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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 American musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart from a screenplay by Roald Dahl, based on his 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It stars Gene Wilder as chocolatier Willy Wonka. The film tells the story of a poor child named Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) who, upon finding a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar, wins the chance to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory along with four other children from around the world.

Filming took place in Munich from August to November 1970. Dahl was credited with writing the film's screenplay; however, David Seltzer was brought in to do an uncredited rewrite. Against Dahl's wishes, changes were made to the story, and other decisions made by the director led Dahl to disown the film. The musical numbers were written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley while Walter Scharf arranged and conducted the orchestral score.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was released in the United States on June 30, 1971, by Paramount Pictures. With a budget of $3 million, the film received generally positive reviews from critics, but was not a big financial success, only earning $4 million by the end of its original run. It received a nomination for Best Original Score at the 44th Academy Awards and Wilder was nominated for Best Performance in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical at the 29th Golden Globe Awards. The film also introduced the song "The Candy Man", which went on to be recorded by Sammy Davis Jr. and become a popular hit. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory has since become highly popular on repeated television airings and home video sales. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot
Charlie Bucket is a poor paperboy who often looks inside a candy shop but cannot afford to buy sweets. Going home one evening, he passes confectioner Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, where a tinker tells him that no one ever enters or leaves the building. Charlie's bedridden Grandpa Joe reveals that Wonka had shut down the factory because rival confectioners sent spies to steal his recipes. Production resumed three years later, but the gates remained locked, and to prevent more sabotage, the original workers were not rehired, leaving their replacements a mystery.

Wonka announces that he has hidden five Golden Tickets in chocolate Wonka Bars. Finders of the tickets will receive a factory tour and a lifetime supply of chocolate. The first four tickets are found by Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous German boy; Veruca Salt, the spoiled daughter of wealthy English parents; and two Americans, Violet Beauregarde, who chews gum constantly, and Mike Teevee, who is obsessed with television. As each winner is announced on television, a sinister-looking man appears and whispers to them. Charlie also takes advantage of his birthday, and a gift from Grandpa Joe, to open two Wonka bars, hoping to find a ticket, but he does not find one in either.

A news report reveals the fifth ticket was found by a millionaire in Paraguay, causing Charlie to lose hope. The next day, Charlie is on his way home from school when he finds money in a gutter and uses it to buy a Wonka Bar for himself and Grandpa Joe. Walking home, Charlie overhears that the millionaire forged the fifth ticket. Charlie opens his remaining Wonka Bar, discovering the final ticket. On his way, he encounters the sinister figure who spoke to the other winners. Introducing himself as Slugworth, one of Wonka's competitors, he offers a cash reward for a sample of Wonka's latest creation: the Everlasting Gobstopper.

Arriving home with the Golden Ticket, Charlie chooses Grandpa Joe as his chaperone. Overjoyed, Grandpa Joe miraculously springs out of bed for the first time in twenty years. The next day, Wonka greets the ticket winners at the front gates of the factory and leads them inside. Each signs a discipline contract before the tour, which begins in the Chocolate Room, a whimsical indoor park with plants and flowers made of candy and a river of chocolate. The visitors meet Wonka's workforce: little people known as Oompa-Loompas.

During the tour, each child's character flaws cause them to give in to temptation, resulting in their unusual elimination. Augustus gets sucked up a pipe after falling into the chocolate river; Violet swells to become a giant blueberry; Veruca falls down a garbage chute; and Mike is shrunk to the size of a chocolate bar. The Oompa Loompas sing a song of morality after each disposal. In the meantime, Charlie and Grandpa Joe enter the Fizzy Lifting Drinks room and sample the beverages against Wonka's orders. The drink makes them float up and have a near-fatal encounter with the ceiling exhaust fan, but burping allows them to escape and descend to the ground.

At the end of the tour, Wonka assures Charlie and Grandpa Joe that the other children will be fine before he hastily retreats to his office without awarding them the promised lifetime supply of chocolate. When they follow him in to ask about this, Wonka angrily informs them that they had violated the contract when they stole the Fizzy Lifting Drinks, thereby forfeiting their prize, and then furiously demands that they leave. Stunned and ashamed, Charlie decides to return the Everlasting Gobstopper to Wonka instead of giving it to Slugworth. Seeing that Charlie did not resort to revenge, Wonka joyously declares Charlie the winner, reinstates his prize, and reveals that Slugworth is his employee, Mr. Wilkinson. The offer to buy the Gobstopper was a morality test for the kids, and only Charlie passed. The trio enters the Wonkavator, a multi-directional glass elevator that flies out of the factory. During their flight, Wonka tells Charlie that he created the contest to find someone worthy enough to inherit his factory, so he invites Charlie and his family to come and live in the factory.

Development
The idea for adapting the book into a film came about when director Mel Stuart's 10-year-old daughter, Madeline, read the book and asked her father to make a film out of it, with "Uncle Dave" (producer David L. Wolper, who was not related to the Stuarts) producing. Stuart showed the book to Wolper, who happened to be in the midst of talks with the Quaker Oats Company regarding a vehicle to introduce a new candy bar from its Chicago-based Breaker Confections subsidiary (subsequently renamed The Willy Wonka Candy Company and sold to Nestlé). Wolper persuaded the company, which had no previous experience in the film industry, to buy the rights to the book and finance the picture for the purpose of promoting a new Quaker Oats "Wonka Bar".

Writing
Wolper and Roald Dahl agreed that Dahl would also write the screenplay. Though credited for the film, Dahl had not delivered a completed screenplay at the start of production and only gave an outline pointing to sections of the book. Wolper called in David Seltzer for an uncredited rewrite after Dahl left over creative differences. Wolper promised to produce Seltzer's next film for his lack of a credit as they needed to maintain credibility by keeping Dahl's name attached to the production. Also uncredited were several short humorous scenes by screenwriter Robert Kaufman about the Golden Ticket hysteria. Changes to the story included Wonka's character given more emphasis over Charlie; Slugworth, originally a minor character who was a Wonka industry rival in the book, was reworked into a spy so that the film could have a villain for intrigue; a belching scene was added with Grandpa and Charlie having "fizzy lifting drinks"; the walnut-shelling squirrels changed to golden-egg-laying geese; and the ending dialogue.

Seltzer also created a recurring theme that had Wonka quote from various literary sources, such as Arthur O'Shaughnessy's Ode, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. After completing the screenplay, Seltzer was exhausted and went on vacation to a remote cabin in Maine. However, while filming the final scene, Stuart was unhappy with the ending having Dahl's version of Grandpa Joe just exclaiming "Yippee!" The director tracked down the writer to the only phone in the area which was attached to a tree. By chance, Seltzer was passing and answered the call. Stuart told him to think up an ending quickly as the production was waiting at great expense. Seltzer could only recall the overused phrase to fairytale endings therefore reworked Wonka's final line to Charlie: "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted? ... He lived happily ever after."

Songwriting
Wolper decided with Stuart that the film would be a musical and approached composers Richard Rodgers and Henry Mancini, but both declined. Eventually, they secured the songwriting team Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.

Title change
Different explanations have been given for the title change to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. In the United States during the 1960s, the term "Mister Charlie" had been used as a pejorative expression in the African-American community for a "white man in power" (historically plantation slave owners) and press reports claimed the change was due to "pressure from black groups". During the same period, US soldiers in the Vietnam War used the derisive term "Charlie" for the Viet Cong, originating from the acronym VC using the callsign "Victor Charlie". The studio publicity stated that the title "was changed to put emphasis on the eccentric central character of Willy Wonka". However, Wolper said he changed the title to make the product placement for the Wonka Bar have a closer association. Stuart confirmed the matter was brought to his attention by some African-American actors and he also claimed to have changed the title, saying, "If people say, 'I saw Willy Wonka,' people would know what they were talking about. If they say, 'I saw Charlie,' it doesn't mean anything".

The book was also in the midst of a controversy when the film was announced. Protest groups including the NAACP had taken issue with the original Oompa-Loompas depicted as African pygmies and compared them to slavery. Stuart addressed the concerns for the film and suggested making them the distinctive green-and-orange characters.

Costume
Gene Wilder wanted specific changes to Wonka's costume, including what type of trousers the character should wear, "the color and cut" of his jacket and the placement of pockets. Wilder's attention to detail also requested, "The hat is terrific, but making it 2 in shorter would make it more special".

Casting
Before Wilder was officially cast as Willy Wonka, producers considered many actors. Spike Milligan was Roald Dahl's original choice. Peter Sellers reportedly begged Dahl for the role. Joel Grey was the front runner for the part but director Mel Stuart decided he was not physically imposing enough as the actor's height was five-foot-five. The producers learned that Fred Astaire wanted the part, but the 72-year-old may have considered himself too old.

Actors were auditioned for the role of Willy Wonka in a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York and by the end of the week Wilder had walked in. It was then Stuart and producer Wolper realised that they could stop looking. Wolper remarked, "The role fit him tighter than one of Jacques Cousteau's wetsuits." Stuart was captivated by Wilder's "humor in his eyes" and said, "His inflection was perfect. He had the sardonic, demonic edge that we were looking for." Wolper tried to suppress Stuart's eagerness for the actor as he wanted to negotiate the salary. Regardless, the director ran out into the hall as Wilder was leaving and offered him the part of Wonka.

