on August 12, 2005. The new stadium would have been located across 66th Avenue from the Coliseum in what is currently an industrial area north of the Coliseum. The park would have held 35,000 fans, making it the smallest park in the major leagues. Plans for the Oakland location fell through in early 2006 when several of the owners of the land proposed for the new ballpark decided not to sell.

Throughout 2006, the Athletics continued to search for a ballpark site within their designated territory of Alameda County. Late in 2006, rumors began to circulate regarding a  parcel of land in Fremont being the new site. These rumors were confirmed by the Fremont city council on November8 of that year. Wolff met with the council that day to present his plan to move the A's to Fremont into a soon to be built ballpark named Cisco Field. Wolff and Cisco Systems conducted a press conference at the San Jose-based headquarters of Cisco Systems on November 14, 2006, to confirm the deal, and showcase some details of the future plan. However, on February 24, 2009, after delays and increased public opposition, the Athletics officially ended their search for a stadium site in Fremont. The Athletics later took their Cisco Field plan to a site in downtown San Jose located near SAP Center (home of the NHL's San Jose Sharks). The San Jose plan was opposed by the San Francisco Giants whose territory San Jose is in and on October 5, 2015, the United States Supreme Court rejected San Jose's bid on the Athletics.

During that time, the City of Oakland continued to propose new ballpark ideas that ranged from a proposal to build on a waterfront site in the Jack London Square area called Victory Court to a three stadium proposal called Coliseum City on the Coliseum site. Both plans went nowhere.

The Athletics signed a ten-year lease to stay in Oakland and at the Coliseum on July 22, 2014. The deal required that the team look into a new stadium, but only in the city limits, which made it more difficult for the Raiders to tear the Coliseum down for a football-only facility. The A's began talks with an architect on August 6, 2014, to build a baseball-only stadium at the Coliseum site, according to Wolff.

Going into 2016, John J. Fisher took majority control of the team and made Dave Kaval team president and the person in charge of the stadium hunt. On September 12, 2017, it was announced that a site near Laney College and the Eastlake neighborhood had been chosen for the new ballpark (tentatively called Oakland Ballpark) with the A's proposing to construct a 35,000-seat stadium on the site of the college's administrative buildings which the A's would relocate to a spot of the college's choosing. However, the Laney College Board of Trustees abruptly ended talks with the Athletics in December 2017. The surprised A's were forced to look at alternatives for a new stadium location.

On November 28, 2018, the Athletics announced that the team had chosen to build its 34,000-seat new ballpark at the Howard Terminal site, located about two miles west of Laney College at the Port of Oakland. The team also announced its intent to purchase the Coliseum site and make that into a technology and housing hub, preserving Oracle Arena and reducing the Coliseum to a low-rise sports park as San Francisco did with Kezar Stadium.

A turning point came in spring of 2021, when Commissioner Rob Manfred suggested that the A's look into relocation to another city after the Howard Terminal plans stalled. However, the A's said that they remained committed to staying in Oakland, and continued their efforts to get the new ballpark at Howard Terminal built. At the same time, the team eyed a possible move to Las Vegas if they could not get a new ballpark built at Howard Terminal with team representatives, Kaval and Fisher organizing multiple trips to the area to speak with local officials and business magnates and selecting the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel and resort as the site for a new venue should they relocate. The team previously played six games at Las Vegas' Cashman Field when renovations for the Coliseum were not yet complete. On April 19, 2023, the A's announced that they had agreed to purchase land from Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa in the Las Vegas Strip for a new stadium estimated to be complete by 2027 with the backing of many within the state of Nevada and the MLB.  By May 9, the Athletics' proposal was changed to the Tropicana Las Vegas instead. On June 15, Governor Joe Lombardo signed the Athletics' proposal into law through SB1 after it was passed in the Nevada State Legislature. Shortly after the bill's approval, the Athletics announced they would begin the relocation process to Las Vegas with the MLB which happened a week later.

 Coliseum redevelopment plan
The Coliseum, along with Oracle Arena and its surrounding parking lots, are owned 50% by the City of Oakland and 50% by the Athletics. The Athletics purchased their 50% share in 2018 from Alameda County, after the City of Oakland dropped a lawsuit that attempted to block the sale. As of July 2021, two Black-led redevelopment groups were vying for the chance to purchase the city's half of the site, one led by the African American Sports and Entertainment Group and the other by Dave Stewart and Lonnie Murray. In November 2021, the council voted to move forward with the plan proposed by the African American Sports and Entertainment Group.

 Raiders

Under any such replacement proposals, the Oakland Raiders would have presumably continued to play football in the Coliseum, although there were proposals for the Raiders to play at Levi's Stadium, the home of the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara as well as rumors regarding the Raiders' possible return to Los Angeles.

