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Red Dutton

Norman Alexander Dutton (July 23, 1897 – March 15, 1987) was a Canadian ice hockey player, coach and executive. Commonly known as Red Dutton, and earlier by the nickname "Mervyn", he played for the Calgary Tigers of the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) and the Montreal Maroons and New York Americans of the National Hockey League (NHL). A rugged and physical defenceman, Dutton often led his team in penalty minutes, won the WCHL championship in 1924 as a member of the Tigers and was twice named a WCHL All-Star.

Dutton coached and managed the Americans, and later purchased the team before suspending operations in 1942 due to World War II. He served as the second president of the NHL between 1943 and 1946 before resigning the position after the NHL's owners reneged on a promise to allow the Americans to resume operations following the war. He served as a Stanley Cup trustee for 37 years but otherwise limited his involvement with the NHL following the Americans' demise. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958.

A successful businessman, Dutton operated a construction company that built Calgary's McMahon Stadium in 1960 and he served for a time as the president of the Calgary Stampeders football club and later the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede. He was invested as a member of the Order of Canada in 1981 and is honoured by both the Manitoba Hockey and Alberta Sports Halls of Fame. He was posthumously awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy in 1993 in recognition of his contributions to the game of hockey in the United States.

He was the last surviving former player of the Calgary Tigers.

Early life
Dutton was born in Russell, Manitoba on July 23, 1897. His father, Bill, was a successful contractor who helped build Canada's transcontinental railway system, and the younger Dutton often helped his father at his work when he was a boy. He had at least two elder brothers, and a sister.

His given name was Norman Alexander Dutton, but his birth names were quickly ignored. A family friend of the Duttons refused to call him Norman as the name had a negative connotation for her, so she instead called him "Mervyn", a name that stuck. His friends called him "Red" after the colour of his hair, and to most, he was known as Mervyn "Red" Dutton.

Dutton attended school at St. John's College in Winnipeg. He left school in 1915 to volunteer with the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in World War I and served with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. He lied about his birth date on his CEF enlistment papers as he was not yet 18, and served for four years. Dutton fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917 where he suffered a shrapnel wound to his leg serious enough that doctors pressed for amputation. Dutton refused and spent the following 18 months working to recover full use of his leg. He played hockey almost constantly to regain strength, at one point playing in seven different Winnipeg leagues at the same time.

Following the war, Dutton sought to build his own contracting business. However, an economic depression in 1920 forced its closure. He then worked in a packing plant in Winnipeg that also ceased operations. Penniless, with only his pride preventing him from asking his father for help, he was met by the owner of a hockey team in Calgary who had sought him out. Dutton was offered $2,500 to play in the Alberta city.

Playing career
Dutton joined the Calgary Canadians of Alberta's Big-4 League for the 1920–21 season, then moved onto the Calgary Tigers of the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL) in 1921–22 where he scored 16 goals and 21 points in 22 games. Two seasons later, in 1923–24, Dutton and the Tigers won the WCHL championship. He assisted on the championship winning goal in a 2–0 victory over the Regina Capitals by carrying the puck the length of the ice before passing to Cully Wilson who scored. The team then defeated the Pacific Coast Hockey Association's Vancouver Maroons before losing to the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL) in the 1924 Stanley Cup Finals.

Named a WCHL first team all-star on defence in 1922 and 1923, Dutton played five seasons for the Tigers. Known for his aggressive, physical style, he led the team in penalty minutes in each of those five years, and the league in 1921–22 and 1923–24. Financial pressures forced the Western League to sell its interests to the NHL following the 1925–26 season, and having suffered a serious knee injury during the season, Dutton was left unsure of his future.

Nonetheless, his rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons, and he made his NHL debut on November 20, 1926 against the Canadiens. Dutton played four seasons with the Maroons, scoring 15 goals and 41 points. He played in the Stanley Cup Finals for the second time in his career in 1927–28, but the Maroons lost the best-of-five Stanley Cup Finals three games to two. He led the league in penalty minutes the following season.

Dutton was the subject of trade talks between the Maroons and the Chicago Black Hawks following the 1928–29 NHL season. The teams had been negotiating to send Cyclone Wentworth to Montreal in exchange for Dutton and Babe Siebert before the Black Hawks purchased the contract of Taffy Abel, which ended the Hawks pursuit of Dutton. The Maroons continued to make him available, with the Toronto Maple Leafs showing interest following the 1929–30 season. Finally, he was sold to the New York Americans along with Mike Neville, Hap Emms and Frank Carson for $35,000.

At first distraught at leaving Montreal, Dutton quickly adapted to playing in New York. He maintained his aggressive style of play with the Americans, again leading the league in penalties in 1931–32. Despite his fiery temper, Dutton became one of the most popular players in New York amongst both the fans and his fellow players. He was not able to turn the Americans' fortunes on the ice around, however, as the team failed to qualify for the playoffs in his first five seasons with the team.

Dutton was named the coach of the Americans for the 1935–36 NHL season, and in doing so became the second player-coach in NHL history. Under his leadership, the Americans finished third in the Canadian Division with a 16–25–7 record and qualified for the postseason. The Americans then went on to defeat the Black Hawks 7–5 in a two-game, total-goal series to face the Maple Leafs in the league semi-final series. Dutton was unable to play parts of the series against Toronto due to a hip injury, and the Americans lost the best-of-three series two games to one. Dutton retired as a player following the season and turned his focus to coaching full-time.

Executive career
While Dutton focused on coaching the team, the Americans were facing bankruptcy. Heavily in debt, team owner Bill Dwyer turned to Dutton who lent him $20,000 to allow the team to continue operating. When the NHL finally forced Dwyer out and took over ownership of the franchise, the league asked Dutton to take over management of the team.

Though the ownerless team was written off by the press and labelled as being "orphans", Dutton built an Americans team in 1937–38 that finished with a 19–18–11 record. It was only the third time in the team's 13-year history they finished with a winning record. It was also only the third time the Americans qualified for the playoffs. They faced, and defeated, their rival New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs before losing to the Black Hawks in the league semi-final. Dutton pioneered the use of air travel as the Americans became the first hockey team to fly between games in 1938. The Americans continued to defy expectations in 1938–39. They again qualified for the playoffs, losing to Toronto in the first round, while Dutton was named an NHL Second-Team All-Star as coach. He led them to the playoffs again in 1939–40, but the loss of players due to World War II took its toll on the franchise. After finishing in last place the season before, the league announced that the Americans had suspended operations for the 1942–43 NHL season, though Dutton continued to represent the team on the Board of Governors. Dutton believed that if the Americans could have held on through the war, his team would become more popular than the Rangers. "A couple of more years and we would have run the Rangers right out of the rink," he said.

Following the sudden death of Frank Calder in 1943, the NHL asked Dutton to serve as acting president of the league. The owners wanted Dutton in the post both because he was popular with the players, and because they felt they could control him. Dutton agreed to take the presidency on the promise that the league would reinstate the Americans following the war. He resigned the position after one year, citing the fact that the role took too much time away from his business interests in Calgary, but reversed his decision on the understanding that he would not always be available to serve the NHL post. Despite this agreement, he again attempted to resign in December 1944, and again had to be persuaded to complete the season. On both occasions of his potential resignation, Canadian Amateur Hockey Association executives W. G. Hardy and George Dudley were rumoured as likely replacements.

In spite of his earlier reluctance to retain the presidency, Dutton signed a five-year agreement to remain as NHL president in 1945. He continued to make inquiries on the status of his team, but found in 1946 that the owners had reneged on their promise and cancelled the franchise. Dutton had arranged $7 million in financing for a new arena in Brooklyn. When the owners told him during a league meeting that they were not interested, Dutton told his peers "You can stick your franchise up your ass", and left the meeting. Dutton then resigned the presidency, but remained in the position until he convinced the league to accept Clarence Campbell as his replacement.

Dutton felt that the Rangers were responsible for the league's refusal to allow the Americans to resume operations, and in a fit of pique, swore that the Rangers would never win another Stanley Cup in his lifetime. His vow became known as "Dutton's Curse". Additionally, he never set foot in an NHL arena again until 1980 when, as the last surviving Calgary Tiger, he was asked to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff prior to the first game in Calgary Flames' history. Dutton's 34-year separation from the NHL was attributed to the betrayal of the league's owners, but also because Dutton himself found the lure of the game too strong, and knew he had to step away in order to effectively manage his businesses.

Dutton served as governor of the Western Canada Junior Hockey League from 1948 to 1951, when he was succeeded by Al Pickard.

In spite of this, he accepted a nomination in 1950 to become one of two Stanley Cup trustees, a position he held until his death in 1987. Dutton was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958, and was a member of the Hall of Fame's selection committee for 15 years.

Business career
Attempting to overcome the failure of his first contracting business following World War I, Dutton operated a second using the money he earned with the Tigers and Maroons. It too failed in 1933 as a result of the Great Depression. In 1938, he tried again, joining with Reg Jennings and his brother Jack to form the Standard Gravel and Surfacing Company in Calgary. The company proved immensely successful during World War II, building numerous airports within Canada as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan as well as completing highways in northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. After serving a year as vice-chairman, Dutton was named the chairman of the prairie roadbuilders section of the Canadian Construction Association in 1950. By 1960, the company had become Standard Holdings Ltd., operating 20 different companies that had $70 million in contracts for that year alone, and Dutton had personally become a millionaire.

He remained active in the sporting world as well. When the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League found themselves in financial trouble in 1955, Dutton led a group of local businessmen in purchasing the team. Named the president of the team, he worked to increase the team's revenues and to force a greater level of professionalism amongst his peers in Canadian football. He served as team president until 1959.

Dutton's company built the Chinook Centre shopping mall, and in 1960, was contracted to build McMahon Stadium as the new home of the Stampeders. He bet George McMahon, the stadium's benefactor, $1,000 that he could complete the 19,000 seat facility within four months. He won the bet with three days to spare.