When Wilder was cast as Wonka, he accepted the role on one condition:"When I make my first entrance, I'd like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I'm walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause." Stuart responded, "What do you want to do that for?" Wilder answered, "From that time on, no one will know if I'm lying or telling the truth." Wilder was adamant that he would decline the role otherwise.

Jean Stapleton turned down the role of Mrs. Teevee. Jim Backus was considered for the role of Sam Beauregarde. Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to play Bill, the candy store owner, but Stuart did not like the idea because he felt that the presence of a big star in the candy store scene would break the reality; however, Davis would make Bill's signature song, "The Candy Man", into a big hit. Anthony Newley also wanted to play Bill, but Stuart also dissuaded him for the same reason.

Ten actors of short stature were the Oompa Loompas, including one woman and nine men, and were cast internationally from France, Germany, Malta, Persia (now Iran), Turkey and the UK. They were portrayed by Rudy Borgstaller, George Claydon, Malcolm Dixon, Rusty Goffe, Ismed Hassan, Norman McGlen, Angelo Muscat, Pepe Poupee, Marcus Powell, and Albert Wilkinson.

The child actors who were auditioned from hundreds, Julie Dawn Cole, Denise Nickerson, Peter Ostrum, and Paris Themmen, all had acting experience from stage, school, theatre, television or commercials. Michael Böllner had the primary attribute of being rotund and was discovered in Germany when Stuart was location scouting. Stuart asked him to imagine being stuck in a tube and then "squeezed him like a roll of putty".

Filming
Principal photography commenced on August 31, 1970, and ended on November 19, 1970. After location scouting in Europe, including the Guinness brewery in Ireland and a real-life chocolate factory in Spain, production designer Harper Goff decided to house the factory sets and the massive Chocolate Room at Bavaria Studios. It was also significantly cheaper than filming in the United States, and the primary shooting locations in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany were conducive to the desired atmosphere for Wonka's factory. Stuart also liked the ambiguity and unfamiliarity of the location.

Locations
External shots of the factory were filmed at the gasworks of Stadtwerke München (Emmy-Noether-Straße 10); the entrance and side buildings still exist. The exterior of Charlie Bucket's house, a set constructed solely for the film, was filmed at Quellenstraße in Munich. Charlie's school was filmed at Katholisches Pfarramt St. Sylvester, Biedersteiner Straße 1 in Munich. Bill's Candy Shop was filmed at Lilienstraße, Munich. The closing sequence, in which the Wonkavator is flying above the factory, is footage of Nördlingen, Bavaria, and the elevator rising shot showing that it shoots out of the factory was from Bößeneckerstraße 4, 86720 Nördlingen, Germany, now the location of a CAP-Märkte.

Production design
The construction of the original Inventing Room was meant to be an industrial room with steel tubes. Stuart envisioned it differently as a wacky inventor's laboratory, with Rube Goldberg type mechanisms and unusual contraptions, and wanted it redesigned to be like Wonka's personality. Goff sent his construction crew into Munich searching junkyards, bakeries, and car dealers for discarded machinery, tin funnels, and any other raw materials. This included building Wonka's three-course gum machine, which was originally a solid state device, but Stuart requested an appliance whose operations had a visual experience for the audience. Stuart also instructed Goff to have all the props, furniture and fittings, excluding the light bulbs, in Wonka's original office to be cut in half, to reflect the character's eccentricity. Stuart stated, "I couldn't face the thought of ending the journey through this fabulous factory in an ordinary-looking office."

About a third of the props in the Chocolate Room set were edible. Veruca Salt had a chocolate watermelon; Mike Teevee had gum balls from a tree; Violet Beauregarde's "three-course gum" was actually a toffee-based candy, and marzipan was freely available on set; also there were giant mushrooms filled with whipped cream; and the trees had edible leaves. The inedible items included giant gummy bears that were plastic (the ears were edible, however); the flavored wallpaper was not actually flavored; and Wonka's flower cup was made of wax which Gene Wilder would chew on camera and spit out after each take.

According to Paris Themmen, who played Mike Teevee, "The river was made of water with food coloring. At one point, they poured some cocoa powder into it to try to thicken it but it didn't really work. When asked [what the river was made of], Michael Böllner, who played Augustus Gloop, answers, 'It vas dirty, stinking vater. A combination of salt conditioner and some chemicals eventually removed the stink problem but it remained cold, dirty water.

In the scene at Mr. Salt's peanut factory, where thousands of Wonka bars were being unwrapped to find a Golden Ticket, the bars were actually made of wood, which was a cheaper solution than rewrapping thousands of bars of real chocolate.

Performances
For the performances, Stuart used a recurring "method" tactic in a few scenes. When Wonka makes his entrance at the factory gates, nobody was aware of Wilder's approach as he limped then somersaulted; the reaction was of real surprise. The director gave explicit instructions not to allow the child actors to see the Chocolate Room set until the day of the shoot as he wanted their reactions to be genuine. The exception was Julie Dawn Cole, as Goff gave her a sneak preview. Also, the actors were not warned about the tunnel boat ride scene. Similarly, when Wilder rehearsed the Wonka office scene, with Peter Ostrum as Charlie and Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe, it was in a much calmer tone. When filming started, he increasingly became angry. When he shouted, "So you get nothing!", it was so that the reactions would be authentic.

Other issues
Stuart had issues with the large size of the Chocolate Room set with difficulties lighting the background. Julie Dawn Cole's performance of "I Want It Now" as Veruca Salt required 36 takes and was filmed on her thirteenth birthday. Director Bob Fosse came in every afternoon to complain because the filming was overrunning towards the end and stopping him from shooting Cabaret on the same stage.

Retrospective
In addition to the main scenes set in town and at the factory, several comic interludes were also shot. Stuart lamented in his book Pure Imagination: The Making of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, that his favorite scene was cut after poor test screenings. In the scene, which took a lot of preparation and money to film, an English explorer climbs a holy mountain to ask a guru the meaning of life. The guru requests a Wonka Bar. Finding no golden ticket, he says, "Life is a disappointment." Stuart loved the scene, but few laughed. He invited a psychologist friend to a preview, where the audience reaction was again muted. The psychologist told him, "You don't understand, Mel. For a great many people, life is a disappointment."

When interviewed for the 30th anniversary special edition in 2001, Wilder stated that he enjoyed working with most of the child actors, but said that he and the film crew had some problems with Paris Themmen. Wilder recalled, "Oh, he was a little brat!" He then addressed Themmen directly, "Now if you're watching this, you know that I love you now, but you were a troublemaker then." An example of Themmen's misbehaviour was releasing bees from a beehive on Wonka's three-course gum machine. "As life mirrored one of the morals of the movie," Stuart remembers, "one of the bees stung him."

Theatrical
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was released by Paramount Pictures on June 30, 1971. The film was not a big success, eventually earning $4 million worldwide on a budget of $3 million, and was the 24th highest-grossing film of the year in North America.

For the promotion before its release, the film received advance publicity through TV commercials offering a "Willy Wonka candy factory kit" for sending $1.00 and two seals from boxes of Quaker cereals such as King Vitaman, Life and any of the Cap'n Crunch brands.

Television
The film made its television debut on Thanksgiving night, November 28, 1974, on NBC.

The film was repeated the following year on November 23, 1975, on NBC. There was some controversy with the broadcast, as a football game between the Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins went into overtime, and the first 40 minutes of the film were cut. The film placed 19th in the television ratings for the week ending November 23, beating out The Streets of San Francisco and Little House on the Prairie. The next television showing of the film was on May 2, 1976, when it placed 46th in the ratings. Some television listings indicate the showing was part of The Wonderful World of Disney time slot.

Home media
In December 1984, the film became available on VHS and Betamax in the United Kingdom and was released in the United States on VHS the same year.

In 1996, the film was released on LaserDisc as a "25th anniversary edition". Additional features included the original and reissue theatrical trailers and music minus vocals for "sing-alongs". Notes explain the letterboxed version as "presented in a "matted" widescreen format preserving the 1.85:1 aspect ratio of its original theatrical presentation. The black bars at the top and bottom of the screen are normal for this format". VHS copies were also available, but only containing the "standard" full screen version. The "standard" version is an open matte print, in which the mattes used to make the image "widescreen" are removed, revealing more picture at the top and bottom that was masked off from viewers.

In 1997, the film was first released on DVD in a "25th anniversary edition" as a double sided disc containing a "widescreen" and "standard" version.

On August 28, 2001, a remastered special edition DVD was released, celebrating the film's 30th anniversary, but in "standard" full screen only. Because there was no "widescreen" release, fans' petitions eventually led Warner Home Video to issue a letterboxed version on November 13, 2001. Several original cast members reunited to film a "making-of" documentary titled Pure Imagination: The Story of 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'. The two format editions featured restored sound and better picture quality. In addition to the Pure Imagination feature, the DVD included a trailer, a gallery and audio commentary by the cast. It was also released on VHS, with only one of the special features (the Pure Imagination documentary).