The Raiders proposed a 50,000-seat stadium in the same spot of the Coliseum in 2013. It would have cost $800 million, with $300 million coming from the Raiders, $200 million coming from the NFL's stadium loan program, and the final $300 million coming from the city. After the failure of the stadium plan, Raiders owner Mark Davis met with officials with the city of San Antonio on July 29, 2014, to discuss moving the Raiders to the city in time for the 2015 season; they would have temporarily played home games at the Alamodome until a new permanent stadium was built.

On September 3, 2014, the city of Oakland claimed it had reached a tentative deal to build a new football stadium in Oakland, which would have resulted in the Coliseum being demolished. The claim was met with silence from the Raiders, who continued to explore San Antonio, and opposition from Alameda County.

On February 19, 2015, the Raiders and the San Diego Chargers announced plans for a privately financed $1.7 billion stadium that the two teams would have built in Carson upon being approved to move to the Los Angeles market. Both teams said they would continue to attempt to get stadiums built in their respective cities. The stadium was approved by the Carson City Council but was defeated by the NFL who voted in favor of building Inglewood's SoFi Stadium and relocating the St. Louis Rams back to Los Angeles with the Chargers as the second LA team thus shutting out the Raiders from the Southern California market.

In January 2016, Mark Davis met with Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson about building a domed stadium on the UNLV campus for the Raiders and the UNLV Rebels. The stadium location for what became known as Allegiant Stadium was later moved to a site across Interstate 15 from Mandalay Bay. After the approval of $750 million from the state of Nevada and backing from Bank of America after Adelson pulled out of the project, the Raiders submitted papers for relocation to Las Vegas in January 2017, and on March 27, the Raiders' relocation to Las Vegas was approved.  The team planned to continue to play at the Coliseum through the 2019 NFL season and relocate to Las Vegas in 2020. In December 2018, the city of Oakland sued the Raiders and all the other NFL teams for millions in unpaid debts and financial damages, which prompted Raiders management to declare that the team was leaving after the 2018 season. After the 49ers blocked an attempt by the Raiders to relocate to Oracle Park for the 2019 season, the Raiders and Coliseum Authority reached an agreement in principle on February 25, 2019, to allow the Raiders to return to the Coliseum for 2019 with a provision for 2020 in case completion of Allegiant Stadium was delayed; the Coliseum Authority approved the lease on March 15 while the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and Oakland City Council voted in favor of the lease on March 19 and 21, respectively. On January 22, 2020, the Raiders officially moved to Las Vegas becoming the Las Vegas Raiders.

Notable events
 Raiders and A's move in
The Raiders played their first game at the stadium on September 18, 1966. In 1968, the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland and began play at the stadium. The Athletics' first game was played on April 17, 1968. The stadium complex cost $25.5 million ($ adjusted for inflation) to build and rests on  of land. On April 17, 1968, Boog Powell hit the first major league home run in the history of the Coliseum. On May8 of that year, Catfish Hunter pitched the ninth perfect game in Major League history at the Coliseum. The Coliseum hosted the 1967 and 1969 AFL championship games. Additionally, the venue had hosted the second match of the NPSL Final 1967.

1970s

From 1970 to 1972 the stadium hosted three college football benefit games featuring Bay Area schools versus historically black colleges.

The Coliseum hosted the 1971 East–West Shrine Game on January 2, 1971. In 1972, the Athletics won their first of three straight World Series championships and their first since their years in Philadelphia.

The awkwardness of the baseball–football conversion, as well as the low seating capacity (around 54,000 for football) and that the prime seating on the east side consisted of temporary bleachers led the Raiders to explore other stadium options. One such option was Memorial Stadium on the UC Berkeley campus. Several preseason games were played there in the early 1970s along with one regular season game in 1973 (a 12–7 victory over the Miami Dolphins during September while the A's regular season was going on). However, in response to traffic and parking issues associated with these games (while Cal games drew a large number of students who live on or near campus and walk to the games, Raiders games attracted fans from a larger geographic area who were used to tailgating at the Coliseum and were more likely to drive to games), the City of Berkeley passed a Professional Sports Events License Tax in which the city collected 10% of all gate receipts, making the staging of professional games inside the city cost-prohibitive. The Raiders were granted an injunction from the city collecting the tax, arguing that the tax was a regulatory measure rather than a revenue measure, and was therefore an improper regulation on land held in trust by the Regents of the University of California. However, the grant of the injunction was reversed by the California Court of Appeals, who found it to be a revenue measure, despite the fact that the city had made the measure immediately effective "due to danger to the public peace, health, and safety of the City of Berkeley as a result of the holding of professional sports events there".

The stadium was not well maintained for most of the late 1970s. Its condition was most noticeable during baseball season, when crowds for A's games twice numbered fewer than 1,000. On April 17, 1979, only 653 fans attended the game versus the Seattle Mariners. During this time, it was popularly known as the "Oakland Mausoleum".