Also in 1960, Dutton was named president of the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede on a two-year term. He had been a Stampede director for ten-years previous to his appointment. As head of the exhibition, he also spoke for the Stampeders hockey team of the Western Hockey League, and was its chief negotiator. Through his work and community spirit, Dutton played a major role in helping Calgary and the surrounding area shed its rural image in the 25 years following World War II.

Personal life
Dutton and his wife Mory had four children: sons Joseph, Alex, and Norman, and daughter Beryl. All three sons fought in World War II; Joseph and Alex were both killed serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force within six months of each other. In their memory, he funded the Dutton Memorial Arena in Winnipeg which opened in 1967 and was dedicated to developing Canada's national hockey team. Norman served in the navy during World War II; he died in 1973.

Dutton raced thoroughbred horses for decades, and once sponsored a baseball team made up of hockey players known as the Calgary Puckchasers that enjoyed success during the hockey off-seasons. Among his humanitarian efforts, Dutton was a longtime supporter of cancer research and treatment, and made donations of equipment in the memory of his father, who died from the disease. He became the potentate of the Al Azhar Shriner Temple in Calgary in 1953 so that he could help crippled children.

Dutton earned many honours in recognition of his life and career. He was made an honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the King's Own Calgary Regiment in 1953, and promoted to honorary Colonel two years later. In 1972, the newly built Red Dutton Arena in Springbank, Alberta (just west of Calgary) was named after him. He was invested as a member of the Order of Canada in 1981. In 1993, the NHL posthumously named him one of four recipients of the Lester Patrick Trophy in recognition of his contributions to hockey in the United States. He was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.

title: Red Dutton


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Chongzhen

Chongzhen (5 February 1628 – 25 April 1644) was the era name (nianhao) of the Chongzhen Emperor, the last emperor of the Ming dynasty. It was also the final era of the Ming, lasting for 17 years.

In 1622 (Tianqi 2), Zhu Youjian was created the Prince of Xin (信王) by his elder brother, the Tianqi Emperor. In 1627 (Tianqi 7), the Tianqi Emperor died, and Zhu Youjian ascended to the throne. The Grand Secretariat proposed four era names—"Qiansheng" (乾聖), "Xingfu" (興福), "Xianjia" (咸嘉), and "Chongzhen" (崇貞)—for Zhu Youjian to choose from. He ultimately chose "Chongzhen" (崇貞). Another account states that the four proposed era names were "Yongchang" (永昌), "Shaoqing" (紹慶), "Xianning" (咸寧) and "Chongzhen" (崇貞), and Zhu Youjian chose "Chongzhen" and changed the character "貞" to "禎". The following year (1628), the era was changed to Chongzhen.

In February 1644 (Chongzhen 17, 2nd month), Li Zicheng established the Shun dynasty in Xi'an, Shaanxi, with the era name "Yongchang" (永昌). On 25 April 1644 (19th day of the 3rd month), the Shun army captured Beijing, the capital of the Ming dynasty. The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide by hanging himself on the Coal Hill in Beijing (present-day Jingshan, Beijing), leading to the downfall of the Ming. After hearing the news, Zhu Yousong, Prince of Fu, ascended the throne in Nanjing, the temporary capital, on 19 June of the same year (15th day of the 5th month), as the Hongguang Emperor, and established the Southern Ming regime. He continued to use the Chongzhen era name until the end of the year on New Year's Eve of Chongzhen 17, and the following year, the era was changed to Hongguang.

After the fall of the Ming dynasty, the Korean Yi dynasty aristocrats, out of anti-Qing sentiment and Little China ideology, still used the Chongzhen era name in their country, which was known as the "Chongzhen jiyuan" or "Sungjeong giwon" (崇禎紀元).

Change of era

 * 5 February 1628 (Tianqi 8, 1st day of the 1st month): The era was changed to Chongzhen 1 (崇禎元年, "the first year of Chongzhen").
 * 28 January 1645 (Chongzhen 18, 1st day of the 1st month): The era was changed to Hongguang 1 (弘光元年, " the first year of Hongguang").

Other regimes' era names that existed during the same period

 * China
 * Tiancong (天聰, 1627–1636): Later Jin— era name of Hong Taiji
 * Chongde (崇德, 1636–1643): Qing dynasty—era name of Hong Taiji
 * Shunzhi (順治, 1644–1661): Qing dynasty—era name of the Shunzhi Emperor
 * Ruiying (瑞應, 1621–1629): Ming period—era name of She Chongming (奢崇明)
 * Yongxing (永興, 1628): Ming period—era name of Zhang Weiyuan (張惟元)
 * Tianyun (天運, 1637): Ming period—era name of Zhang Puwei (張普徽)
 * Tianding (天定, 1644): Ming period—era name of Liu Shoufen (劉守分)
 * Chongxing (重興, 1644): Ming period—era name of Qin Shangxing (秦尚行)
 * Xingwu (興武, 1635–1636): Ming period—era name of Gao Yingxiang (高迎祥)
 * Yongchang (永昌, 1644–1645): Shun dynasty—era name of Li Zicheng
 * Yiwu (義武, 1643–1644): Xi dynasty—era name of Zhang Xianzhong
 * Dashun (大順, 1644–1646): Xi dynasty—era name of Zhang Xianzhong
 * Vietnam
 * Vĩnh Tộ (永祚, 1619–1629): Later Lê dynasty—era name of Lê Thần Tông
 * Đức Long (德隆, 1629–1635): Later Lê dynasty—era name of Lê Thần Tông
 * Dương Hòa (陽和, 1635–1643): Later Lê dynasty—era name of Lê Thần Tông
 * Phúc Thái (福泰, 1643–1649): Later Lê dynasty—era name of Lê Chân Tông
 * Long Thái (隆泰, 1618–1625): Mạc dynasty—era name of Mạc Kính Khoan
 * Thuận Đức (順德, 1638–1677): Mạc dynasty—era name of Mạc Kính Vũ
 * Japan
 * Kan'ei (寛永, 1624–1644): era name of Emperor Go-Mizunoo, Empress Meishō and Emperor Go-Kōmyō
 * Shōhō (正保, 1644–1648): era name of Emperor Go-Kōmyō

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Chongzhen


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Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area

The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes nine known exposed formations, all visible in Zion National Park in the U.S. state of Utah. Together, these formations represent about 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in that part of North America. Part of a super-sequence of rock units called the Grand Staircase, the formations exposed in the Zion and Kolob area were deposited in several different environments that range from the warm shallow seas of the Kaibab and Moenkopi formations, streams and lakes of the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations to the large deserts of the Navajo and Temple Cap formations and dry near shore environments of the Carmel Formation.

Subsequent uplift of the Colorado Plateau slowly raised these formations much higher than where they were deposited. This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral rivers and other streams on the plateau. The faster-moving streams took advantage of uplift-created joints in the rocks to remove all Cenozoic-aged formations and cut gorges into the plateaus. Zion Canyon was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River in this way. Lava flows and cinder cones covered parts of the area during the later part of this process.

Zion National Park includes an elevated plateau that consists of sedimentary formations that dip very gently to the east. This means that the oldest strata are exposed along the Virgin River in the Zion Canyon part of the park, and the youngest are exposed in the Kolob Canyons section. The plateau is bounded on the east by the Sevier Fault Zone, and on the west by the Hurricane Fault Zone. Weathering and erosion along north-trending faults and fractures influence the formation of landscape features, such as canyons, in this region.

Grand Staircase and basement rocks
The Grand Staircase is an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park through Zion National Park and into the Grand Canyon. Within this sequence, the oldest exposed formation in the Zion and Kolob canyons area is the youngest exposed formation in the Grand Canyon—the Kaibab limestone. Bryce Canyon to the northeast continues where the Zion and Kolob areas end by presenting Cenozoic-aged rocks. In fact, the youngest formation seen in the Zion and Kolob area is the oldest exposed formation in Bryce Canyon—the Dakota Sandstone.

In the Permian period, the Zion and Kolob area was a relatively flat basin near sea level on the western margin of the supercontinent Pangaea. Sediments from surrounding mountains added weight to the basin, keeping it at relatively the same elevation. These sediments later lithified (turned to rock) to form the Toroweap Formation, now exposed in the Grand Canyon to the south but not in the Zion and Kolob area. This formation is not exposed in the park, though it does form its basement rock.

Kaibab Limestone (Upper Permian)
In later Permian time, the Toroweap Basin was invaded by the warm, shallow edge of the vast Panthalassa ocean in what local geologists call the Kaibab Sea. At that time, Utah and Wyoming were near the equator on the western margin of the supercontinent Pangaea.

Starting 260 million years ago, the yellowish-gray limestone of the fossil-rich Kaibab Limestone was laid down as a limy ooze in a tropical climate. During this time, sponges, such as Actinocoelia meandrina, proliferated, only to be buried in lime mud and their internal silica needles (spicules) dissolved and recrystallized to form discontinuous layers of light-colored chert. In the park, this formation can be found in the Hurricane Cliffs above the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center and in an escarpment along Interstate 15 as it skirts the park. This is the same formation that rims the Grand Canyon to the south.

Farther to the west, a complex island arc assemblage formed above a subduction zone. To the east, in western Colorado, a mountain range similar to today's Himalayas called the Uncompahgre Mountains bordered the Utah lowland. The interfingering of the Kaibab with the White Rim Sandstone, now exposed in Capitol Reef National Park area, to the east suggests that the marine facies of the Kaibab migrated eastward in response to a relative sea-level rise, or transgression (the White Rim is not exposed in the Zion area). The sea moved back and forth across Utah, but by the Middle Permian, the sea had withdrawn and the Kaibab Limestone was exposed to erosion, creating karst topography and channels reaching 30 m (100 ft) in depth.