In 2007, Warner Home Video released the film on HD DVD with all the bonus features from the 2001 DVD. On October 20, 2009, the film was released on Blu-ray. It included all the bonus features from the 2001 DVD and 2007 HD DVD as well as a 38-page book.

On November 1, 2011, a deluxe edition set was released for the film's 40th anniversary. The set included the film on Blu-ray and DVD, a bonus disc and a number of collectible items including a Wonka Bar tin, four scented pencils, a scented eraser, a book about the making of the film, original production notes and a "Golden Ticket" for the chance to win a trip to Los Angeles.

On June 29, 2021, a 4K Blu-ray was released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment to coincide with the film's 50th anniversary. This edition restored the original Paramount logo at the beginning of the film. The film would also be available to stream and download digitally in 4K high definition, including standard definition, on devices from various online video platforms.

Critical response
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, calling it:

"Probably the best film of its sort since The Wizard of Oz. It is everything that family movies usually claim to be, but aren't: Delightful, funny, scary, exciting, and, most of all, a genuine work of imagination. Willy Wonka is such a surely and wonderfully spun fantasy that it works on all kinds of minds, and it is fascinating because, like all classic fantasy, it is fascinated with itself."

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times praised the film as "lively and enjoyable" and called Wilder's performance "a real star turn", but thought the songs were "instantly forgettable" and that the factory looked "a lot more literal and industrial and less empathic than it might have". Variety called the film "an okay family musical fantasy" that had "good" performances but lacked any tunes that were "especially rousing or memorable". Howard Thompson of The New York Times panned it as "tedious and stagy with little sparkle and precious little humor". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, writing, "Anticipation of what Wonka's factory is like is so well developed that its eventual appearance is a terrible letdown. Sure enough there is a chocolate river, but it looks too much like the Chicago River to be appealing. The quality of the color photography is flat. The other items in Wonka's factory—bubblegum trees and lollypop flowers—also look cheap. Nothing in the factory is appealing." Jan Dawson of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that after a slow start the second half of the film was "an unqualified delight—one of those rare, genuinely imaginative children's entertainments at which no adult need be embarrassed to be seen".

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 92% approval rating and an average rating of 8/10 based on 61 reviews. The site's critical consensus states: "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is strange yet comforting, full of narrative detours that don't always work but express the film's uniqueness."

Roald Dahl's reaction
Dahl disowned the film and was "infuriated" by the plot deviations and considered the music to be "saccharine, sappy and sentimental". He was also disappointed because the film "placed too much emphasis on Willy Wonka and not enough on Charlie" and because Gene Wilder was cast as Wonka instead of Spike Milligan. In 1996, Dahl's second wife, Felicity, commented on her husband's objections toward film adaptations of his works, saying, "They always want to change a book's storyline. What makes Hollywood think children want the endings changed for a film, when they accept it in a book?"

Legacy
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory remained in obscurity in the years immediately following its original release. When the distribution rights lapsed in 1977, Paramount declined to renew, considering it not viable. The rights defaulted back to the Quaker Oats Company, which was no longer involved in the film business, and therefore sold them to Warner Bros. for $500,000. Wolper engineered the rights sale to Warner Bros., where he became a corporate director after selling his production company to it the previous year.

By the 1980s, the film had experienced an increase in popularity due to repeated television broadcasts; it also gained cult status with a new audience in home video sales. In 1996, there was a 25th anniversary theatrical re-release which grossed the film a further $21 million. In 2003, Entertainment Weekly ranked it 25th in the "Top 50 Cult Movies" of all time. The tunnel scene during the boat ride has been cited as one of the scariest in a film for children, for its surreal visuals, and was ranked No. 74 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The scene has also been interpreted as a psychedelic trip, though director Stuart denied that was his intention.

In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Music
The original score and songs were composed by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, and musical direction was by Walter Scharf. The soundtrack was first released by Paramount Records in 1971.

Sammy Davis Jr. recorded the song "The Candy Man", which became his only number-one hit. It would spend three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart starting June 10, 1972, and two weeks at the top of the easy-listening chart.

On October 8, 1996, Hip-O Records (in conjunction with MCA Records, which owned the Paramount catalog by then), released the soundtrack on CD as a "25th Anniversary Edition". In 2016, UMe and Geffen Records released a 45th Anniversary Edition LP.

In popular culture
Various comedy TV series have referenced the film mainly as a parody. They include Malcolm in the Middle, My Wife and Kids, the American version of The Office, Saturday Night Live, and That '70s Show. Animated TV series have also done parodies respectively, Dexter's Laboratory ("Golden Diskette" in 1997); The Simpsons ("Trash of the Titans" in 1998 and "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe" in 2009); Futurama ("Fry and the Slurm Factory" in 1999); Family Guy ("Wasted Talent" in 2000); Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi ("Taffy Trouble" in 2004); South Park ("Le Petit Tourette" in 2007); Rick and Morty ("Tales from the Citadel" in 2017); and American Dad! ("Jeff and the Dank Ass Weed Factory" in 2019).

Marilyn Manson's 1995 music video for their song "Dope Hat" was influenced by the boat ride scene. In 2001, the music video of Alien Ant Farm's song "Movies" paid homage to various Hollywood films and included a scene in which the band members were dressed as Oompa-Loompas.

In the 2010s, a still from the movie became a popular Internet meme known as Condescending Wonka. In 2017, in an episode of the TV series Pawn Stars a combination of the original Everlasting Gobstopper and Wonka Bar props sold for $105,000, and an animated adaptation of the film with Tom and Jerry was released as Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In 2023, elements from the film, including the Oompa-Loompa design and the song "Pure Imagination", were used in the origin story film Wonka.

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Bruce Trail

The Bruce Trail is a hiking trail in southern Ontario, Canada, from the Niagara River to the tip of Tobermory, Ontario. The main trail is more than 890 km long and there are over 400 km of associated side trails. The trail mostly follows the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, one of the nineteen UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves in Canada. The land the trail traverses is owned by the Government of Ontario, local municipalities, local conservation authorities, private landowners, and the Bruce Trail Conservancy (BTC). The Bruce Trail is the oldest and longest marked hiking trail in Canada. Its name is linked to the Bruce Peninsula and Bruce County, through which the trail runs. The trail is named after the county, which was named after James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin who was the Governor General of the Province of Canada from 1847 to 1854.

History
The idea for creating the Bruce Trail came about in 1959 out of a meeting between Ray Lowes and Robert Bateman, of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. Ray Lowes' vision was of a public footpath that would span the entire Niagara Escarpment.

On September 23, 1960, the first meeting of the Bruce Trail Committee took place, consisting of four attending members—Ray Lowes, Philip Gosling, Norman Pearson, and Dr. Robert McLaren. Each member became instrumental in building the Bruce Trail.

Trail Director Philip Gosling was responsible for gaining access to the Niagara Escarpment. With a team of volunteers, he visited major towns along the proposed route to discuss their vision of the trail and to solicit help from landowners. Their efforts were successful, and by 1963 regional clubs were established along the length of the Trail. Each club was responsible for obtaining landowner approvals, organizing trail construction, and maintenance efforts within their region of the trail.

On March 13, 1963, the Bruce Trail Association was incorporated in Ontario, and the first edition of the Association's newsletter, Bruce Trail News, was published that same year. Membership grew to 200. Dr. Aubrey Diem, an assistant professor of Geography at the University of Waterloo, compiled the first guidebook in 1965. The cairn at the northern terminus of the Bruce Trail in Tobermory was unveiled in 1967 to coincide with Canada's Centennial Year.

In August 2021, the Bruce Trail Conservancy purchased nearly 400 acres of land known as the Maple Cross Nature Reserve, its largest acquisition to date. The new protected area allowed the Bruce Trail to be extended an additional 1.8 kilometers in the Cape Chin area on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula.

Natural features
There are many waterfalls along the Bruce trail, where streams or rivers flow over the Niagara Escarpment. Niagara Falls, by far the most famous water feature in the area, can be reached by a side trail of the Bruce Trail proper. There is also a wide range of plant and wildlife along the trail, including slow-growing centuries-old coniferous trees right on the limestone lip of the escarpment itself. The Cheltenham Badlands is a natural feature exposed by human activity, namely farming.

The Bruce Trail and the escarpment run through some of the most populated areas of Ontario, with an estimated 7 million people living within 100 km. Golf courses, housing, and quarries are all examples of the threatening impact that this many people have on the natural environment. The popularity of the trail itself, especially near urban areas, and the careless attitude of some of its users also paradoxically threaten the quality and viability of the trail.

Route
The trail begins in the Niagara Peninsula of Southern Ontario in Queenston, Ontario, on the Niagara River, not far from Niagara Falls. The cairn marking its southern terminus is in a parking lot, about 160 m from General Brock's Monument on the easterly side of the monument's park grounds. From there, it travels through St. Catharines, where it passes through wine country near the Short Hills Bench. It continues due north through the major towns or cities of Hamilton, Burlington, Milton, Halton Hills, Walters Falls, Owen Sound, Wiarton, and finally Tobermory.