1980s

In 1980, the Raiders won Super Bowl XV. Two years later, the Raiders moved to Los Angeles, leaving the A's as the only remaining tenants of Oakland Coliseum. Only days later, Finley agreed to sell the A's to Marvin Davis, who planned to move the A's to Denver. However, city and county officials were not about to lose Oakland's status as a major league city in its own right, and refused to let the A's out of their lease. Finley sold the team instead to the owners of San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. After the 1986 Major League Baseball season, the original scoreboards were replaced. A new American Sign and Indicator scoreboard and message center was installed behind the left field bleachers, while the original right field scoreboard was replaced with a manually operated out-of-town scoreboard. Between the centerfield flagpoles, a new Diamond Vision video screen was installed.

The 1987 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held at the stadium. From 1988 to 1990, the venue saw three more World Series. In 1989, the Athletics won their 4th Series since moving to Oakland, sweeping the San Francisco Giants in the earthquake-interrupted "Battle of the Bay" Series.

1990s
In July 1995, the Raiders agreed to return to Oakland provided that Oakland Coliseum underwent renovations. In November 1995, those renovations commenced and continued through the next summer until the beginning of the 1996 football season (more info below). The new layout also had the somewhat peculiar effect of creating an inward jog in the outfield fence, in left center and right center. There are now three distance markers instead of one, at various points of the power alleys, as indicated in the dimensions grid. The Raiders' return also heralded the creation of the "Black Hole", a highly recognizable group of fans who occupied one end zone seating during football games.

2000s
On April 2, 2006, the broadcast booth was renamed in honor of the late Bill King, a legendary Bay Area sportscaster who was the play-by-play voice of the A's, Raiders and Warriors for 44 years.

San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer, announced in November 2007 that they would be playing their "big draw" games, such as those featuring David Beckham and the Los Angeles Galaxy, at the stadium instead of their then-home Buck Shaw Stadium (capacity roughly 10,000) in Santa Clara. Since then the Quakes moved to their new home of Avaya Stadium and play their bigger games in nearby Stanford Stadium.

Midway through the decade, the stadium established a "no re-entry" policy. Each ticket can be used only once, after which a second ticket must be purchased in order to re-enter the Coliseum.

2010s
On May 9, 2010, almost 42 years to the day of Catfish Hunter's perfect game, Dallas Braden pitched the 19th perfect game in Major League history at the Coliseum. A commemorative graphic was placed on the baseball outfield wall next to Rickey Henderson's retired number on May 17, their next home game.

With the Miami Marlins opening their own ballpark in 2012, the stadium became the last remaining venue in the United States that hosted both a Major League Baseball and a National Football League team.

As part of a new ten-year lease signed by the Athletics with the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Authority in 2014, the Oakland Coliseum had a new $10 million scoreboard system (two large outfield scoreboards, 36 feet tall and 145 feet wide, and two ribbon scoreboards) installed for the start of the 2015 MLB season. Also part of the new lease, the Coliseum Authority agreed to pay $1million a year, with five percent annual increases, into a fund to maintain the stadium.

For the 2017 Major League Baseball season, the tarp covering a large amount of the baseball configuration has been removed, increasing the capacity to over 47,000 for the first time since 1995. The tarp remains on the football-only Mt. Davis.

From 2016 onward, the A's have invested heavily in improvements to the Coliseum. In 2017 the team created a new outdoor plaza area with food trucks and lawn games, called Championship Plaza. The West Side Club was also entirely renovated and rebranded into Shibe Park Tavern (after their former home park in Philadelphia), the Coliseum's new destination restaurant and bar with more than twenty different beers on tap. In 2018, the A's created a brand new destination indoor/outdoor bar concept in the left field corner called The Treehouse. The Treehouse has brought a new demographic of fans to the Coliseum through nightly themed discounts and through its innovative subscription ticketing product, the Treehouse Pass.

On April 17, 2018, the Athletics opened the gates to the Coliseum for a free admission game versus the Chicago White Sox. It was the 50th anniversary of the club's first game played in Oakland back on April 17, 1968. 46,028 fans were on hand for the 10–2 Athletics victory and Kaval called the game "a gift to Oakland".

On December 15, 2019, the Raiders played their last scheduled game at the Coliseum, losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars by a score of 20–16, giving up 17 unanswered points in the second half. Fans booed the team as they exited the field for the last time.

 2020s
On September 6, 2020, the San Diego Padres and the Athletics played in the warmest game in the Coliseum's history. The game was played in 94-degree heat.

On June 28, 2023, Domingo Germán of the New York Yankees threw the 24th perfect game in Major League Baseball history against the Oakland Athletics at the Coliseum. It was the third perfect game in Coliseum history after Dallas Braden in 2010 and Catfish Hunter in 1968.

Concerts
Commencing in 1973, the stadium hosted an annual Day on the Green concert series, presented by Bill Graham and his company Bill Graham Presents, which continued on into the early 1990s.