Moenkopi Formation (Lower Triassic)
Volcanoes continued to erupt through the Early Triassic on the north–south trending island arc to the west, which was located along what is now the border between California and Nevada. Shallow, marine water stretched from eastern Utah to eastern Nevada over a beveled continental shelf. As the sea withdrew around 230 million years ago, fluvial, mudflat, sabkha, and shallow marine environments developed, depositing gypsum (from lagoon evaporites), mudstones,  limestones, sandstones, shales, and siltstones.

It took many thousands of thin layers of these sediments to form the 1800 ft thick Moenkopi Formation. A prograding shoreline laid down muddy delta sediments which mixed with limy marine deposits. The fossilized plants and animals in the Moenkopi are evidence of a climate shift to a warm tropical setting that may have experienced monsoonal, wet-dry conditions.

The Red Canyon Conglomerate, the basal member of the Moenkopi, fills broad east-flowing paleochannels carved into the Kaibab Limestone. Some of these channels are up to several tens of feet deep and may reach 200 ft (61 m) deep in the St. George area. A thin, poorly developed soil, or regolith, formed over the paleotopographic high areas between the channels.

The depositional environment was a nearshore one where the seashore alternated between advance (transgression) and retreat (regression). At Zion, the limestones and fossils of the Timpoweap, Virgin Limestone, and Shnabkaib members of the Moenkopi Formation document transgressive episodes. Unlike the Timpoweap and Virgin Limestone members, the Shnabkaib contains abundant gypsum and interbedded mudstone resulting from deposition in a restricted marine environment with complex watertable fluctuations. Regressive, red bed layers separate the transgressive strata. Ripple marks, mud cracks, and thinly laminated bedding suggest that these intervening red shale and siltstone units were deposited in tidal flat and coastalplain environments.

Outcrops of this brightly colored red, brown, and pink banded formation can be seen in the Kolob Canyons section of the park and in buttes on either side of State Route 9 between Rockville, Utah, to the south and Virgin, Utah, to the southwest of the park borders. Progressively higher beds are exposed until the top of the formation is reached at the mouth of Parunweap Canyon (when traveling to the park on Route 9).

Chinle Formation (Upper Triassic)
Later, uplift exposed the Moenkopi Formation to erosion and Utah became part of a large interior basin drained by north and northwest-flowing rivers in the Upper Triassic. Shallow river deposition along with volcanic ash eventually became the mineral-rich Chinle Formation. The irregular contact zone, or unconformity, between the Chinle and the underlying Moenkopi can be seen between Rockville and Grafton in southwestern Utah.

Petrified wood and fossils of animals adapted to swampy environments, such as phytosaurs, lungfish, and lacustrine bivalves, have been found in this formation as well as conifer trees, cycads, ferns, and horsetails. Relatively plentiful uranium ore, such as carnotite and other uranium-bearing minerals, has also been found. The purple, pink, blue, white, yellow, gray, and red colored Chinle also contains shale, gypsum, limestone, sandstone, and quartz. Iron, manganese oxides and copper sulfide are often found filling gaps between pebbles. Purplish slopes made of the Chinle can be seen above the town of Rockville.

The sand, gravel, and petrified wood which made up these deposits were later strongly cemented by dissolved silica (probably from volcanic ash from the west) in groundwater. Much of the bright coloration of the Chinle is due to soil formation during the Late Triassic. The lowermost member of the Chinle, the Shinarump, consists of a white, gray, and brown conglomerate made of coarse sandstone, and thin lenses of sandy mudstone, along with plentiful petrified wood. The Shinarump was laid down in braided streams that flowed through valleys eroded into the underlying Moenkopi Formation. This member of the Chinle forms prominent cliffs with thickness up to 200 ft, and its name comes from a Native American word meaning "wolf's rump" (a reference to the way this member erodes into gray, rounded hills).

A succession of volcanic-ash-rich mudstone and sandstone with a thickness of 350 ft make up the Petrified Forest Member of the Chinle, which was deposited by lakes, highly sinuous rivers and on the surrounding floodplains. This is the same bright, multicolored part of the Chinle that is exposed in Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert. Petrified wood is, of course, also common in this member.

Moenave and Kayenta formations (Lower Jurassic)
Early Jurassic uplift created an unconformity above the Chinle Formation that represents about ten million years of missing sedimentation between it and the next formation, the Moenave. Periodic incursions of shallow seas from the north during the Jurassic flooded parts of Wyoming, Montana, and a northeast–southwest trending trough on the Utah/Idaho border. The Moenave was deposited in a variety of river, lake, and flood-plain environments.

The oldest beds of this formation belong to the Dinosaur Canyon Member, a reddish, slope-forming rock layer with thin beds of siltstone that are interbedded with mudstone and fine sandstone. The Dinosaur Canyon, with a local thickness of 140 to 375 ft, was probably laid down in slow-moving streams, ponds and large lakes. Evidence for this is in cross-bedding of the sediments and large numbers of fish fossils.

The upper member of the Moenave is the pale reddish-brown with a thickness of 75 to 150 ft and cliff-forming Springdale Sandstone. It was deposited in swifter, larger, and more voluminous streams than the older Dinosaur Canyon Member. Fossils of large sturgeon-like freshwater fish have been found in the beds of the Springdale Sandstone. The next member in the Moenave Formation is the thin-bedded Whitmore Point, which is made of mudstone and shale. The lower red cliffs visible from the Zion Human History Museum (until 2000 the Zion Canyon Visitor Center) are accessible examples of this formation.

At 200 to 600 ft thick, the Kayenta Formation's sand and silt were laid down in early Jurassic time in slower-moving, intermittent streambeds in a semiarid to tropical environment. Interbedded sandstone, basal conglomerates, siltstones, mudstones, and thin cross-beds are typical channel and floodplain deposits found in the Kayenta. Paleocurrent studies show that the Kayenta rivers flowed in a general westward to southwestward direction.

Fossilized dinosaur footprints from sauropods have been found in this formation near the Left Fork of North Creek. Mountains in Nevada and California continued to rise in the Lower Jurassic as plate motions forced North America northward. Eventually, this created a rain shadow and brought widespread desertification. Today the Kayenta is a red and mauve rocky slope-former that can be seen throughout Zion Canyon.

Navajo Sandstone (Lower to Mid Jurassic)
Approximately 190 to 136 million years ago in the Jurassic the Colorado Plateau area's climate increasingly became arid until 150,000 square miles (388,000 km2) of western North America became a huge desert, not unlike the modern Sahara. For perhaps 10 million years sometime around 175 million years ago sand dunes accumulated, reaching their greatest thickness in the Zion Canyon area; about 2,200 feet (670 m) at the Temple of Sinawava (photo) in Zion Canyon.

Most of the sand, made of 98% translucent, rounded-grain quartz, was transported from coastal sand dunes to the west, in what is now central Nevada. Today the Navajo Sandstone is a geographically widespread, pale tan to red cliff and monolith former with very obvious sand dune cross-bedding patterns (photo). Typically the lower part of this remarkably homogeneous formation is reddish from iron oxide that percolated from the overlaying iron-rich Temple Cap formation while the upper part of the formation is a pale tan to nearly white color. The other component of the Navajo's weak cement matrix is calcium carbonate, but the resulting sandstone is friable (crumbles easily) and very porous. Cross-bedding is especially evident in the eastern part of the park where Jurassic wind directions changed often. The crosshatched appearance of Checkerboard Mesa is a good example (photo).

Springs, such as Weeping Rock (photo), form in canyon walls made of the porous Navajo Sandstone when water hits and is channeled by the underlying non-porous Kayenta Formation. The principal aquifer in the region is contained in Navajo Sandstone. Navajo is the most prominent formation exposed in Zion Canyon with the highest exposures being West Temple and Checkerboard Mesa. The monoliths in the sides of Zion Canyon are among the tallest sandstone cliffs in the world.

Temple Cap and Carmel formations (Middle Jurassic)
Utah and western Colorado were deformed as the rate of subduction off the west coast increased in the Middle Jurassic Sevier Orogeny. At the same time, an inland sea began to encroach on the continent from the north. Broad tidal flats and streams carrying iron oxide-rich mud formed on the margins of the shallow sea to the west, creating the Sinawava member of the Temple Cap Formation. Flat-bedded sandstones, siltstones, and limestones filled depressions left in the underlying eroded strata. Streams eroded the poorly cemented Navajo Sandstone, and water caused the sand to slump.

Desert conditions returned briefly, creating the White Throne member, but encroaching seas again beveled the coastline, forming a regional unconformity. Thin beds of clay and silt mark the end of this formation. The most prominent outcrops of this formation make up the capstone of The West Temple in Zion Canyon. Rain dissolves some of the iron oxide and thus streaks Zion's cliffs red (the red streak seen on the Altar of Sacrifice is a famous example). Temple Cap iron oxide is also the source of the red-orange color of much the lower half of the Navajo Formation.

A warm, shallow inland sea started to advance into the region (transgress) 150 million years ago, finishing the job of flattening the sand dunes. Limy ooze with some sand and fossils were laid down as 1 to 4 ft thick sedimentation beds from Mid to Late Jurassic time. Some calcareous silt percolated down into the buried sand dunes (carrying red oxides with it) and eventually cemented them into the sandstone of the Navajo Formation. The limy ooze above would later lithify into the hard and compact limestone of the Carmel Formation, 200 to 300 ft thick.

Many unique environments were created by the migrating Sevier thrust system, and the four members of the Carmel Formation in southwest Utah capture these changing environments. Both open marine (crinoids) and restricted marine (pelecypods, gastropods) environments are represented in the Co-op Creek member. Sandstone and gypsum in the Crystal Creek and Paria River members signal a return to desert conditions in a coastal setting.

Outcrops of the Carmel Formation are most notably exposed on Horse Ranch Mountain (photo) in the Kolob Canyons section of the park and near Mt. Carmel Junction east of the park. Other formations totaling 2800 ft thick may have been deposited in the region during Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous only to be uplifted and entirely removed by erosion.