It passes through parks operated by various levels of government, including Woodend Conservation Area in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Battlefield Park in Stoney Creek, Dundas Valley Conservation Area in Dundas, the Hamilton-Brantford Rail Trail, Mount Nemo Conservation Area, Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area, Crawford Lake Conservation Area, Mono Cliffs Provincial Park, and the Bruce Peninsula National Park, which is located between Georgian Bay and Lake Huron near the northern tip of Bruce Peninsula. Its northern terminus is in Tobermory, the jumping off point for Fathom Five National Marine Park.

Approximately half of the trail runs through public land. In order to make a complete connection, the trail runs partly on private property and partly on road allowances. When going through private property, the BTC has made agreements with landowners to allow trail users to pass through. Using roads is not the best route for the trail. In these sections, the BTC is involved in acquiring land along what it calls the "optimum route."

Maintenance
The Federation of Ontario Naturalists surveyed the route in the early 1960s, and the responsibility for maintaining the trail was assumed by the nascent Bruce Trail Association; as of 2007, it is called the Bruce Trail Conservancy.

Currently headquartered at 55 Head Street in Dundas, the BTC marks and maintains the main trail as well as many side trails. Trail maintenance includes building bridges over streams and gullies, building stairs and switchbacks to climb slopes, building stiles over fences, and rerouting portions of the trail that have become worn through overuse.

The trail is subdivided into nine sections, each with a subsidiary club:

Volunteers inspect, repair, and build footbridges, retaining walls, stiles, and handholds along their section of the route. The BTC and subsidiary clubs offer badges for those hikers who complete the whole trail or any of its sections under prescribed conditions.

The main trail is marked with the BTC logo, a white lozenge with black text and drawings for the Bruce Trail and an upward pointing arrow, which does not act as a part of a navigational marker. The actual blazes for the main trail are white markings, approximately 3 cm wide by 8 cm high, with turns indicated by stacking two blazes off centre to indicate the direction to take. The blazes for the 300 km of associated side trails are similar, except they are blue.

Long distance activities
The BTC regularly holds events called end to end hikes. These events, which are sometimes held over two to three days, challenge hikers to walk over long sections of the trail daily in order to hike the entire length of the trail within one of the Bruce Trail clubs.

The Bruce Trail has also attracted long-distance runners who attempt to run its entire length. The first Fastest Known Time (FKT) was set in 1995. During the COVID19 pandemic, a number of runners broke the FKT from 2017.

The Highlands Trailblazers Nordic Ski Team completed a relay-style run of the entire trail in 8 days, starting in Tobermory on June 24, 2008, and finishing in Queenston on July 1, 2008. This run was both a training event as well as a fundraiser for the team. In 2009, two 10-person teams running continuously in an event called the Blaze Race set a new end-to-end relay record of 3 days, 23 hours, and 10 minutes.

In 2012, adventure seekers Fred Losani, Peter Turkstra, Mark Maclennan, and Teemu Lakkasuo went on a quest to raise funds and awareness for inner-city food and nutrition programs in Hamilton, as well as the Bruce Trail Conservancy as they celebrate 50 years. The adventure began on September 24, 2012, in Queenston, in the Niagara region, and ended approximately one month later in Tobermory. Along the way the hikers had the opportunity to walk with students, interact via live webcam and satellite phone transmissions, and educate students about the importance of proper nutrition, healthy living, and maintaining the Bruce Trail.

title: Bruce Trail


text:
User talk:Qslack

Hello and Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place. --mav

Re: Winnetka School Shooting
Welcome to Wikipedia! I'd like to thank you for contacting me regarding the issue instead of just reverting it. That's always a good policy to avoid incidents. An anonymous user, not me, removed your entry. I just added the tag that indicated a per capita income higher than $50k. I reverted the edit to my version that includes your information. The IP of the anonymous user resolves to Joliet, indicating it was probably a local who didn't like mention of a negative incident in the entry. You were entirely in the right to add it, as far as I know. --Trafton 22:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

New Trier
Hey qslack, are you still monitoring the New Trier High School Page along with AMHoffman? I just added it to my watchlist and was just wondering if you were still involved. Samois98 00:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Rinconada (Stanford dormitory)
Another editor has added the  template to the article Rinconada (Stanford dormitory), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also What Wikipedia is not and Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the  template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 23:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

HI QUINN!!!!!
Hi This is Meg. Wikipedia is difficult. Whoever deleted Rinconada is an idiot Love Mlunde330 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:Qslack


text: User:Dmb-pfx

title: User:Dmb-pfx


text:
User talk:Dmb-pfx

Hello and Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place. --mav

Hey! You stole my username! ;) --Dan|(talk) 21:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Dmb. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Dmb~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:28, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 12:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Dmb-pfx


text:
Posset

A posset (also historically spelled poshote, poshotte, poosay) was originally a popular British hot drink made of milk curdled with wine or ale, often spiced, which was often used as a remedy.

The original drink became extinct and the name was revived in the 19th century and applied to a cream, sugar and citrus-based confection, which is consumed today as a cold set dessert nearly indistinguishable from syllabub.

Introduction

To make the drink, milk was heated to a boil, then mixed with wine or ale, which curdled it, and spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon.

It was considered a specific remedy for some minor illnesses, such as a cold, and a general remedy for others, as even today people drink hot milk to help them sleep.

History
The OED traces the word to the 15th century: various Latin vocabularies translate balducta, bedulta, or casius as "poshet", "poshoote", "possyt", or "possot". Russell's Boke of Nurture (c. 1460) lists various dishes and ingredients that "close a mannes stomak", including "þe possate". Posset is frequently used as a starting point for other recipes (e.g. "Make a styf Poshote of Milke an Ale", and "Take cowe Mylke, & set it ouer þe fyre, & þrow þer-on Saunderys, & make a styf poshotte of Ale", each of which is the first sentence of a longer recipe). Recipes for it appear in other 15th-century sources: boil milk, add either wine or ale "and no salt", let it cool, gather the curds and discard the whey, and season with ginger, sugar, and possibly "sweet wine" and candied anise. Certain monks would make a posset including eggs and figs, a possible precursor to eggnog.

In 14th and 15th century cookery manuals, a possibly-related word, spelled variously "possenet", "postnet", or "posnet", is used to mean a small pot or saucepan. In 16th-century and later sources, possets are generally made from lemon or other citrus juice, cream and sugar. Eggs are often added. Some recipes used breadcrumbs to thicken the beverage.

"Posset sets" for mixing and serving possets were popular gifts, and valuable ones (often made of silver) were heirlooms. Such sets contained a posset "pot", or "bowl", or "cup" to serve it in, a container for mixing it in, and usually various containers for the ingredients, as well as spoons. The posset set that the Spanish ambassador gave Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain when they became betrothed in 1554 is believed to have been made by Benvenuto Cellini and is of crystal, gold, precious gems, and enamel. It is on display at Hatfield House in England and consists of a large, stemmed, covered bowl; two open, stemmed vessels; a covered container; three spoons; and two forks.

The word "posset" is mostly used nowadays for a cold set dessert invented in the late 19th c., containing cream and lemon, similar to syllabub. It is also used to refer to the semi-digested milk brought up by babies after a feed. <!---UNCITED

In popular culture

 * Lady Macbeth uses poisoned possets to knock out the guards outside Duncan's quarters in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act II, Scene ii:

 * The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms
 * Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets
 * That death and nature do contend about them,
 * Whether they live or die.

 * David Balfour, the narrator in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, makes a reference to possets in the sense of being pampered:

 * It was suggested as a remedy for the character of Stephen after he sees a ghost in the 1973 BBC adaptation of M. R. James’s Lost Hearts
 * "But I was by this time so weary that I could have slept twelve hours at a stretch; I had the taste of sleep in my throat; my joints slept even when my mind was waking; the hot smell of the heather, and the drone of the wild bees, were like possets to me; and every now and again I would give a jump and find I had been dozing."

 * Kay Harker, of John Masefield's book The Box of Delights, takes a posset to help clear his head, on the advice of the local police inspector. The posset is said to be a jorum of hot milk, egg, treacle and nutmeg.
 * The Warden in Incarceron says that Claudia used to give her young, ailing tutor Jared sweetmeats and possets. This was used to illustrate how she only cares for Jared.
 * In The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, the queen of Harfang asks that one of the protagonists, Jill Pole, be given "...all you can think of—possets and comfits and caraways and lullabies and toys."
 * Mary Renault has Bagoas give Alexander the Great an egg posset with honey, wine and cheese to break a long fast in her novel The Persian Boy.
 * In episode 10, "June", of the 2005/2006 BBC British historical documentary TV series, "Tales from the Green Valley" (part of the "BBC historic farm series"), "sheep washer's Posset" is mentioned.
 * In the 2015 BBC dramatization of the Poldark novels, Verity Poldark notes that her duties include "[dosing] the servants with possets when they are ill."
 * In the novel Chesapeake by James Michener, possets were served on the Eastern Shore before retiring, "for they were conducive to sleep and good digestion."
 * In Season 3, episode 10 of the original “Upstairs, Downstairs”, a Christmas- themed episode entitled “Goodwill to All Men”, Georgina is given a hot posset after a long day in cold weather.
 * Oliver Blackwood and Luc O’Donnell in Alexis Hall's book Boyfriend Material share a lemon posset that is said to be orgasmic.--->

title: Posset


text:
Caudle

For people with the surname, see Caudle (surname).