In January 1974, singer Marvin Gaye used the stadium as the site for his comeback to the performance stage. His acclaimed performance was later released for the live album, Marvin Gaye Live!.

Led Zeppelin played what turned out to be their final North American concerts with twin shows during their 1977 North American Tour. Following the second show Bill Graham barred the band from the venue and his other managed venues in response to the band's manager Peter Grant, drummer John Bonham and security 'co-ordinator' John Bindon's brutal assault on one of Graham's security employees during the first show, following the employee's refusal to allow Grant's 11-year-old son Warren to take an item belonging to the venue as memorabilia.  The death of Plant's young son Karac three days later and the resulting cancellation of the remaining tour dates rendered Graham's action academic.

Parliament-Funkadelic brought the P-Funk Earth Tour to the Coliseum on January 21, 1977. Their performance was recorded and released as a double LP set entitled Live: P-Funk Earth Tour.

The stadium played host to Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! Benefit Concert on September 23, 1988. The show was headlined by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and Peter Gabriel and also featured Tracy Chapman, Youssou N'Dour, Roy Orbison and Joan Baez.

Metallica and Guns N' Roses brought the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour to the Coliseum on September 24, 1992, with Body Count as their opening act.

U2 played 2 nights in June 1997 at the Oakland Coliseum as part of their PopMart tour. They were supported by Oasis, one of the first shows of their Be Here Now tour.

The stadium played host to The Gigantour on September 8, 2006, featuring performances by Megadeth, Lamb of God, Opeth, Arch Enemy, Overkill, Into Eternity, Sanctity and The SmashUp.

U2 performed at the stadium again during their 360° Tour on June 7, 2011, with Lenny Kravitz and Moonalice as their opening acts in front of 64,829 people. The show was originally scheduled to take place on June 16, 2010, but was postponed, due to Bono's emergency back surgery.

On August 5, 2017, Green Day played a homecoming concert at the Coliseum. The show was part of the band's summer tour in support of their third number1 album, Revolution Radio.

The stadium hosted the "Bay Area" edition of large hip-hop music festival Rolling Loud in 2018 and '19. 2019 headliners included Future, G-Eazy, Migos, and Lil Uzi Vert.

On October 1, 2021, and October 2, 2021, regional Mexican giant Los Bukis closed out their reunion tour at the Coliseum, following a 25-year hiatus. The concerts were not included in the tour at first but were eventually added due to increased demand.

In popular culture
The music video for the Huey Lewis & the News song "Jacob's Ladder" was shot at a concert at the Coliseum on December 31, 1986.

Richard Marx shot the video for "Take This Heart" on the baseball field of the Coliseum.

The stadium was the location for the 1994 Disney movie Angels in the Outfield. Although Angel Stadium of Anaheim (known as Anaheim Stadium at the time) was where the Angels actually played, it was damaged in the 1994 Southern California earthquake. Anaheim Stadium was used for views from the outside and aerial views, while the Coliseum was used for interior shots.

The Coliseum was also used for scenes in the 2011 film Moneyball.

The climax of the novel There There by Tommy Orange takes place in the Coliseum.

Other events
The stadium has hosted an AMA Supercross Championship round since 2011.

The stadium has also hosted a Monster Jam event since 2008.

International soccer matches

Criticism

Baseball

In 2011, Bleacher Report named it the fifth-worst stadium in the majors, partly due to its expansive foul territory. In 2017 The New York Times called the Coliseum "a bland, charmless concrete monstrosity" that "isn't worthy of preservation... perhaps America's most hated sports stadium".

Two years later, in another Times article, writer Jack Nicas not only defended the Coliseum against criticism, he argued that its perceived failings were actually strengths. "The Coliseum is cheap, gritty and fun," he said. To his surprise, on moving to Oakland four years earlier, he had come to love the Coliseum as much as he had loved Fenway Park while growing up and while attending college in Boston, and Wrigley Field when he moved to Chicago after graduating college. If those parks were the baseball equivalent of classic pubs, Nicas wrote, "the Coliseum is baseball's last dive bar."

As a season ticket holder, Nicas got concessions at half price, leading to a combined cost of $7 for a hot dog and beer, a deal that he doubted could be matched anywhere else in the city. The Coliseum was also more spacious than Fenway or Wrigley, and while its expansive foul territory put fans at a distance it also allowed them more opportunities to see great catches by fielders. But while he found other A's fans who appreciated what the Coliseum had to offer and, like him, feared it would be lost in a new ballpark, he admitted those virtues had not drawn enough spectators to the Coliseum for the team to justify remaining there.

Public debt
A 1996 expansion of the stadium was funded by a controversial issuance—critics said that "(Oakland) Raiders' late owner, Al Davis, fleeced local officials at the expense of taxpayers"—of some $220 million of public debt by both Alameda County and the City of Oakland, resulting in substantial debt service payments for both governments. As of spring of 2018, the City of Oakland still owed $135 million for the expansion.