Dakota Sandstone (Lower Cretaceous)
Mountains continued to rise in the Sevier orogenic belt to the west during the Cretaceous while the roughly north-south trending Western Interior Basin expanded. Rifting in the Gulf of Mexico helped the southern end of the basin to subside, which allowed marine water to advance northward. At the same time, the shoreline advanced inland from the Arctic region. The seas advanced and retreated many times during the Cretaceous until one of the most extensive interior seaways ever, called the Western Interior Seaway, drowned much of western North America from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. The western shoreline of the seaway was in the vicinity of Cedar City, Utah, while the eastern margin was part of the low-lying, stable platform ramp in Nebraska and Kansas.

The pebble to cobble conglomerate and tan fossil-rich sandstone of the resulting 100 ft thick Dakota Sandstone include alluvial fan and alluvial plain sediments that grade laterally into coastal plain, marginal marine, and marine deposits. A small remnant of the Dakota is exposed on top of the 8766 ft -high Horse Ranch Mountain (photo). This formation is the youngest one exposed in the Zion area but the oldest exposed in Bryce Canyon to the northeast. Deposition continued but the resulting formations were later uplifted and eroded away. The exposed formations in the Bryce Canyon area likely represent these lost layers.

Regional forces
East–west-directed compression from subduction off the west coast affected the area in later Mesozoic and early Tertiary time by folding and thrust faulting strata. Evidence for the Sevier Orogeny part of this period can be seen in the Taylor Creek area in the Kolob section of the park. Chunks of Moenave strata have been compressed to the point of thrusting themselves over the same formation in the Taylor Creek Thrust Fault Zone, located on the east flank of the Kanarra anticline.

Tensional forces forming the Basin and Range physiogeographic province to the west about 20 to 25 million years ago in Tertiary time created the two faults that bound the Markagunt Plateau (which underlies the park): the Sevier Fault on the east and the Hurricane Fault on the west. The Hurricane fault zone is a major, active, steeply west-dipping normal fault that stretches at least 155 miles (250 km) from south of the Grand Canyon northward to Cedar City, Utah. Along the southern boundary of the park, tectonic displacement along this fault is about 3,600 ft (1,098 m). Several other normal faults also developed on the plateau.

Subsequent uplift of the Colorado Plateau and tilting of the Markagunt Plateau started 13 million years ago. This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral Virgin River (Zion Canyon section of the park), and Taylor and La Verkin creeks (Kolob Canyons section of the park), causing them to flow and downcut faster into the underlying Markagunt Plateau. Downcutting continues to be especially rapid after heavy rainstorms and winter runoff when the water contains large amounts of suspended and abrasive sand grains. Uplift and downcutting are so fast that slot canyons (very narrow river-cut features with vertical walls), such as the Zion Narrows, formed.

Volcanic activity
Explosive andesitic volcanism dominated the area to the west of Zion during Oligocene and early Miocene time and probably inundated the region with hundreds of feet of welded tuff that has since eroded away. Three of these tuff layers are preserved on top of Brainhead Peak. About 21 million years ago the Pine Valley laccolith formed. This typical mushroom-shaped laccolith is one of the largest intrusions of this type in the world. Debris flows carried boulders of this intrusion onto the Upper Kolob Plateau indicating that the Hurricane Cliffs could not have been present at the time.

Then from at least 1.4 million to 250,000 years ago in Pleistocene time basaltic lava flowed intermittently in the area, taking advantage of uplift-created weaknesses in the Earth's crust. Volcanic activity was concentrated along the Hurricane Fault west of the park that today parallels Interstate 15. Evidence of the oldest flows can be seen at Lava Point and rocks from the youngest are found at the lower end of Cave Valley.> Some cinder cones were constructed much later in the southwest corner of the park.

Some of these lava flows blocked rivers and streams, impounding small lakes and ephemeral ponds in the process. About 100,000 years ago, basalt from the largest cinder cone in the park, Crater Hill, flowed over the area. The lava traveled into Coalpits and Scoggins Washes to the south and accumulated to a depth of over 400 ft (122 m) in the ancestral Virgin River valley near the present-day ghost town of Grafton, Utah. Water impounded behind the two blockages, forming Coalpits Lake and Lake Grafton respectively.

Lake Grafton was the largest of at least 14 lakes that have periodically formed in the park (most were from landslides; see below). Thirteen lava flows are mapped in and near Zion dating from 1.5 million to 100,000 years ago. More recent flows of less than 10,000 years in age occurred north of Zion and east of Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Erosion and canyon formation
Stream downcutting continued along with canyon-forming processes such as mass wasting; sediment-rich and abrasive flood stage waters would undermine cliffs until vertical slabs of rock sheared away. This process continues to be especially efficient with the vertically jointed Navajo Sandstone.

All erosion types took advantage of preexisting weaknesses in the rock such as rock type, amount of lithification, and the presence of cracks or joints in the rock. Basalt flows concentrated in valleys but subsequent erosion removed sedimentary rock that once stood at higher elevations. The resulting inverted relief consists of ridges capped by basalt which are separated by adjacent drainages.

In all about 6000 ft of sediment were removed from atop the youngest exposed formation in the park (the Late Cretaceous-aged Dakota Sandstone). The Virgin River carved out 1300 ft of sediment in about 1 million years. This is a very high rate of downcutting, about the same rate as occurred in Grand Canyon during its most rapid period of erosion. About 1 million years ago, Zion Canyon was only about half as deep as it is today in the vicinity of Zion Lodge. Assuming that erosion was fairly constant over the past 2 million years, then the upper half of Zion Canyon was carved between about 1 and 2 million years ago and only the upper half of the Great White Throne was exposed 1 million years ago and The Narrows were yet to form.

Downcutting and canyon widening continue today as the process of erosion continues to try to reduce the topography to sea level. In 1998 a flash flood temporarily increased the Virgin River's flow rate from 200 to 4,500 ft3/s (6 to 125 m3/s). Geologists estimate that the Virgin River can cut another thousand feet (300 m) before it loses the ability to transport sediment to the Colorado River to the south. However, additional uplift will probably increase this figure.

Landslides and earthquakes
Landslides more than once dammed the Virgin River and created lakes where sediment accumulated. Every time the river eventually breached the slide and drained the lake, leaving a flat-bottomed valley. About 7,000 years ago, the relatively thin wall between two closely spaced joints in the Navajo Sandstone collapsed. The resulting Sand Bench landslide blocked Zion Canyon just east of The Sentinel, creating Sentinel Lake. Another notable stand was created about 4,000 years ago when Sentinel Slide impounded the North Fork Virgin River, creating a lake that backed up to Weeping Rock. The current site of Zion Lodge was under about 200 ft of water for around 700 years. Evidence of valley floors created by these lakes can be seen from Zion Canyon Scenic Drive south of Zion Lodge near Sentinel Slide. Recent landslides in 1923, 1941, and 1995 have temporarily dammed the Virgin River. Prior to the initial Sand Bench landslide, the Virgin River flowed 70 ft (21 m) lower in elevation than it does today.

The area is periodically rocked by mild to moderate earthquakes, which often trigger landslides. For example, on September 2, 1992, a Richter Magnitude 5.8 earthquake caused 14 million cubic meters (18 million cubic yards) of mostly Moenave Formation to slide downslope atop the weak claystone of the Petrified Forest member of the Chinle Formation. The quake was centered on the Washington Fault, about 30 mi southwest. Three houses and two water tanks were destroyed when the slope they were built on dropped 98 ft and extended laterally a similar distance over a period of several hours. The landslide is visible just outside the park's entrance in Springdale, Utah.


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Palmach

The Palmach (Hebrew:, acronym for , Plugot Maḥatz, "Strike Companies") was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach was established in May 1941. By the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it consisted of over 2,000 men and women in three fighting brigades and auxiliary aerial, naval and intelligence units. With the creation of Israel's army, the three Palmach Brigades were disbanded. This and political reasons compelled many of the senior Palmach officers to resign in 1950.

The Palmach contributed significantly to Israeli culture and ethos, well beyond its military contribution. Its members formed the backbone of the Israel Defense Forces high command for many years, and were prominent in Israeli politics, literature and culture.

Background
The Palmach was established by the Haganah High Command in May 1941. Its aim was to defend the Palestinian Jewish community against two potential threats. Firstly the occupation of Palestine by the Axis in the event of their victory over the British in North Africa. Secondly, if the British army were to retreat from Palestine, Jewish settlements might come under attack from the Arab population. Yitzhak Sadeh was named as Palmach commander. Initially the group consisted of around one hundred men. In the early summer of 1941 the British military authorities agreed to joint operations against Vichy French forces in Lebanon and Syria. The first action was a sabotage mission (Operation Boatswain) against oil installations at Tripoli, Lebanon. Twenty-three Palmach members and a British liaison officer set out by sea but were never heard of again. On 8 June mixed squads of Palmach and Australians began operating in Lebanon and Syria. The success of these operations led the British GHQ to fund a sabotage training camp for three hundred men at Mishmar HaEmek. Since the Palmach consisted of unpaid volunteers, the funding was used to cover the needs of twice that number of men. When the British ordered the dismantling of Palmach after the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942, the organization went underground.

Underground

Since British funding had stopped, Yitzhak Tabenkin, head of the kibbutz union HaKibbutz HaMeuhad, suggested the Palmach could be self-funding by having its members work in the kibbutzim. Each kibbutz would host a Palmach platoon and supply them with food, homes and resources. In return the platoon would safeguard the kibbutz and carry out work such as agricultural work. The proposal was accepted in August 1942, when it was also decided that each month Palmach members would have eight training days, 14 work days and seven days off. The program of combined military training, agricultural work and Zionist education was called "Hach'shara Meguyeset" הכשרה מגויסת (meaning "Drafted/Recruited Training"). Later, Zionist youth movements offered members aged 18–20 an opportunity to join core groups (gar'in) for agricultural settlement that became the basis for the Nahal.