A caudle (or caudel) was a hot drink that recurred in various guises throughout British cuisine from the Middle Ages into Victorian times. It was thick and sweet, and seen as particularly suitable and sustaining for invalids and new mothers. At some periods of history, caudle recipes were based on milk and eggs, like eggnog. Later variants were more similar to a gruel, a sort of drinkable oatmeal porridge. Like the original forms of posset (a drink of wine and milk, rather than a set dessert), a caudle was usually alcoholic.

There were special caudle cups, larger than teacups, often with a cover, and perhaps two handles. These were either in pottery or metal, and might be given as presents.

Etymology

The word caudle came into Middle English via the Old North French word caudel, ultimately derived from Latin caldus, "warm". According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, the word derived from Medieval Latin caldellum, a diminutive of caldum, a warm drink, from calidus, hot. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the use of the word to 1297. The word's etymological connection to heat makes it cognate with "cauldron".

Recipes
A related recipe for skyr, a cultured dairy product, appears in the early 13th century. The earliest surviving recipe for caudle, from 1300 to 1325, is simply a list of ingredients: wine, wheat starch, raisins, and sugar to "abate the strength of the wine".

Another recipe from the late 14th century has more ingredients and more details on the cooking procedure: mix breadcrumbs, wine, sugar or honey, and saffron, bring to a boil, then thicken with egg yolks, and sprinkle with salt, sugar, and ginger. A 15th-century English cookbook includes three caudle recipes: ale or wine is heated and thickened with egg yolks and/or ground almonds, then optionally spiced with sugar, honey, saffron, and/or ginger (one recipe specifically says "no salt"). In a description of an initiation ceremony at Merton College, Oxford in 1647, caudle is described as a "syrupy gruel with spices and wine or ale added". William Carew Hazlitt provides a number of recipes for caudles and possets in his 1886 book, Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition describes it as "a drink of warm gruel, mixed with spice and wine, formerly given to women in childbed", i.e. as a restorative food during her postpartum confinement.

Emily Post's 1922 Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home, the classic guide to American manners, states that "although according to cook-books caudle is a gruel, the actual "caudle" invariably served at christenings is a hot eggnog, drunk out of little punch cups" (see Punch bowl).

"For the sick and lying-in"
Aside from the initiation ceremony mentioned above, caudle was often served to people who were seen to need strengthening, especially invalids and new mothers. A historian of Georgian England says that maternity hospitals always served a "traditional postlabor fortified caudle" to women who had just given birth. The British Lying-In Hospital had "Laws, Orders, and Regulations" printed to be displayed on the wards, detailing among other things, the menu. Mothers on the "low diet" had caudle; when they graduated to the "common diet" it was beer caudle; and the "full diet" had no need of the invalid liquid anymore.

Maria Rundell included a "caudle for the sick and lying-in" in her best-selling A New System of Domestic Cookery (1806). ("Lying-in" is an obsolete term for childbirth, referring to the extended period of bed rest that marked the traditional recuperation time.) Judith Montefiore likewise included caudle with the "recipes for invalids" in her The Jewish Manual (1846), the first exposition of Jewish cuisine in English. Five years later, The English Housekeeper by Anne Cobbett (daughter of William Cobbett) gives variants of caudles, of either gruel (oatmeal) or rice, with different types of alcohol, and seasonings, including capillaire. She devotes a chapter to invalid food, making the point that "Often when the Doctor's skill has saved the life of his patient [...] it remains for the diligent nurse to prepare the cooling drinks and restorative foods [...]. Everything which is prepared for a sick person should be delicately clean, served quickly, in the nicest order; and in a small quantity at a time."

Caudle parties
As caudel was served to new mothers to build up their strength, so it was offered to their visitors, to share in the happy occasion. "Cake and caudel" or "taking caudle" became the accepted phrases for a "lying-in visit", when women went to see their friends' new babies. These were all-female occasions, as more than one man noted. The American playwright Royall Tyler has one of the female characters in the comedy of manners The Contrast (1787) decline the offer of a man's escorting her by claiming that "half [her] visits are cake and caudel" and therefore unsuitable for him. A generation later in 1821, Thomas Gaspey wrote of these visits (with the italics in the original):

Offering caudel, or cake and caudel, to all lying-in visitors is referred to as an old British custom. Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, bore him 15 princes and princesses. After the christening of the youngest, Princess Amelia in 1783, "the greater part of the company then paid a visit to the nursery, where they were entertained (as usual on such occasions) with cake and caudel." This continued into Queen Victoria's reign: the day after she gave birth to the Prince of Wales, "many of the female Nobility called at Buckingham Palace, and were received by Lady Charlemont, the Lady in waiting, and after taking caudle were taken to the north wing to see the infant Prince."

But it was not just nobles who came. The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée reported that the aftermath of a royal birth was "a usual reception of the public to cake and caudel". The London Chronicle reported in 1765 that "The resort of different ranks of people at St. James's to receive the Queen's Caudle is now very great."

After the birth of Princess Augusta Sophia, the sixth child of George III and Queen Charlotte:

"Connected with the event of her Royal Highness's birth, during the usual reception of the public to cake and caudle, on Sunday 13th of November, 1768, a curious incident occurred at the Palace: - two young ladies, after having drunk plentifully of caudle, were detected in carrying off a large portion of the cake, and some of the cups in which the caudle had been served; they were allowed, however, to escape with a severe reprimand, after begging pardon on their knees for so disgraceful an act."

In England, the custom had died out by around 1850, but the birth of the current King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands in Utrecht in 1967 was celebrated there a few days later by an apparently all-male caudle (candeel in Dutch) party including his father, the Prime Minister, and other dignitaries, who wore morning dress to eat caudle with teaspoons from highly decorated handleless cups with saucers, held up near the mouth, as the photos in the state archives show. The event was held in the Utrecht city hall, where after the caudle the new prince's birth was registered by the mayor. The birth of the prince's mother, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, in 1938 had also been celebrated with a caudle party.

Caudle cups
There was a vessel particular to the drink, the caudle cup, a traditional gift, either for a pregnant woman, or on visits by female friends to the mother lying-in. Late 17th and early 18th-century examples in silver are low bulbous bowls with two handles, and often a cover. These were passed around among the company.

Poorer people used small bulbous and handleless earthenware cups, often painted with the monarch. In the early 18th century lidded "spout pots" were used; these were two-handled with a teapot-style spout on one of the other sides. As European porcelain developed in the 18th century, the two-handled cup with a cover, similar to the shape called a "chocolate cup" in continental examples, but often more bulbous, became the usual form of caudle cup, now with a saucer. These were typically highly decorated with overglaze enamel painting, and presented by the wealthy in pairs to new mothers. They were now smaller, and probably for individual use. Other than their use when lying-in, they functioned as cabinet cups, too ornate and expensive for regular use, and displayed in a china cabinet. In a London auction of Chelsea porcelain and Derby porcelain in 1771 the most expensive examples were sold for £12 for a pair, a considerable sum. They continued to be made through the 19th century as cabinet pieces, after the custom of consuming caudle largely died away.

At lower levels of society, an alternative pottery gift to bring to a lying-in caudle party was a model cradle complete with baby, into which coins or a small gift were added. These were rarely of fine porcelain.

Other uses
A caudle formed part of the Beltane (May Day) fire festival celebrations collated by James Frazier in The Golden Bough. He quotes at length Thomas Pennant, "who traveled in Perthshire in the year 1769": "on the first of May, the herdsmen of every village hold their Bel-tien, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the ground, leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk; and bring besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky; for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation: on that everyone takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them: each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulders, says, 'This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; and so on.' After that, they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals: 'This I give to thee, O fox! spare thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow! this to thee, O eagle!' When the ceremony is over, they dine on the caudle; and after the feast is finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose; but on the next Sunday they reassemble, and finish the reliques of the first entertainment."

Frazier notes other Scottish May Day celebrations with similar dishes, "a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard".

Apparently it was "a custom in France to bring the bridegroom a caudle in the middle of the night on his wedding-night", according to an explanatory note in an 1877 edition of The Essays of Montaigne, presumably inserted by the English editor, William Carew Hazlitt.

title: Caudle


text:
Talk:Earth impacts

This page is enormous, and I want to split it up into a couple of smaller more-specialized pages (perhaps one for each major impact described, leaving this page as a link list and as a discussion of Earth impacts in general; I haven't really thought about the specifics yet). Anyway, before doing something drastic like that, I thought I should mention my plans here on talk: to let others object or suggest. Anyone? Bryan 04:58 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

 * Please do. But the above title is wrong and there already is a more general impact event article. --mav

 * Excellent, I'll shuffle and merge some pieces over to that article when I get to work on this later tonight. Bryan

There, I think that about wraps up this article. I still need to merge material over at Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, but I'm worn out and will get to it tomorrow if nobody else does. impact event also needs a bit of tidying, I'll fiddle with it a bit and then head off for the night. Bryan

title: Talk:Earth impacts


text: Talk:Shawn Fanning

title: Talk:Shawn Fanning


text:
Niagara Escarpment

The Niagara Escarpment is a long escarpment, or cuesta, in Canada and the United States that starts from the south shore of Lake Ontario westward, circumscribes the top of the Great Lakes Basin running from New York through Ontario, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The escarpment is the cliff over which the Niagara River plunges at Niagara Falls, for which it is named. The escarpment is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. The reserve has the oldest forest ecosystem and trees in eastern North America.