In December 2019, Alameda County officials announced the sale of the county's interest in the stadium to the Oakland A's baseball club, saying the $85 million deal would allow the county to pay off its share of the debt. In a joint statement, Supervisor Scott Haggerty and Supervisor Nate Miley noted that the two Supervisors "have led the negotiations and played instrumental roles in moving the sale of the county's share forward in the hope that, once finalized, the $85 million valuation will relieve the county of debt which has weighed on taxpayers for decades."

Mount Davis

One feature of the 1996 expansion was the addition of more than 10,000 seats in the upper deck that now spans the outfield in the baseball configuration, enclosing the stadium. Due to the stands' height and the loss of the Oakland hills view, A's fans have derisively nicknamed the structure "Mount Davis", after late Raiders owner Al Davis. It has been criticized as an area which has made the Oakland Coliseum look ever more like a football stadium, and not at all one for baseball. From 1997 to 2005, while the A's opened part of the upper deck for baseball, they did not count it as part of listed capacity; while the "official" capacity was 43,962, the "actual" capacity was 55,945.

In 2006, the Athletics covered the entire third deck with a tarp, reducing capacity to 34,077—the smallest capacity in MLB at the time. Even if a game was otherwise sold out, the A's would not sell any seats in the area. It would remain covered except if they made the World Series. The A's said that closing off the upper deck would create a "more intimate environment" for baseball. This drew criticism from fans, the Oakland City Council, and sports marketing analysts baffled at owner Lew Wolff's decision, with some stating that this was cover for a possible move to San Jose (see Cisco Field). There were 20,878 seats covered up by the tarp which would otherwise have been usable for baseball.

In February 2013, the Oakland Raiders announced that they would cover 11,000 seats in the Mount Davis section with a tarp; this reduced capacity to 53,250, making the coliseum by far the smallest in the NFL in seating capacity for its final years in the league (league rules required a minimum capacity of 50,000, and no other stadium, barring the temporary-used Dignity Health Sports Park, seated fewer than 61,000). This was done in order to potentially allow more Raiders games to be televised locally, as games are blacked out if less than 85% tickets are sold. Under NFL rules, the tarps had to stay in place all season long, even during the playoffs.

In 2017, new Athletics team President Dave Kaval decided to open several sections in the original third deck that were covered by tarps, though Mount Davis stayed tarped. This increased capacity by 12,103 to 47,170. The Athletics have since occasionally removed the tarp on Mount Davis for specific games, such as occasional Bay Bridge Series games against the San Francisco Giants, and the 2019 American League Wild Card Game against the Tampa Bay Rays. The latter set a record for attendance of a Wild Card Game, at 54,005.

Sewage
On June 16, 2013, following the game against the Seattle Mariners, the Coliseum experienced a severe sewage backup. This led to pipes leaking out puddles of sewage into the showers, offices, visitor training room and storage areas on the clubhouse level of the stadium, all of which are  below sea level. After the game, the A's and Mariners were forced to share the Oakland Raiders locker room, located on the stadium's second floor. According to Coliseum officials, the stadium's aging plumbing system was overtaxed after a six-game homestand that drew close to baseball capacity crowds totaling 171,756 fans.

This was not the first time sewage problems cropped up at the stadium. On one occasion, the Los Angeles Angels complained about E. coli'' in the visiting team's training room after a backup. Backups occur even when no events are taking place there. For instance, Lew Wolff wanted to go to dinner on June 12, 2013 (while the A's were on the road) at one of the Coliseum's restaurants, only to discover that food service had been halted due to a sewage leak in the kitchen.

See also
Sports in the San Francisco Bay Area

References

External links

Official Oakland Coliseum website
County Coliseum_coliseum.htm Visit to Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum
Coliseum at MLB.com
FootballGeography.com: College football at the Oakland Coliseum
YouTube.com: Time-lapse video of the conversion between seating arrangement

Sports venues in Oakland, California
American football venues in California
Baseball venues in California
Multi-purpose stadiums in the United States
Major League Baseball venues
American Football League venues
Defunct National Football League venues
Oakland
Oakland Athletics stadiums
Oakland Clippers sports facilities
Oakland Invaders stadiums
Oakland Raiders stadiums
CONCACAF Gold Cup stadiums
Former Major League Soccer stadiums
North American Soccer League (1968–1984) stadiums
Soccer venues in California
United States Football League venues
1966 establishments in California
Sports venues completed in 1966
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings

Oakland Coliseum


Morgan Crofton (1826, Dublin, Ireland – 1915, Brighton, England) was an Irish mathematician who contributed to the field of geometric probability theory. He also worked with James Joseph Sylvester and contributed an article on probability to the 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Crofton's formula is named in his honour.