Basic training included physical fitness, small arms, mêlée and KAPAP, basic marine training, topography, first aid and squad operations. Most of the Palmach members received advanced training in one or more of the following areas: sabotage and explosives, reconnaissance, sniping, communications and radio, light and medium machine guns, and operating 2-inch and 3-inch mortars. Platoon training included long marches, combined live-fire drills with artillery support and machine guns and mortars.

The Palmach put great emphasis on training independent and broadminded field commanders who would take the initiative and set an example for their troops. It trained squad commanders and company commanders. The major commanders training course was in the Palmach and many Haganah commanders were sent to be trained in the Palmach. The Palmach commanders' course was the source for many field commanders, who were the backbone of Haganah and, later, the Israel Defense Forces.

Postwar operations
For seven months after the assassination of Lord Moyne by Lehi in 1944, members of the Palmach under the command of Shimon Avidan were involved in the Saison activities, in which they cooperated with the British in an attempt to crush the Irgun and Lehi. However, with David Ben-Gurion's decision, 1 October 1945, to launch an armed struggle against the British, the Palmach entered an alliance with the dissident groups, called The Hebrew Resistance Movement. On 10 October 1945 a force led by Yitzhak Rabin raided the prison at Atlit freeing 208 Jewish prisoners. The first joint operation took place on 31 October 1945 when the Palmach sank three British patrol boats, 2 in Haifa and one in Jaffa, and were involved in 153 bomb attacks on bridges and culverts of the railway system.

On the night of 22 February 1946, the Palmach attacked the Police Tegart fort at Shefa-'Amr with a 200-pound bomb; in the firefight that followed, the Palmach suffered casualties. In June 1946 the Palmach blew up ten of the eleven bridges connecting Palestine to its neighbouring countries. Fourteen Palmach members were killed during the attack on Achziv Bridge.

The alliance was never completely under Haganah control and the Irgun launched a series of ever more ruthless attacks culminating in the King David Hotel bombing. This attack was the Irgun's response to a British crackdown, "Black Sabbath", launched on 29 June 1946. A combination of the crackdown and the Jewish civilian leadership's outrage at the King David attack led Ben-Gurion to call off further Palmach operations.

Retaliation raids
After a gap of over ten months the Palmach resumed operations. The one weapon of which there was no shortage was locally produced explosives. On 20 May 1947 they blew up a coffee house in Fajja, specifically in retaliation for the murder of two Jews in nearby Petah Tikva. Following the escalation of violence after the UN Partition Resolution the scale of the retaliation operations increased.

On 18 December 1947, in an operation approved by Palmach commander Yigal Allon, several houses were blown up in al-Khisas, near the Lebanese border; a dozen civilians were killed. On 31 December 1947 170 men from the Palmach launched an attack on Balad al-Sheikh, Haifa, in retaliation for the killing of 47 Jews at the Haifa oil refinery. Several dozen houses were destroyed and 60-70 villagers were killed.

Around Jaffa, Palmach units destroyed houses in Yazur and Salama. An order dated 3 January 1948 said "The aim is ... to attack northern part of the village of Salama ... to cause deaths, to blow up houses and to burn everything possible." In the Upper Galilee, the Palmach's third Battalion commanded by Moshe Kelman, attacked Sa'sa', 15 February, and blew up ten houses, killing 11 villagers. Further north, they raided al-Husayniyya, 16 March 1948, in retaliation for a land mine, they blew up five houses and killed "30 Arab adults". In the Northern Negev, 4 April 1948, a Palmach unit in two armoured cars destroyed "nine bedouin lay-bys and one mud hut" after a mine attack on a Jewish Patrol.

During this period, in the event known as the Convoy of 35, the Palmach lost 18 men (along with 17 other Haganah fighters) on their way to reinforce the garrison at Kfar Etzion after they were attacked by hundreds of Arab locals and militias. The bodies of the Palmach and Haganah fighters were mutilated to the point that some of them could not be recognized.

A change in objectives
On 20 February 1948 the Palmach launched an operation in Caesarea, North of Tel Aviv, in which they demolished 30 houses, six were left standing due to lack of explosives. The objective was to prevent them being occupied by British troops as a base against illegal immigrants. Yitzhak Rabin opposed the attack. Although occupied by Arabs the buildings were Jewish owned.

With the activation of Plan D and its sub-operations Palmach units were used to demolish villages with the objective of preventing them being used by Palestinian irregulars or the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) as bases.

Operation Nachshon
Following the attempt to clear the road to Jerusalem, Palmach units "more or less systematically leveled the villages of al-Qastal, Qalinya, Khuda and largely or partly destroyed Beit Surik, Biddu, Shu'fat, Beit Iksa, Beit Mahsir and Sheikh Jarrah (Jerusalem)".

On 9 April a Palmach unit with mortars took part in the Irgun attack on Deir Yassin.

Mishmar Ha'amek
Following the failed ALA attack on the Haganah base at Mishmar Ha'amek, and the Haganah's refusal of an offer of a truce, Haganah and Palmach troops counterattacked. Between 8 and 14 April, ten villages came under Palmach's control. Within two weeks they were leveled.

Operation Yiftach and the conquest of Safad
On 2 May, the Palmach 3rd Battalion, commanded by Moshe Kelman, attacked Ein al-Zeitun with a Davidka, two 3-inch mortars and eight 2-inch mortars. During the following two days Palmach sappers blew up and burned all the houses. In the aftermath of the capture of this village Battalion Commander Kelman ordered the execution of seventy prisoners.

On 6 May the Palmach launched an attack on Safad. It failed to capture the citadel and the Palmach had to withdraw. The defenders offered a cease-fire, which Allon refused. A second attack was launched on 9 May. This was preceded by a "massive concentrated barrage" using mortars and Davidkas. The empty Arab quarter of Safad was occupied on 11 May. Between 12,000 and 15,000 refugees had been created.

The Palmach suffered 69 killed during Operation Yiftah.

In May 1948 the Palmach had 2,200 permanently mobilised members. A different source puts the size of the Palmach as 3,000 at the end of November 1947, and, following the mobilization of 3,000 reserves, five battalions were formed by May 1948, consisting of 5,000 fighters of whom 1,200 were women.

Palmach units took a major part in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. At the beginning of the war, Palmach units were responsible for holding Jewish settlements (such as Gush Etzion, Kfar Darom and Revivim) against Arab militias. Although inferior in numbers and arms, Palmach soldiers held out long enough to allow the Haganah to mobilise the Jewish population and prepare for war.

The creation of the Israeli Army
The Palmach's last operation as an independent unit was against the Irgun, in the Altalena Affair. On 22 June 1948 the Irgun moored the Altalena, loaded with weapons, off Tel Aviv. Ben-Gurion ordered the Palmach to prevent the arms being landed. In an operation commanded by Yigal Allon, with Yitzhak Rabin as his deputy, a cannon was used to sink the ship. One member of the Palmach and fourteen members of the Irgun were killed.

After the establishment of the Israeli army, the Palmach was reorganised into three IDF brigades—the Negev Brigade, the Yiftach Brigade, and the Harel Brigade. The Negev and Yiftah Brigades fought in the Negev against the Egyptian army and managed to stop and later repulse it into the Gaza Strip and Sinai. The Yiftah Brigade was later transferred to the north. The Harel Brigade was centered on Jerusalem. The merging of the Palmach into the Israeli army involved a series of power struggles with Ben-Gurion, known as The Generals' Revolt. In 1949 many senior members of the Palmach resigned from the army.

In total, the Palmach lost 1,187 fighters during the war of independence and in the years prior to Israel's creation.

Casualties
The Palmach memorial site records 37 deaths of Palmach members between May 1941 and May 1945. Thirty-one are described as killed in action, six were killed while serving in the British Army and six were killed in the "Struggle against the British Government".

A further 39 members of the Palmach died between the May 1945 and November 1947. Twenty-one are recorded as killed in action and one killed in battle, fourteen being killed during the attempt to blow up the Achziv Bridge during the Night of the Bridges. Twenty-eight died in the struggle against the British.

Between the beginning of December 1947 and the end of May 1948, when the Israeli army was created, 574 deaths are listed, of whom 524 were killed in action or in battle; 77 while on convoy duty or securing roads; 59 during Operation Yevusi, including 34 at Nabi Samuel; 20 during Operation Nachshon, all at al-Qastal; 68 during Operation Yiftach; 12 at Mishmar HaEmek. By district 171 members of the Palmach were killed in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, 104 in and around Gush Etzion, 103 in the Galilee and 81 in the Negev.

From June 1948 to December 1949, during which time the Palmach was absorbed into the army, 527 members died, 452 killed in action or in battle; 101 were killed during Operation Danny, including 45 at Khirbet Kurikur; 53 during Operation Yoav; 44 in Operation Horev and 22 during Operation Death to the Invader. By district 234 died in the Negev and Southern Plain; 62 in Jerusalem and surrounds; 44 around Latrun; 42 in the Gaza Strip and 41 in the Central Plain and Coastal Strip.

By Brigade, 313 members of the Harel Brigade were killed, 312 from the Negev and 274 from the Yiftach. One of the dead is listed as also being a member of the Lechi.

The Palmach memorial site records the death of 34 female members, seventeen killed in action or in battle.

Around 520 of the fatalities had been born in Palestine; of whom 117 were from Tel Aviv, 97 from Jerusalem and 56 from Haifa. Over 550 had been born in Europe and Russia; with 181 from Poland, 99 from Germany and 95 from Romania. Another 131 of the dead originated from Arab and Muslim countries; 32 from Turkey, 23 from Syria and 21 from the Yemen. Of the remainder 13 had been born in the USA.

Of the dead, 633 were aged between 18 and 22 years, 302 were between 22 and 25, 138 were 26 and over, and 91 were under 18 years of age.