The escarpment is not a fault line but the result of unequal erosion. It is composed of an outcrop belt of the Lockport Formation of Silurian age, and is similar to the Onondaga Formation, which runs in a parallel outcrop belt just to the south, through western New York and southern Ontario. The escarpment is the most prominent of several escarpments formed in the bedrock of the Great Lakes Basin. From its easternmost point just south of Lake Ontario, the escarpment shapes in part the individual basins and landforms of Lake Ontario, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan.

In Rochester, New York, the Genesee River flows through the city in three waterfalls over the scarp face. The escarpment thence runs westward to the Niagara River, forming a deep gorge north of Niagara Falls, which itself cascades over the scarp face. In southern Ontario, it spans the Niagara Peninsula, closely following the Lake Ontario shore through the cities of St. Catharines and Hamilton, where it takes a sharp turn north in the town of Milton toward Georgian Bay. It then follows the Georgian Bay shore northwestwards to form the spine of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island, as well as several smaller islands in northern Lake Huron, where it turns westwards into the Upper Peninsula of northern Michigan, south of Sault Ste. Marie. It extends down the Garden Peninsula and Potawatomi Islands into Wisconsin following the Door Peninsula and then continues more inland from the western coast of Lake Michigan until ending in the southeastern corner of Dodge County.

Formation
Study of rock exposures and drillholes demonstrates that no displacement of the rock layers occurs at the escarpment, which is not a fault line but the result of unequal erosion. The escarpment's caprock is dolomitic limestone, also known as dolostone, which is more resistant and overlies weaker, more easily eroded shale as a weathering-resistant "cap". The escarpment formed over millions of years through a process of differential erosion of these rocks of different hardnesses. Through time the soft rocks weather away or erode by the action of streams. The gradual removal of the soft rocks undercuts the resistant caprock, leaving a cliff or escarpment. The erosional process is most readily seen at Niagara Falls, where the river has quickened the process. It can also be seen at the three waterfalls of the Genesee River at Rochester (additional resistant rock layers make more than one escarpment in some places). Also, in some places thick glacial deposits, such as the Oak Ridges Moraine, conceal the Niagara Escarpment, such as north of Georgetown, Ontario, where it actually continues under glacial till and reappears farther north.

The dolomite cap was laid down as sediment on the floor of a marine environment. In Michigan, behind (south of) the escarpment, the cuesta capstone slopes gently to form a wide basin, the floor of an Ordovician-Silurian-age tropical sea. (The escarpment is essentially the remnant shoreline of that sea.) There the constant deposition of minute shells and fragments of biologically-generated calcium carbonate, mixed with sediment washed in by erosion of the virtually lifeless landmasses, eventually formed a limestone layer. During the Silurian period, some magnesium substituted for some of the calcium in the carbonates, slowly forming harder dolomite layers in the same fashion. This dolomite basin contains Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie. Worldwide sea levels were at their all-time maximum in the Ordovician; as the sea retreated, erosion inevitably began.

Human geography
The Welland Canal allows ships to traverse the escarpment between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario on the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario. The escarpment was a major obstacle in the construction of the Erie Canal in New York and was traversed by a series of locks; the community which grew up at the site thus became known as Lockport, New York.

In southern Ontario, the Bruce Trail runs the length of the escarpment from Queenston on the Niagara River to Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula. Highway 401, Canada's busiest, also crosses the Niagara Escarpment, beginning its long descent through rolling hills, farmland, and towns west of Milton. Rock exposed on the face of the escarpment can be seen along Highway 26 from Owen Sound eastwards towards Meaford, Ontario.

Hamilton, Ontario, is on the escarpment in such a way that the north end of the city is below and the south part above. Commonly referred to as "The Mountain" by its residents, many roads or "mountain accesses" join the urban core below with the suburban expansion above. From 1892 to 1936, the Hamilton Incline Railway transported people up and down "The Mountain".

High Cliff State Park in Wisconsin shows how modern and prehistoric humans used the escarpment for not only cultural reasons, but economic gains, as well. A number of different animal and geometric effigy mounds and the remains of an early 20th-century limestone quarry and kiln are within the park.

The relief and exposed edge are used by several wind farms stretching from Pipe, to Brownsville in Wisconsin. Wind speeds average 18 mph (about 29 km/h) along this stretch.

The Niagara Escarpment is a prominent Wisconsin feature in Dodge County, southwest of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; it is known there as "The Ledge" and is in Ledge County Park between Horicon and Mayville, Wisconsin. Some local organizations take their name from it, including The Ledgers, the sports teams at St. Mary's Springs Academy, which is perched on the side of the escarpment.

Many resorts and ski areas in Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New York are along the escarpment.

Vineyard land
Niagara County, New York, near the eastern end of the escarpment, is the site of the 18,000 acre Niagara Escarpment AVA (American Viticultural Area). Wines produced in this region include traditional grape varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Riesling, and fruit wines.

Ontario's Niagara Peninsula is the site of the largest wine-producing appellation (region) in Canada. Cool-climate varieties such as Riesling, Chardonnay, Gamay Noir, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc are among the more than 30 varietals produced across 13,600 ha. Three subappellations lie along the benchlands of the Niagara Escarpment: Short Hills Bench, Twenty Mile Bench, and Beamsville Bench.

Northeastern Wisconsin, at the western end of the escarpment, is the site of the 3,800 sqmi Wisconsin Ledge AVA. Most of the region's vineyards lie upon the escarpment's eastern-facing slope that rises gently upward from the shores of Lake Michigan to the top of the Ledge, before dropping sharply off into Green Bay, and benefit greatly from constant air movement from Lake Michigan, which stores warmth during the summer. The presence of the lake produces a vacuum of sorts during the growing season: warm air over the lake rises, sucking colder air off the land and creating offshore breezes. Cold air cannot settle over the vineyards and a constant flow of warmer air makes the growing season here longer than in other parts of the state. The escarpment's glacial soils are made up of gravel, sand, and clay over limestone bedrock. An aquifer provides mineral-rich ground water to the vines, encouraging deep root growth.

World Biosphere Reserve
In February 1990, the Niagara Escarpment was a designated World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, making it one of 12 in Canada. Development and land use on and adjacent to the escarpment is regulated by the Niagara Escarpment Commission, an agency of the Ontario government.

Cliffs along the scarp face have the oldest forest ecosystem in eastern North America. The oldest tree in Ontario is an eastern white cedar from 688 A.D. The oldest known tree in Wisconsin, a 1,300 year-old eastern white cedar, was found in Brown County.

title: Niagara Escarpment


text:
User:CrucifiedChrist

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Christ the Redeemer died for your sins.

title: User:CrucifiedChrist


text:
User talk:CrucifiedChrist

Discussion of my Name and Faith
All discussion of my name is consolidated at Requests for comment/CrucifiedChrist

Everything else is Lovingly Welcome
If you are here to share the Wikilove, I welcome you to my humble space.- CrucifiedChrist

Hello and Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place. --mav 05:12, 26 Jan 2003 (UTC)
 * Thank you, indeed I do. --CrucifiedChrist

Yes, welcome! Very nice editing! --God Kabob 19:27, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * It is an odd time to be welcomed, after I have been here for over a year. But I do appreciate your notice of my edits, I've been working (although very slowly) to make some good contributions. --CrucifiedChrist

Not nearly as odd as GK making their first-ever contribution a welcome message, 14 minutes after CC obliterated all sign of Jerzy's two under-five-hour-old edits ... hmmm ... while CC was not editing, and not disposed to respond to the banner that says "you've got a message" ... hmm ... obviously CC, exhausted from, let's see, 7 minutes devoted to 4 frenetic edits, went to lie down for a few hours and recover. --Jerzy(t) 00:18, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)
 * If my edits have offended you in some way, I apologize. I thought that God Kabob might be you editing under another name, but I choose to assume good faith. --CrucifiedChrist

Re: Derringer/Abraham Lincoln - I just looked up the rules for proper nouns - I thought it had to be a person or place to qualify, but unique items also qualify. -- →Raul654
 * Thanks Raul. FWIW, the pistol that shot Mr. Lincoln was made by Henry Deringer.  Pistols made by Mr. Deringer himself are referred to as "Deringers" (capital D, one R), while later copies are genericaly referred to as "derringers" (lowercase D, two Rs).  More about the Lincoln pistol is at  --CrucifiedChrist

CrucifiedChrist - M1 Garand battle rifle and M1 Garand "en bloc" clip photos. Excellent job. They're the cleanest I've seen on the net. Thanks for the work. - a user

 * Thank you for your encouragement -CrucifiedChrist

Summarizing Edits
Thanks for contributing, but I noticed you made an edit and left "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." as the edit summary.