Early life
Morgan Crofton was born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family. His father, the Reverend William Crofton, Rector of Skreen, County Sligo, was the younger brother of Sir Malby Crofton, 2nd Baronet of Longford House. He was also the cousin of Lord Edward Crofton, Baron Crofton of the Mote.  Despite being born into an aristocratic, Anglican family, Crofton joined to the Roman Catholic Church in the 1850s in part due to an interest in Cardinal John Henry Newman.
This led to his resignation at Queen's College, Galway and transference to various Catholic colleges.

He married twice: firstly on 31 August 1857 Julia Agnes Cecilia, daughter of J B Kernan (died 1902) and secondly Katherine, daughter of Holland Taylor of Manchester.

Career
He was Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and Professor of Natural Philosophy at Queen's University of Ireland. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June, 1868.

References

External links
 MacTutor biography of Crofton

1826 births
1915 deaths
20th-century Irish mathematicians
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism
Fellows of the Royal Society
Morgan

Morgan Crofton


Aduston Hall is a historic antebellum plantation house in the riverside town of Gainesville, Alabama.  Although the raised cottage displays the strict symmetry and precise detailing of the Greek Revival style, it is very unusual in its massing. The house is low and spread out over one-story with a fluid floor-plan more reminiscent of a 20th-century California ranch house than the typically boxy neoclassical houses of its own era.

It is a contributing property to the Gainesville Historic District. The district was listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on March 25, 1976, and the National Register of Historic Places on October 3, 1985.  Now owned by the Sumter County Historical Society, the house is operated as a visitor welcome center for the historic district. The Society also uses the house and grounds as the centerpiece of its Sumter Heritage Days, held each spring. In 1994, the Historical Society received $130,000 in local, state, and federal funds to stabilize and restore the house.

History
Aduston Hall was built as a summer home for Amos Travis from 1844 to 1846. Travis, a resident of Mobile, used the house as a refuge from the heat, humidity, and disease that plagued Mobile during the summer months. The property was a largely self-sufficient plantation complex. Five 19th-century outbuildings remain at the site.

Architecture

The one-story wood-frame house is composed of a rectangular central main block and H-shaped side wings. The roof of the central portion runs parallel to the front of the house. The center of this block is fronted by a temple-like pedimented Doric portico projecting several feet out from the main Doric porch under the main roof. The central front entrance door is derived from designs published by Asher Benjamin. The main block is abutted on both sides by front gabled side wings projecting past the central portion to the front and rear of the house. These are ornamented with Doric pilasters.  With its H-shaped plan, the house provided excellent cross ventilation for all of the major rooms.

Historically, there were three other very similar houses known in the vicinity of Aduston Hall. The Travis-Derryberry-Harwood House (also built by the Travis family as a summerhouse), which also survives in Gainesville, the Norwood Plantation in Faunsdale, Alabama, destroyed in the 1930s, and the Van de Graaff home which was located in the Virginia Hill area of Gainesville .

References

Greek Revival houses in Alabama
Plantation houses in Alabama
Houses in Sumter County, Alabama
Houses completed in 1844
Historic district contributing properties in Alabama
National Register of Historic Places in Sumter County, Alabama
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama

Aduston Hall


Our Miss Brooks is an American sitcom starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high-school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952–56), it became one of the medium's earliest hits. In 1956, the sitcom was adapted for the big screen in the film of the same name.

Characters
  (Eve Arden) is an English teacher at fictional Madison High School.
  (Gale Gordon) is the gruff and unsympathetic principal of Madison High, a near-constant pain to his faculty and students. (Conklin was played by Joseph Forte in the show's first episode; Gordon succeeded him for the rest of the series' run.) Conklin would often abuse his authority to make teachers work extra hours or perform personal favors for him.
  (Jeff Chandler on radio, billed sometimes under his birth name Ira Grossel; Robert Rockwell on both radio and television), is a Madison High biology teacher, the shy and often-clueless object of Miss Brooks' affections.
  (Richard Crenna, billed at the time as Dick Crenna), is a Madison High student. He is well intentioned and clumsy with a nasally high-pitched voice which he can disguise when making mischief. He often  drives Miss Brooks (his self-professed favorite teacher) to school in a broken-down jalopy. Perfectly aware of Miss Brooks' feelings, he tirelessly tries to help her snare Mr. Boynton, despite the latter's cluelessness.
  (Jane Morgan), Miss Brooks' absentminded landlady, has two trademarks— a penchant for whipping up exotic and often inedible breakfasts, and a tendency to lose her train of thought midsentence.
  (Gloria McMillan) is a Madison High student and daughter of Osgood Conklin. A sometime love interest for Walter Denton, Harriet is sweet, honest, and guileless, unlike her father.
  (Leonard Smith) is a dull-witted Madison High athletic star and Walter's best friend. For part of the first and the entire second TV season, the character is replaced by Stretch's equally dim brother Bones (Eddie Riley).
  (Mary Jane Croft) is a Madison High English teacher and a scheming professional and romantic rival to Miss Brooks.
  (Isabel Randolph) was introduced as the new school principal in the episode "Big Ears" (November 4, 1955).
  is Mrs. Davis' cat. In the radio series, Minerva had the habit of sleeping inside Mrs. Davis' parlor piano, leading to a running gag of an impressive piano riff anytime something startled her awake.