Military organization
The Palmach was organised into regular companies (six in 1943), and five or six special units.

Palmach special units included:
 * Ha-Machlaka Ha-Germanit: the "German Platoon" (aka the Middle East Commando) performed covert operations and sabotage operations against Nazi infrastructure in the Middle East and the Balkans.
 * Ha-Machlaka Ha-Aravit: the "Arab Platoon" performed covert operations and espionage missions against Arab militias, which frequently attacked Jewish settlements. It was the base for the Israeli Defense Forces's and the Israeli Border Police's Mista'arvim units.
 * Palyam (Sea Companies): the naval force of the Palmach was formed in 1943, attached to the Palmach's Staff Battalion (the 4th Battalion). They were in charge of underwater demolition and maritime activity units. The majority of their activities were related to the escorting of ships of Aliyah Bet, immigration ships (66 of them in all) bringing Jewish refugees from Europe by boat, despite the British White Paper of 1939, which introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine.
 * Palavir (The Air Companies): made up of Jewish pilots, the Palmach air force was incorporated into the Sherut Avir (predecessor of the Israeli Air Force) upon the Sherut's foundation in late 1947. Eighteen Taylorcraft Auster Mk V aircraft and two Mk IIIs were purchased by Aviron from RAF scrapheap at Tel Nof 14 January 1947, with at least 13 aircraft restored to flying condition. First delivered late Feb 1948, these were used by the Palavir's, Tel Aviv, Galilee and Negev Squadrons for supply, reconnaissance and light attack roles.
 * Sabotage Units: explosives experts who became the basis for the Israeli Engineering Corps in the IDF.

The Palmach put an emphasis on training field commanders (מפקדי שטח) and formed the basis for the Israeli army.

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War the Palmach was expanded to form three infantry brigades commanded by Yigal Allon:

 * Yiftach, with three battalions operating in Eastern Galilee (1st and 3rd and later 2nd)
 * Harel, with three battalions operating (4th, 5th and 10th) in the Jerusalem area commanded by Yitzhak Rabin (then age 26)
 * Negev, with four battalions (2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th), one of which was the jeep mounted "Negev Beasts"

The Command Battalion controlled naval, air and commando companies.

The battle cry of the Palmach commander was "!אחרי" (Aharai), which literally means "after me!" or "follow me!". It refers to the commander leading his troops instead of sending them out and staying behind.

In politics and culture
The Palmach was a broad spectrum left-wing nationalist organisation, associated with socialist parties. Its members trained and lived in kibbutzim. The political tendencies of its leaders such as Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Sadeh was towards Mapam, a left-wing party in opposition to David Ben-Gurion and the Mapai ruling party. In 1944 a major split had occurred in Palestine's Jewish community's dominant party, Mapai, led by David Ben-Gurion. The breakaway group Ahdut HaAvoda, which evolved into Mapam, were inspired by Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union, and had a strong following in the kibbutz movement. Since most of the Palmach's members came from the kibbutzim, the Mapam dominated the Palmach, with a majority of its officers being members. After 1948 Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the new state, had a series of confrontations with leaders of the Haganah and the Palmach. In a process that Ben-Gurion described as de-politicizing the army, the three Palmach brigades were disbanded and in 1950 most of the Mapam officers resigned. Those Palmach members who had been in Mapam and remained in the army had to endure several years on the margins. The effect of the de-politicizing was that all senior army posts were held by Mapai members or Ben-Gurion loyalists. After demobilization many Palmach members founded new kibbutzim. In 1949 they set up Bar'am, Beit Guvrin, Nir Yitzhak (named in honour of Yitzhak Sadeh), Palmachim, Re'im, Rosh HaNikra, Re'im and Yir'on. Palmach members were not, however, a unified, homogeneous collective with a single ideology. In the early years of the state of Israel they could be found in all political parties.

Yigal Allon, considered by many to be the representative of the Palmach generation, never reached a position of national leadership although he was Prime Minister for a few days between Eshkol's death and Meir's appointment in 1969. He died in 1980.

Besides military contributions, the Palmach had great influence over the Israeli "Tzabar" culture. Palmach activities included "Kumzitz" (sitting around a fire at night, eating, talking and having fun), public singing and cross-country walking trips. These often took on mythical proportions and have become favorite activities for Israelis.

The Palmach also contributed many anecdotes, jokes, "chizbat" (short funny tales, often based on exaggerations), songs and even books and stories.

Notable Palmach cultural figures include:
 * Yehuda Amichai – poet
 * Dahn Ben-Amotz – writer, journalist
 * Gad Avigad – scientist
 * Netiva Ben-Yehuda – journalist, writer, radio host
 * Haim Hefer – poet, writer
 * Haim Gouri – poet, writer
 * Shaike Ophir – actor
 * Moshe Shamir – writer, playwright
 * Hannah Szenes (Senesh) – poet
 * Vidal Sassoon – British hairdresser

Palmach song
Full text of the song:

Notable Palmachniks

 * High command:
 * Eliyahu Golomb – general commander of Haganah
 * Yitzhak Sadeh – first general commander of Palmach
 * Yigal Allon – second general commander of Palmach (1945–1948)
 * Giora Shanan – lieutenant general deputy commander of the Palmach
 * David Nameri – lieutenant general commander of the Palmach
 * Yohanan Ratner – strategy officer
 * Moshe Bar-Tikva – training officer
 * Yitzhak Rabin – brigade commander; Allon's second in command
 * Moshe Kelman – 3rd Battalion commander
 * Special units commanders:
 * Shimon Avidan – commander of the "German Department"
 * Israel Ben-Yehuda – commander of the "Arab Department"
 * Yigal Allon – commander of the "Syrian Department"
 * Company commanders (as of 1943):
 * Yigal Allon, Zalman Mars – Pluga Aleph commanders
 * Moshe Dayan, Meir Davidson, Uri Brenner – Pluga Beth commanders
 * Uri Yafeh – Pluga Gimel commander
 * Benjamin Goldstein Tzur – Pluga Dalet commander
 * Abraham Negev – Pluga Hey commander
 * Israel Livertovski, Shimon Avidan – Pluga Vav commander
 * Maccabi Mutzery-Mani – Plugat Shomrei-Ha'Hof (Coastal Watch) – north
 * Jacob Salomon – Plugat Shomrei-Ha'Hof (Coastal Watch) – south
 * Yehuda. L. Ben-Tzur – Palyam commander
 * Shmuel Tankus
 * Shmuel Yanai – Palyam commander
 * Rafael Eitan – 4th Battalion, Company A. 1948

 * Other
 * Meir Har-Zion, soldier, described by Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan as "the finest of our commando soldiers, the best soldier ever to emerge in the IDF".
 * Bracha Fuld (1926–1946), Palmach squad commander
 * Arie Gill-Glick (1930–2016), Israeli Olympic runner
 * Amitai Etzioni, author of Diary of a Commando Soldier (1952)
 * Amos Horev (born 1924), IDF Major-General, nuclear scientist, and President of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
 * Eliezer Rafaeli (born 1926), founding President of the University of Haifa

Palmach Museum
The Palmach Museum, located on Chaim Levanon Street in Tel Aviv, near the Eretz Israel Museum, explores the Palmach legacy through the stories of individuals and groups. Visitors to the museum join the group of young Palmach recruits from its establishment, and advanced through the story of the Palmach until the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

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Talk:Longs Peak

FWIW, Colorado Luis' blog entry "Colorado Quarter Mystery Solved?" links to a picture so you can see the similarty to the Colorado state quarter. <>< tbc 07:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

From Stan Adamson, editor of Paul Nesbit's Longs Peak: Its Story and a Climbing Guide (11th Edition, Broomfield: Grey Wolf Books, 2005). The altitude of Longs Peak summit was revised by the USGS to 14,259 feet in 2002, using Global Positioning System measurements.

Relevant?
http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=391b9f74-0abe-421a-000c-28b6f6a4069d&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf Man survives 800 foot fall from Longs Peak. Anomo 01:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Interesting enough for the talk page, but not for the article. Longs has killed hundreds of people, as well as had many near-death falls (e.g. Lamb's original fall). Lavaka 19:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Keplinger's Couloir & Route
My gut tells me that these two routes are really the same one, but my knowledge of Longs Peak is not such to determine this myself. Any info from Keplinger climbers? Benwildeboer 13:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I think they are the same. I did the route a few summers ago.  I don't necesarily agree that it's 4th class, nor do I think that climbing it without technical gear is necessarily dangerous.  It is long and involves routefinding, but the technical crux is near the top where it joins the Homestretch of the Keyhole route, and therefore it should be the same rating as the Keyhole route (which is class 2 or class 3, depending on which guidebook author you prefer).  Of course the difficulty depends on routefinding as well.
 * And, regardless of whether the route has class 4 sections or not, the statement "can be accomplished without technical gear, though this is dangerous" is subjective and doesn't belong in an encyclopedic article. All mountain climbing can be dangerous, of course.  Should we put similar warnings on all the routes?  Of course not.  I'll edit the statement in a few days unless anyone has a good argument not to. Lavaka 00:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

best route?
In regards to the following:
 * "The Diamond was first ascended that year, and the route was listed in Fifty Classic Climbs of North America, although today the "Casual Route" (5.10-) is considered a better climb."