Making misleading or incorrect edit summaries is not allowed on Wikipedia. From now on, when making an edit summary, please describe the changes you made. Thanks. blankfaze | (беседа!)
 * I don't see how my edit is misleading or incorrect. Given that I believe I exist because of God, and that every action I take on this world is an enabled through God, then it would be truthful for me to use every edit summary I make to thank God for creating me and allowing me to contribute to this encylopedia.  However, I will think about what you have said, and will modify my behavior for the time being.  Thank you for the suggestions. --CrucifiedChrist

You could at least also include some sensible edit summary, and perhaps try to tag the Christ text with although I suppose that won't work (but maybe somehow?). ---Dittaeva
 * I'm sorry Dittaeva, I don't really understand what you are saying. --CrucifiedChrist

Gunman / Gunmen
I am about to make a series of edits that may lead some here to question why. Put simply, the word "gunman" is over used in the place of "man with a gun". The word, in the purest sense, should refer to a professional killer, or to a person particularly known for their skill with firearms. I am not going to blindly remove all uses of "gunman", only those which are referring to parties who seem far removed from the above meanings. Please assume good intentions in my edits. --CrucifiedChrist

God's will
FYI, "labelled" and "labeled" are both acceptable spellings. I don't know why God would be so partial to one as opposed to the other, since His children don't appear to care either way. Graft 04:25, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I did not say that God was partial to one or the other. My exact words were Fixing this typo is God's will.  For all I know, it was God's will that another user spelled it "labelled".  Perhaps that was a necessary prelude for me to be able to later change it.  I cannot fathom the mind of God, but I am willing to be his servant when he moves me. --CrucifiedChrist

Neutrality
Can we have a neutrality banner put at the top of this page? Seeing as the majority of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Shintoists, atheists and modernists would disagree with you, saying Christ died to save your sins. But then again, maybe this is what the doctor means by pedanticity. Chewyman 11:59, 7 Nov 2004 (NZT)
 * Thank you for your suggestion. User and Talk pages are not held to the standards of NPOV, so no such disclaimer is required. - CrucifiedChrist

Edit comments
Please, it would help me if your edit comments said more than "doing God's will". I am sure that God would prefer you to be as helpful as possible while doing Her divine work. Paul Beardsell 03:56, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Colt logo.jpg
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ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:CrucifiedChrist


text:
Transform fault

A transform fault or  transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction zone. A transform fault is a special case of a strike-slip fault that also forms a plate boundary.

Most such faults are found in oceanic crust, where they accommodate the lateral offset between segments of divergent boundaries, forming a zigzag pattern. This results from oblique seafloor spreading where the direction of motion is not perpendicular to the trend of the overall divergent boundary. A smaller number of such faults are found on land, although these are generally better-known, such as the San Andreas Fault and North Anatolian Fault.

Nomenclature
Transform boundaries are also known as conservative plate boundaries because they involve no addition or loss of lithosphere at the Earth's surface.

Background
Geophysicist and geologist John Tuzo Wilson recognized that the offsets of oceanic ridges by faults do not follow the classical pattern of an offset fence or geological marker in Reid's rebound theory of faulting, from which the sense of slip is derived. The new class of faults, called transform faults, produce slip in the opposite direction from what one would surmise from the standard interpretation of an offset geological feature. Slip along transform faults does not increase the distance between the ridges it separates; the distance remains constant in earthquakes because the ridges are spreading centers. This hypothesis was confirmed in a study of the fault plane solutions that showed the slip on transform faults points in the opposite direction than classical interpretation would suggest.

Difference between transform and transcurrent faults
Transform faults are closely related to transcurrent faults and are commonly confused. Both types of fault are strike-slip or side-to-side in movement; nevertheless, transform faults always end at a junction with another plate boundary, while transcurrent faults may die out without a junction with another fault. Finally, transform faults form a tectonic plate boundary, while transcurrent faults do not.

Mechanics
Faults in general are focused areas of deformation or strain, which are the response of built-up stresses in the form of compression, tension, or shear stress in rock at the surface or deep in the Earth's subsurface. Transform faults specifically accommodate lateral strain by transferring displacement between mid-ocean ridges or subduction zones. They also act as the plane of weakness, which may result in splitting in rift zones.

Transform faults and divergent boundaries
Transform faults are commonly found linking segments of divergent boundaries (mid-oceanic ridges or spreading centres). These mid-oceanic ridges are where new seafloor is constantly created through the upwelling of new basaltic magma. With new seafloor being pushed and pulled out, the older seafloor slowly slides away from the mid-oceanic ridges toward the continents. Although separated only by tens of kilometers, this separation between segments of the ridges causes portions of the seafloor to push past each other in opposing directions. This lateral movement of seafloors past each other is where transform faults are currently active.

Transform faults move differently from a strike-slip fault at the mid-oceanic ridge. Instead of the ridges moving away from each other, as they do in other strike-slip faults, transform-fault ridges remain in the same, fixed locations, and the new ocean seafloor created at the ridges is pushed away from the ridge. Evidence of this motion can be found in paleomagnetic striping on the seafloor.

A paper written by geophysicist Taras Gerya theorizes that the creation of the transform faults between the ridges of the mid-oceanic ridge is attributed to rotated and stretched sections of the mid-oceanic ridge. This occurs over a long period of time with the spreading center or ridge slowly deforming from a straight line to a curved line. Finally, fracturing along these planes forms transform faults. As this takes place, the fault changes from a normal fault with extensional stress to a strike-slip fault with lateral stress. In the study done by Bonatti and Crane, peridotite and gabbro rocks were discovered in the edges of the transform ridges. These rocks are created deep inside the Earth's mantle and then rapidly exhumed to the surface. This evidence helps to prove that new seafloor is being created at the mid-oceanic ridges and further supports the theory of plate tectonics.

Active transform faults are between two tectonic structures or faults. Fracture zones represent the previously active transform-fault lines, which have since passed the active transform zone and are being pushed toward the continents. These elevated ridges on the ocean floor can be traced for hundreds of miles and in some cases even from one continent across an ocean to the other continent.

Types
In his work on transform-fault systems, geologist Tuzo Wilson said that transform faults must be connected to other faults or tectonic-plate boundaries on both ends; because of that requirement, transform faults can grow in length, keep a constant length, or decrease in length. These length changes are dependent on which type of fault or tectonic structure connect with the transform fault. Wilson described six types of transform faults:

Growing length: In situations where a transform fault links a spreading center and the upper block of a subduction zone or where two upper blocks of subduction zones are linked, the transform fault itself will grow in length.

Constant length: In other cases, transform faults will remain at a constant length. This steadiness can be attributed to many different causes. In the case of ridge-to-ridge transforms, the constancy is caused by the continuous growth by both ridges outward, canceling any change in length. The opposite occurs when a ridge linked to a subducting plate, where all the lithosphere (new seafloor) being created by the ridge is subducted, or swallowed up, by the subduction zone. Finally, when two upper subduction plates are linked there is no change in length. This is due to the plates moving parallel with each other and no new lithosphere is being created to change that length.

Decreasing length faults: In rare cases, transform faults can shrink in length. These occur when two descending subduction plates are linked by a transform fault. In time as the plates are subducted, the transform fault will decrease in length until the transform fault disappears completely, leaving only two subduction zones facing in opposite directions.

Examples
The most prominent examples of the mid-oceanic ridge transform zones are in the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Africa. Known as the St. Paul, Romanche, Chain, and Ascension fracture zones, these areas have deep, easily identifiable transform faults and ridges. Other locations include: the East Pacific Ridge located in the South Eastern Pacific Ocean, which meets up with San Andreas Fault to the North.

Transform faults are not limited to oceanic crust and spreading centers; many of them are on continental margins. The best example is the San Andreas Fault on the Pacific coast of the United States. The San Andreas Fault links the East Pacific Rise off the West coast of Mexico (Gulf of California) to the Mendocino Triple Junction (Part of the Juan de Fuca plate) off the coast of the Northwestern United States, making it a ridge-to-transform-style fault. The formation of the San Andreas Fault system occurred fairly recently during the Oligocene Period between 34 million and 24 million years ago. During this period, the Farallon plate, followed by the Pacific plate, collided into the North American plate. The collision led to the subduction of the Farallon plate underneath the North American plate. Once the spreading center separating the Pacific and the Farallon plates was subducted beneath the North American plate, the San Andreas Continental Transform-Fault system was created.

In New Zealand, the South Island's alpine fault is a transform fault for much of its length. This has resulted in the folded land of the Southland Syncline being split into an eastern and western section several hundred kilometres apart. The majority of the syncline is found in Southland and The Catlins in the island's southeast, but a smaller section is also present in the Tasman District in the island's northwest.

Other examples include:
 * Middle East's Dead Sea Transform fault
 * Pakistan's Chaman Fault
 * Turkey's North Anatolian Fault
 * North America's Queen Charlotte Fault
 * Myanmar's Sagaing Fault

title: Transform fault


text:
User:Librarian

Librarian and textual critic. Logician, philosopher, and drunk.

[Emphasis mine]
 * The censure of the imaginary and the wholesale rejection by strict Christian circles of the culture of the phantasmic age [the system of natural philosophic belief stretching from Aristotle to the Alchemists] result in a radical change in the human imagination.