Radio

Our Miss Brooks was a hit on radio from the outset; within eight months of its launch as a regular series, the show landed several honors, including four for Eve Arden, who won polls in four individual publications of the time. Arden had actually been the third choice to play the title role. Harry Ackerman, at the time CBS's West Coast director of programming, wanted Shirley Booth for the part, but as he told historian Gerald Nachman many years later, he realized Booth was too focused on the underpaid downside of public school teaching at the time to have fun with the role.
Lucille Ball was believed to have been the next choice, but she was committed to My Favorite Husband and did not audition.  CBS then-chairman Bill Paley, who was friendly with Arden, persuaded her to audition for the part. With a slightly rewritten audition script—Osgood Conklin, for example, was originally written as a school board president, but was now written as the incoming new Madison principal—Arden agreed to give the newly revamped show a try.

Produced by Larry Berns and written by director Al Lewis, Our Miss Brooks premiered on CBS on July 19, 1948. According to radio critic John Crosby, her lines were very "feline" in dialogue scenes with principal Conklin and would-be boyfriend Boynton, with sharp, witty comebacks. The interplay between the cast—blustery Conklin, nebbishy Denton, accommodating Harriet, absentminded Mrs. Davis, clueless Boynton, and scheming Miss Enright—also received positive reviews.

Jeff Chandler played Boynton and stayed with the role for five years, even after becoming a movie star. He ultimately resigned because it was too exhausting to juggle a regular radio role with his film commitments. Others in the cast included Anne Whitfield as Conklin's daughter, Harriet.

For its entire radio life, the show was sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, promoting Palmolive soap, Lustre Creme shampoo, and Toni hair-care products. The radio series continued until 1957, a year after its television life ended. This content is now available for download at the Internet Archive.

Television

The show's full cast, minus Jeff Chandler, played the same characters in the television version (with most of the scripts adapted from radio), which continued to revolve largely around Connie Brooks' daily relationships with Madison High students, colleagues, and principal. Philip Boynton was played by Robert Rockwell, who also succeeded Jeff Chandler on the radio series. The television show, sponsored by General Foods, shifted focus later in its run, moving Connie Brooks and Osgood Conklin from a public high school to an exclusive private school in the fall of 1955. It also changed the title character's romantic focus; Gene Barry was cast as physical education teacher Gene Talbot, and Connie was now the pursued instead of the pursuer, although Mr. Boynton reappeared in several episodes before the season ended.

Our Miss Brooks finished in Nielsen ratings that season at number 15 overall after previously ranking at number 23 in 1952–1953 and number 14 in 1953–1954. For the 1955–56 season, with the format change and Rockwell (as Boynton) replaced by Gene Barry, the ratings fell. To rectify their mistake, the producers brought back Rockwell as Boynton in midseason, but it did not help. The show was cancelled in the spring of 1956. However, in the theatrical film Our Miss Brooks released by Warner Bros. in the same year, Connie and Mr. Boynton were finally engaged to be married.

Awards
Both the radio and television shows drew as much attention from professional educators as from radio and television fans, viewers, and critics. In addition to the 1948–49 poll of Radio Mirror listeners and the 1949  poll of Motion Picture Daily critics, Arden's notices soon expanded beyond her media. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, she was made an honorary member of the National Education Association and received a 1952 award from the Teachers College of Connecticut's Alumni Association "for humanizing the American teacher".

Our Miss Brooks was considered groundbreaking for showing a woman who was neither a scatterbrained klutz nor a homebody, but rather a working woman who transcended the actual or assumed limits to women's working lives of the time. Connie Brooks was considered a realistic character in an unglamorized profession (she often joked, for example, about being underpaid, as many teachers are), and who showed women could be competent and self-sufficient outside their home lives without losing their femininity or their humanity.

Our Miss Brooks remained Eve Arden's most identifiable and popular role, with numerous surviving recordings of both the radio and television versions continuing to entertain listeners and viewers. (The surviving radio recordings include both its audition shows.) A quarter century after the show ended, Arden told radio historian John Dunning in an on-air interview just what the show and the role came to mean to her:

I originally loved the theater. I still do. And I had always wanted to have a hit on Broadway that was created by me. You know, kind of like Judy Holliday and Born Yesterday. I griped about it a little, and someone said to me, "Do you realize that if you had a hit on Broadway, probably 100 or 200,000 people might have seen you in it, if you'd stayed in it long enough. And this way, you've been in Miss Brooks, everybody loves you, and you've been seen by millions." So, I figured I'd better shut up while I was ahead.