It would be nice to add info on the actual first ascent route. I think it was the (aptly named) D1, no? Also, I don't think a wikipedia article should say something like "... is considered a better climb", which is a subjective statement. What would be appropriate is saying something like "... but the original route has loose rock and is often wet..." (note: I am not saying that is true), or "...but today the Casual Route (5.10a) is the most popular route..." (which IS true). "better" should be used very sparingly; "popular" is a much better choice. Lavaka 22:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Number of 14,000-foot Peaks in Colorado
I changed the number of fourteeners in Colorado from 54 back to 53. It depends on how they are counted but see Colorado 14,000-foot Peaks. – droll  [chat]  09:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

First ascent
I edited "The first ascent recorded by European Americans was in 1868" to read "The first recorded ascent was in 1868". The term "European Americans" excludes Americans of non-European extraction and, if Native Americans did climb to the summit, they left no record. Read the article First ascent. – droll  [chat]  01:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:42, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 2006 CO Proof.png

title: Talk:Longs Peak


text:
Vertical loop

The generic roller coaster vertical loop, also known as a Loop-the-loop, or a Loop-de-loop, where a section of track causes the riders to complete a 360 degree turn, is the most basic of roller coaster inversions. At the top of the loop, riders are completely inverted.

History
The vertical loop is not a recent roller coaster innovation. Its origins can be traced back to the 1850s when centrifugal railways were built in France and Great Britain. The rides relied on centripetal forces to hold the car in the loop. One early looping coaster was shut down after an accident. Later attempts to build a looping roller coaster were carried out during the late 19th century with the Flip Flap Railway at Sea Lion Park, designed by Roller coaster engineer Lina Beecher. The ride was designed with a completely circular loop (rather than the teardrop shape used by many modern looping roller coasters), and caused neck injuries due to the intense G-forces pulled with the tight radius of the loop.

The next attempt at building a looping roller coaster was in 1901 when Edwin Prescott built the Loop the Loop at Coney Island. This ride used the modern teardrop-shaped loop and a steel structure, however more people wanted to watch the attraction, rather than ride. In 1904, Beecher further redesigned the vertical loop to have an even more elliptical design with Olentangy Park's Loop-the-Loop. Vertical loops weren't attempted again until the design of Great American Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain, which opened in 1976. Its success depended largely on its clothoid-based (rather than circular) loop. The loop became a phenomenon, and many parks hastened to build roller coasters featuring them.

In 2000, a modern looping wooden roller coaster was built, the Son of Beast at Kings Island. Although the ride itself was made of wood, the loop was supported with steel structure. Due to maintenance issues however, the loop was removed at the end of the 2006 season. The loop was not the cause of the ride's issues, but was removed as a precautionary measure. Due to an unrelated issue in 2009, Son of Beast was closed until 2012, when Kings Island announced that it would be removed.

On June 22, 2013, Six Flags Magic Mountain introduced Full Throttle, a steel launch coaster with a 160 ft loop, the tallest in the world at the time of its opening. , the largest vertical loop is located on Flash, a roller coaster produced by Mack Rides at Lewa Adventure in Shaanxi, China. The record is shared by Hyper Coaster in Turkey's Land of Legends theme park, built in 2018, which is identical to Flash at Lewa Adventure.

Loops on non-roller coasters
In 2002, the Swiss company Klarer Freizeitanlagen AG began working on a safe design for a looping water slide. Since then, multiple installations of the slide, named the AquaLoop and constructed by companies including Polin, Klarer, Aquarena and WhiteWater West, have appeared in many parks. This ride does not feature a vertical loop, instead using an inclined loop (a vertical loop tilted at an angle), which puts less force on the rider. AquaLoop slides feature a safety hatch, which can be opened by a rider in case they do not reach the highest point of the looping.

Physics/mechanics

Most roller coaster loops are not circular in shape. A commonly used shape is the clothoid loop, which resembles an inverted tear drop and allows for less intense G-forces throughout the element for the rider. The use of this shape was pioneered in 1976 on The New Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain, by Werner Stengel of leading coaster engineering firm Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH.

On the way up, from the bottom to the top of the loop, gravity is in opposition to the direction of the cars and will slow the train. The train is slowest at the top of the loop. Once beyond the top, gravity helps to pull the cars down around the bend. If the loop's curvature is constant, the rider is subjected to the greatest force at the bottom. If the curvature of the track changes suddenly, as from level to a circular loop, the greatest force is imposed almost instantly (see jerk). Gradual changes in curvature, as in the clothoid, reduce the force maximum (permitting more speed) and allow the rider time to cope safely with the changing force.

This "gentling" runs somewhat contrary to the coaster's raison d'être. Schwarzkopf-designed roller coasters often feature near-circular loops (in case of Thriller even without any reduction of curvature between two almost perfectly circular loops) resulting in intense rides—a trademark for the designer.

It is rare for a roller coaster to stall in a vertical loop, although this has happened before. The Psyké Underground coaster (then known as Sirocco) at Walibi Belgium once stranded riders upside-down for several hours. The design of the trains and the rider restraint system (in this case, a simple lap bar) prevented any injuries from occurring, and the riders were removed with the use of a cherry picker. A similar incident occurred on Demon at Six Flags Great America.

title: Vertical loop


text:
Talk:Parish of St. Francis of Assisi

This page name is really much to general, there are thousands of Parishes of this name around the world. What is the naming convention for Churches? Someone investigate and move? --Samuel J. Howard 06:15, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Parish of St. Francis of Assisi


text: Template:Mississippi

title: Template:Mississippi


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Canadian Hockey Association (1909–10)

The Canadian Hockey Association (CHA) was an early men's professional ice hockey league. It was founded in November, 1909, as the result of a dispute within the Eastern Canada Hockey Association. The CHA survived only a few weeks of play in January 1910 before two teams jumped to the new National Hockey Association (NHA), itself a seven-week-old league, causing dissolution of the CHA.

The CHA held the Stanley Cup for its entire eight week existence, as the reigning champion Ottawa Hockey Club was a founding member.

History
At the regular annual meeting of the Eastern Canada Hockey Association, held at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal on November 25, 1909, three teams from the ECHA (Ottawa, Quebec, and the Montreal Shamrocks) resigned and formed the new Canadian Hockey Association. The new league then took applications from other teams including their former partner the Montreal Wanderers of the ECHA. The three teams had decided to form the new league after the Wanderers were sold to new owners that wanted to move the club to the smaller Jubilee Arena from their former home, the Montreal Arena. The other clubs, most specifically Ottawa, then the Stanley Cup champions, wanted to only play at the Montreal Arena. The CHA then opened their association to applications from other hockey clubs, rejecting applications from Wanderers which did not commit to the Arena, while accepting two other teams: the All-Montreal, organized by former Wanderers captain Art Ross, and the francophone Montreal Le National.

Play started on December 30. After a few games it was clear that fan interest was not there as only 800 fans were recorded for the game between the Nationals and the Shamrocks. After the January 8 game between All-Montreal and Ottawa, which was attended by only 1500 fans, Art Ross made plans to suspend the All-Montreal team and, along with Paddy Moran, join the Haileybury team of the NHA. League secretary Emmett Quinn notified the Ottawa team that the situation was hopeless. The Shamrocks announced that they would abandon the league. The CHA owners decided to proceed with an amalgamation with the NHA, entitling the league the "Canadian-National Hockey League".

A meeting with the NHA on January 15, 1910, was planned to consider amalgamation with the CHA, but amalgamation was not discussed. Instead the NHA admitted Ottawa, Quebec, and the Shamrocks. The Le National were offered the franchise of Les Canadiens, but declined, partly due to the Canadiens' lease with the Jubilee Arena. No invitation was offered to All-Montreal and Quebec. The CHA ceased operations.

During its brief season, the Ottawa Hockey Club won a Stanley Cup challenge against Galt HC, champions of the Ontario Professional Hockey League (OPHL). For this, and a challenge during the NHA season, the Senators are considered co-champions of the Stanley Cup in 1910.

Season summary
† This game, a scheduled CHA game, was counted in the NHA schedule.

Stanley Cup Challenges
During the CHA season, Ottawa as Cup champion played one challenge in addition to their regular schedule:

Ottawa vs. Galt
Ottawa played a two-game total goals series against Galt HC, champions of the Ontario Professional Hockey League and prevailed with 12–3 and 3–1 victories. Marty Walsh led Ottawa with 6 goals. Jim Mallen, older brother of Ottawa's Ken Mallen played for Galt.

Stanley Cup engraving
The 1910 Stanley Cup was presented by the trophy's trustee William Foran.

The following Ottawa Hockey Club players and staff were members of the Stanley Cup winning team.

1910 Ottawa Hockey Club Senators

title: Canadian Hockey Association (1909–10)


text:
Life in Hell

Life in Hell is a comic strip by Matt Groening that was published weekly from 1977 to 2012. The strip features anthropomorphic rabbits and a gay couple. The comic covers a wide range of subjects, such as love, sex, work, and death, and explores themes of angst, social alienation, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom.

History
Life in Hell started in 1977 as a self-published comic book Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends. It was inspired by his move to the city that year; in an interview with Playboy, Groening commented on his arrival: "I got [to Los Angeles] on a Friday night in August; it was about a hundred and two degrees; my car broke down in the fast lane of the Hollywood Freeway while I was listening to a drunken DJ who was giving his last program on a local rock station and bitterly denouncing the station's management. And then I had a series of lousy jobs." In the comic book, Groening attacked what many young adults found repellent: school, work, and love. He described it as "every ex-campus protester's, every Boomer idealist's, conception of what adult existence in the '80s had turned out to be."

Groening photocopied and distributed the magazines to friends, and also sold them for two dollars a copy at the punk corner of the record store in which he worked, Licorice Pizza on Sunset Boulevard. These magazines contained comic strips, comedy sketches, letters, and photo collages. The magazine covers were humorous as well: the first issue saw Binky, a rabbit-humanoid character, standing in a cloud of smog and declaring, "What you see is what you breathe." Groening also worked other imagery into the covers, such as drawings from Jules Verne's books and a photo of his family's living room.