 * Here again the works of some historians of ideas betray an ineradicable prejudice: the belief that this change was caused by the advent of heliocentrism and the concept that the universe is infinite. There are writers to this day who assert seriously that Copernicus (or Bruno, which would be much more accurate) was at the bottom of a "revolution" that was not only scientific but psychological as well. According to them, the finite Thomist cosmos was able to quiet human anxieties, which exploded as soon as the belief in an infinite universe became generally accepted.

 * That would not be serious if it were only schoolboys that were taught fairy tales of this kind, though they too deserve something better. Unfortunately they circulate even in the most learned tracts and it would be in vain to hope for their immediate cessation. At issue are made up ideas so convenient and superficial that no one bothers to refute them any more. They continue to circulate, from generation to generation, forming one of the most tenacious traditions of modern culture.

 * Responsible for this is a certain linear concept of the progress of history, which everywhere seeks signs of "change" and "evolution". Because he advanced a heliocentric image of our solar system, which is closer to scientific truth, Copernicus is identified with a key moment of change, of evolution, in short, of progress....

 * --Ioan P. Couliano

title: User:Librarian


text:
West Coast of the United States

The West Coast of the United States – also known as the Pacific Coast, and the Western Seaboard – is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S. states of California, Oregon, and Washington, but it occasionally includes Alaska and Hawaii in bureaucratic usage. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau considers both states to be part of a larger U.S. geographic division.

Definition
There are conflicting definitions of which states comprise the West Coast of the United States, but the West Coast always includes California, Oregon, and Washington as part of that definition. Under most circumstances, however, the term encompasses the three contiguous states and Alaska, as they are all located in North America. For census purposes, Hawaii is part of the West Coast, along with the other four states. Encyclopædia Britannica refers to the North American region as part of the Pacific Coast, including Alaska and British Columbia. Although the encyclopedia acknowledges the inclusion of Hawaii in some capacity as part of the region, the editors wrote that "it has little in common geologically with the mainland states."

Several dictionaries offer different definitions of the West Coast. Lexico restricts the West Coast's definition to "the western seaboard of the U.S. from Washington to California." However, Macmillan Dictionary provides a less specific definition as "the western coast of the U.S., along the Pacific Ocean." As for the Cambridge Dictionary, the West Coast is "the area of the Pacific coast in the U.S. that includes California."

History
The history of the West Coast begins with the arrival of the earliest known humans of the Americas, Paleo-Indians, crossing the Bering Strait from Eurasia into North America over a land bridge, Beringia, that existed between 45,000 BCE and 12,000 BCE (47,000–14,000 years ago). Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska. Between 16,500 BCE and 13,500 BCE (18,500–15,500 years ago), ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America and possibly by sea.

Alaska Natives, indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and California indigenous peoples eventually descended from the Paleo-Indians. They developed various languages and established trade routes.

Later, Spanish, British, French, Russian, and American explorers and settlers began colonizing the area. On May 10, 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was completed joining the West Coast to the East of the United States.

Climate
The West Coast of the United States has an oceanic climate in its Northwestern, Northern, and Eastern edge towards the U.S.-Canada border, but from Northern California, towards the U.S.-Mexico border the climate is mediterranean. While the northern half of the west coast, particularly coastal Washington and Oregon has moderate rainfall, particularly during the winter months, much of coastal California is drier year-round.

The coastline sees significantly milder temperatures compared to inland areas during summer. In far Northern California there is a difference of 17 °C (30 °F) between Eureka and Willow Creek in spite of only 25 miles (40 km) separating the locations and Willow Creek being located at a 500 m elevation. Slightly narrower fluctuations can be seen all through the coastline, and could partially be explained by the cold currents in the Pacific Ocean moderating coastal temperatures and the mountain ranges blocking the maritime air from moving farther inland than its foothills during summer.

Coastal fog is also prevalent in keeping shoreline temperatures cool. While famous in the San Francisco Bay Area, coastal fog also affects Santa Monica in Los Angeles, Southern California, leading to May gray and June gloom conditions. Coastal California has very little yearly temperature differences with cool summers similar to those expected in parts of Northern Europe in San Francisco but warmer temperatures year-round further south. A short journey inland and summer temperatures are comparable with the rest of the United States on the same latitudes, sometimes warmer due to prevailing winds from the Nevada and Arizona hot desert climate.

Government and politics
With the exception of Alaska, the Democratic Party has dominated West Coast politics in contemporary history, with the states consistently voting for Democrats in elections at various levels. Four out of five West Coast states have voted for Democrats in presidential elections since 1992, three of which have done so since 1988.

Ideology and party strength
In politics, the West Coast usually refers to the contiguous coastal states of California, Oregon, and Washington because of their similar political leanings. In 2017, The Oregonian columnist David Sarasohn described the West Coast as a "blue wall" of shared values on immigration, abortion, climate change, and civil liberties. By 2016, the West Coast states legalized marijuana after California voted to do so. According to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll, 72% of adults in Pacific states said that "climate change is affecting their local community at least some", higher than in any other region in the country.

Since 1992, the three states have voted for Democrats in presidential elections without interruption, but Oregon and Washington also voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988. Although the three states have reliably voted Democratic, no Democratic presidential candidate from any of the three states has won their party's nomination as of 2020. In the 2010s, Democrats strengthened their political power along the West Coast. After winning a special election for a seat in the Washington state senate in 2017, Democrats built a government trifecta in all three West Coast states. After the 2022 U.S. House of Representatives elections, Democrats controlled all congressional districts touching the Pacific.

Hawaii is not usually considered part of the West Coast in the political definition, though it is considered a Democratic stronghold. Before achieving statehood in 1959, Hawaii became a state favorable to Democrats to the point that they sought statehood for the territory. Southern Democrats opposed the move because it would mean additional votes against their region on several issues. Since achieving statehood, Hawaii consistently voted for Democrats in presidential elections, except in 1972 and 1984.

Unlike the other West Coast states, Alaska has been a reliable state for Republicans in presidential elections. Since achieving statehood, Alaska has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate only once in 1964. In 1960, the state narrowly voted for Republican Richard Nixon over Democrat John F. Kennedy and had voted for Republicans uninterrupted since 1968.

Demographics
According to the results of the 2020 United States Census, 16 of the 20 largest cities on the West Coast exist in California. Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose, all among the top 10 most populous cities in the country, lead the West Coast in population with more than a million people in each city, with Los Angeles being nearly three times the size of San Diego's population. Behind these three cities, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland are respectively fourth, fifth and sixth in population. Hawaii's capital and largest city, Honolulu, is the 13th largest city, and Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, is 17th on the West Coast.

Culture
California's history first as a major Spanish colony, and later Mexican territory, has given the lower West Coast a distinctive Hispanic American tone, which it also shares with the rest of the Southwest. Similarly, two of the three cities in which Asian Americans have concentrated, San Francisco and Los Angeles,  are located on the West Coast, with significant populations in other West Coast cities. San Francisco's Chinatown, the oldest in North America, is a noted cultural center.

The West Coast also has a proportionally large share of green cities within the United States, which manifests itself in different cultural practices such as bicycling and organic gardening.

Greater Los Angeles, in particular, has immense global influence due to the presence of the Hollywood film industry, and is considered the creative capital of the world due to the proportion of its population involved in the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, parts of the San Francisco Bay Area are also known as Silicon Valley, due to the tremendous presence of software companies in the area, including tech giants like Apple, Meta, and Alphabet Inc.

In the Pacific Northwest, Portland and Seattle are both considered among the coffee capitals of the world. While Starbucks originated in Seattle, both cities are known for small-scale coffee roasters and independent coffeeshops. The culture has also been significantly shaped by the environment, especially by its forests, mountains, and rain. This may account for the fact that the Northwest has many high-quality libraries and bookshops (most notably Powell's Books and the Seattle Central Library) and a "bibliophile soul". The region also has a marginal, but growing independence movement based on bioregionalism and a Cascadian identity. The Cascadian flag has become a popular image at Seattle Sounders FC and Portland Timbers games.

Alaska is widely known for its outdoors and its inhabitants engage in a range of activities that are unique to the state. Some of these activities can be experienced through the state's annual events, such as the Iron Dog snowmobile race from Anchorage to Nome and on to Fairbanks. Other events include the World Ice Art Championships (Fairbanks) and the Sitka Whalefest (Sitka).

Transportation
The Coast Starlight is the main interstate passenger railroad route provided by Amtrak along the coast. BNSF Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad own and operate railroads that connect cities on the coast. Interstate travel is also served by roads such as Interstate 5, the main high-speed north–south freeway along the West Coast.

Interstate 5 follows the coast only as far north as Dana Point, California, before turning inland for much of its route. The main coastal scenic route throughout most of California is California State Route 1. From the end of SR 1 at Leggett, California, U.S. Route 101 serves as the main scenic route along the coast in far Northern California, Oregon, and Washington state. Sierra High Route is a popular trekking route.

Several of the most important international airports in the United States are located along the West Coast, including Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport. Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles all connect numerous destinations around the Pacific Ocean to points throughout North America, and are often described as gateways to the Pacific Rim.

title: West Coast of the United States