Television cast
 Eve Arden as Connie Brooks
 Gale Gordon as Osgood Conklin
 Robert Rockwell as Phillip Boynton
 Jane Morgan as Margaret Davis
 Jesslyn Fax as Margaret Davis's sister, Angela Devon
 Richard Crenna as Walter Denton
 Gloria McMillan as Harriet Conklin
 Joseph Kearns as Superintendent Stone (eight episodes)
 William Ching as Clint Allbright (four episodes)
 Gene Barry as Gene Talbot
 Orangey as Minerva the cat

List of television episodes

Home media

On , CBS Home Entertainment released the first season of 38 episodes on DVD (for Region 1) as a two-volume set (with 19 episodes in each volume). The episodes are not the original 26 minute broadcasts, but rather shortened syndicated versions of approximately 21 minutes each. In addition, the original opening and closing credits have been replaced by a single standardized version, eliminating all guest cast and additional crew member information.

Syndication
In the 1980s, various independent television stations would air episodes during afternoons and late nights.

Episodes from the series occasionally air on MeTV, as well as on sister network Catchy Comedy.

Tubi has several episodes in their library.

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

 Our Miss Brooks radio episodes at Internet Archive

 Review of radio show at Variety

Watch online
 Home Cooked Meal
 Madison Mascot
 The Big Jump
 This is Your Past

1940s American radio programs
1950s American radio programs
1948 radio programme debuts
1957 radio programme endings
1950s American high school television series
1950s American sitcoms
1952 American television series debuts
1956 American television series endings
American comedy radio programs
American workplace comedy television series
Black-and-white American television shows
CBS original programming
CBS Radio programs
English-language television shows
Radio programs adapted into television shows
Television series about educators
Television series based on radio series
Television series by CBS Studios

Our Miss Brooks


Elk Ridge, or Elk Mountain, is a mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Maryland and is the westernmost of four parallel ridges.  It forms the western side of a narrow valley in which are situated the towns of Yarrowsburg and Brownsville.  South Mountain is on the eastern side of this valley running roughly parallel to it.  The ridge runs from Rohrersville, in the north, to the Potomac River across from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in the south.  Across the Potomac the ridge continues as Blue Ridge Mountain in Virginia and West Virginia.  To the west of Elk Mountain is the broader Cumberland Valley, in which lie the towns of Hagerstown and Chambersburg, and the Potomac River.  The southern end of the ridge, which is part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, is known as Maryland Heights.

History
In the early 19th century, Elk Ridge was the site of numerous charcoal hearths, which produced charcoal for nearby iron furnaces from wood harvested on the mountain.  More than 50 hearths were constructed between 1810 and 1840.

The Maryland Heights portion of Elk Ridge was the scene of much activity during the American Civil War.  Artillery emplacements and fortifications were first erected on the mountain by Union forces in 1862, during Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign.  Later that year, during the Battle of Harpers Ferry, the union fortifications on the mountain were attacked by units under General Lafayette McLaws, who subsequently took control of the ridge and used it to deliver devastating artillery fire against the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry.  After the battle Confederate forces abandoned the ridge to rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia at Antietam and the Union army quickly reoccupied the heights.

Following the Battle of Antietam, Abraham Lincoln came to Maryland to review the army, including the garrisons on the mountain.  He began the ascent, but because of the steepness of the slope, turned around halfway up, concluding any man who could make the climb would pass his muster.  In June 1863 Union forces again took control of the ridge and enlarged the fortifications in response to the Confederate invasion of Maryland during the Gettysburg Campaign.

The "Pinnacle Lot" of the Maryland Heights was purchased by the Maryland Park System from the grandchildren of the last private owner, Judge Patrick Chapman Savin (1820-1889) of Harper's Ferry, MD; the lot was in turn gifted by the State of Maryland to the National Park Service in the 1950s.  Judge Patrick and his brother, John Chapman Savin, and a future son-in-law, John Marion Marsteller (1841-1898) were among those who participated in the capture of John Brown and his men.  It was during this time that the side of the cliff overlooking Harper's Ferry was leased for advertising seen by the passengers of trains as they entered and exited the tunnel under the Maryland Heights.

Recreation
A trail system, maintained by the National Park Service, ascends Maryland Heights and tours the Civil War-era fortifications and provides access to the cliffs on the mountain which contain views of Harpers Ferry and the Potomac Water Gap.  An unmaintained trail leads along the ridge of Park Service land onto private property to Buggy Rocks and views east of Pleasant Valley.  Mountain climbing is permitted by the National Park Service along the Maryland Heights cliffs.

Bibliography
 Whitman, T. Stephen, Antietam 1862: Gateway to Emancipation, ABC-CLIO, 2012 .

External links
 NPS Maryland Heights Brochure

Ridges of Maryland
Blue Ridge Mountains
Landforms of Washington County, Maryland
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Elk Ridge (Maryland)