An editor from Wet magazine bought one of the magazines and liked it, and offered Groening a spot in the magazine; soon after, in 1978, Life in Hell debuted as a comic strip in the avant-garde Wet, to which Groening made his first professional cartoon sale. The first strip, entitled "Forbidden Words", appeared in the September/October issue. Popular in the underground, Life in Hell was picked up by the Los Angeles Reader (an alternative weekly newspaper where Groening also worked as a typesetter, editor, paste-up artist and music critic) in 1980, where it began appearing weekly. Then-publisher of the Reader Jane Levine said Groening arrived at editor-in-chief James Vowell's office one day, showing him his "silly cartoons with the rabbit with one ear." After Groening left, Vowell came out of his office saying, "This guy is gonna be famous someday."

The character designs of Akbar and Jeff were, in fact, failed attempts by Groening to draw Charlie Brown. In a 1999 interview, Groening said that he added Akbar and Jeff to the comic to appease a girlfriend. Early on in the comic, Groening used Binky and his wife to mirror the arguments Groening himself had with this girlfriend. However, she grew irritated with Groening because she felt he was portraying her unfairly. The addition of the twin-like Akbar and Jeff was meant to act as a mask of anonymity to hide who was who in such arguments. According to Groening, however, she still told him, "You think you're Akbar, but you’re really Jeff."

In a 1991 interview about The Simpsons, Groening said that Life in Hell was done entirely by himself, describing the comic as "Matt Groening pure and simple," and explained that the strips were often weird or entirely different every week because of however he was feeling at the time of a strip's creation.

In November 1984, Groening's then-girlfriend (and co-worker at the Reader), Deborah Caplan, decided to publish a compilation of Groening's cartoons as a book entitled "Love is Hell". The book was an underground success, selling 22,000 copies in its first two printings. Caplan had already left her career in advertising sales at the Reader to manage the Life in Hell Co./Acme Features Syndicate full time, which managed syndication and merchandising for Groening's Life in Hell cartoons. The gift line included t-shirts, mugs, calendars, and greeting cards. With Caplan's management and promotional talents his cartoon went from being published in 11 free weeklies to over 250 papers nationwide. In 1986, after Groening and Caplan had married, they published Work is Hell plus two calendars, one with cartoonist Lynda Barry. Matt's books soon drew the attention of Pantheon/Randomhouse, which obtained the rights to distribute the books. In 1989, Life in Hell Cartoon Co/Acme closed its doors.

Life in Hell reached the attention of Hollywood producer James L. Brooks, who received one strip—"The Los Angeles Way of Death" from 1982—as a gift from fellow producer Polly Platt. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of developing a series of short animated skits, called "bumpers", for The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks had wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights to his characters, Groening instead created an entirely new batch of characters: the Simpsons.

As television began to place more demands on his time, however, Groening came to almost exclusively feature single-panel strips or 16-panel grids in which Akbar and Jeff exchange terse jabs. This later period also saw the increase of autobiographical strips, perhaps because Groening was influenced by this burgeoning trend in alternative comics.

Television had also made the strip "safe enough for a number of newspapers to print", according to Groening, who said he had not "toned the strip down at all, other than no longer using profanity" as a concession to daily papers that carried the strip.

On December 7, 1998, Groening registered the domain mattgroening.com to publish Life in Hell online; however, the website has remained in its "under construction" state since then, although Groening insists he will "get around to it ... [when he is] ready to wade in on a regular basis." As of May 20, 2021, the domain leads to sponsored ad listings with a "This page is under construction - Coming soon!" message in the top right corner below the Network Solutions banner.

Groening decided in 2007, in the wake of the 2006 United States elections, to write "Life Is Swell" above the comic instead of "Life in Hell". Though Groening had previously stated that he would never give up the comic strip, in 2009 he indicated that due to troubling times for print newspapers and constant involvement with The Simpsons and Futurama, he would likely one day drop the strip. Three years later, Groening announced the strip's conclusion and the final new strip ran on June 16, 2012. The final strip shows Akbar or Jeff dancing naked, while the other tells him to stop. At the end of the strip he gives up and dances along with him, saying "Well, I tried."

Format
The strip was published in a perfect square, unlike most Sunday strips which are published in rectangles. Various formats were used for different strip topics. When Akbar and Jeff were discussing love Groening would use four rows of boxes, each row with four in it. Other strips had one large panel, This is based on the way Lynda Barry made comics when they were in college, and the way it was published originally in the Reader. Atop each strip is the handwritten title "Life in Hell" and "Copyright Matt Groening" and the year it was made. Sometimes the title would be stylized in different fonts, with "This is your" above "Life in Hell," or with alternate spelling's of Groening's name. In the strip "Why men growl" he wrote his name as Matt "Grrrrroening." In "Are you Easily Provoked?" he misspelled his name three times until getting it right and writing "godamnit" underneath. If the strip is cowritten, Groening writes the contributor's name(s) underneath his. Groening sometimes put where he was when he was making the strip, such as Chicago or Portland, underneath his name.

Characters

 * Binky is a stressed and thus "normal" rabbit and star of the cartoon. He usually embodies dread and alienation. Binky is usually stuck in a dead end job, has a bad apartment and regularly sees a therapist. Binky is usually full of wise old sayings.
 * Sheba is Binky's estranged girlfriend. Her character design is "basically Binky in drag". Binky and Sheba met at a coffee shop in a 1981 storyline, and are often used as a generic couple whenever Groening needs one.
 * Bongo is Binky's illegitimate son, the product of a drunken night of "jungle passion." He was introduced in a 1983 storyline in which his mother, Hulga, left him with Binky so she could seek her fortune in New York. Bongo's defining physical attribute is his one ear, which Groening admits is solely so that the casual viewer can tell him apart from Binky. Bongo made an appearance in the Futurama episode "Xmas Story", where he is seen being sold in a pet shop. He also appeared in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XII" as one of the rabbits that Homer catches in the trap. He appears in The Simpsons again in another episode as a plush toy in Lisa's room, though he is called Madam Bunny. He is shown as a plush toy in "The Fool Monty" where Mr. Burns is eating it in Bart's closet. He has a cameo in "Simpsorama" as one of the rabbit-like creatures rampaging New New York, where he writes on a wall "Crossovers are hell".
 * Akbar & Jeff are described in various strips and interviews as "either brothers or lovers — or both. Whatever offends you most, that’s what they are". In one interview, Groening says they are gay. They have large noses and wear fezzes and Charlie Brown-like striped shirts. They have run numerous businesses over the years, including Akbar & Jeff's Tofu Hut, Akbar & Jeff's Earthquake T-shirt Hut, and Akbar & Jeff's Bootleg "Akbar & Jeff" T-shirt Hut. Like Binky and Sheba, Akbar and Jeff are often used as a generic couple when needed. According to Groening, "the reason why I draw a strip with Akbar and Jeff instead of Binky and Sheba is that I figure that no one can accuse me of trying to score points against men or women if the characters are identical." They have been given cameo appearances in The Simpsons, such as during "Homer's Triple Bypass", where Homer uses finger puppets resembling the characters to describe his surgery to Bart and Lisa.
 * Matt Groening appears in the strip as a bearded, bespectacled rabbit. He is also sometimes represented as Binky.
 * Will and Abe are Matt Groening's two sons, represented in rabbit form. They usually talk about vampires, zombies, and other child-fantasy topics.
 * Snarla, a cat, is Bongo's classmate and love interest. She bears a resemblance to Lisa Simpson.
 * Bart Simpson, has never spoken—except when he uttered his former catch phrase "Don't have a cow, man!" in a "forbidden words" strip—but is seen in the background of a number of strips.
 * Mr. Simpson is Binky's anthropomorphic dog boss at his job. His name predates The Simpsons.
 * Gooey, Screwy, and Ratatouille are Akbar and/or Jeff's triplet nephews. The names are an obvious spoof of the Disney characters Huey, Dewey and Louie (Donald Duck's nephews).

Recurring jokes and situations

 * Fake magazines such as "Lonely Tyrant: The magazine for abusive bosses whose employees hate their guts". Stories inside include, "The fine art of the meaningless memo".
 * The X types of Y: The 9 types of college teachers, the 81 types of high school students, the 16 types of brothers, the 9 types of relationships.
 * How-To Guides: Examples include "So You Want to Be an Unrecognized Genius", "How to Be a Clever Film Critic", and "How to Get into the College of Your Choice".
 * Miniseries – A series of strips focusing on a particular theme in a mock textbook manner, such as "School is Hell" and "Love is Hell", both of which have been collected in their entirety in book form.
 * Akbar & Jeff discussing their relationship – Arguably the most common set-up. A 1992 strip, "The Dart Game of Love", was prefaced with "I hope this cartoon pleases you gripers who whined about all those Akbar & Jeff strips where they stared at each other."
 * Binky attempting to meditate
 * Advertisements for disreputable businesses run by Akbar & Jeff such as "Akbar & Jeff's Lucky Psychic Hut".
 * Bongo locked in a detention room or orphanage - Usually, with 1 or 2 pairs of eyes watching him.
 * Bongo unsatisfied with the huge assortment of presents he has received on Christmas morning
 * Shadow rabbit – Binky's looming shadow towers over Bongo, who has clearly committed a crime despite his assurances to the contrary. Several of Bongo's excuses parodied those of politicians, such as "Mistakes were made". Occasionally there would also be a shadow Akbar & Jeff looming over Bongo and their nephews, or Binky looming over Bongo, Jeff, and Akbar, whom are pointing fingers at each other. One comic showed Bongo's shadow looming over Binky.
 * Pledge of Allegiance: Bongo's class is forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Bongo intentionally butchers the Pledge, usually criticizing the government in the process ("and to the Republicans which I can't stand"). One strip, released after the death of musician Frank Zappa in 1993, has Bongo replacing most of the words of the Pledge with names of Zappa albums ("With yellow sharks and hot rats for all"). The comic would always end with Bongo's teacher angrily leering at him, and often Bongo would be tied to his desk and gagged as punishment.
 * Forbidden Words – An annual compilation of buzzwords used over the past year that Groening has deemed "forbidden". This topic was the first ever comic by Groening, published in 1980. These also appear in Simpsons annuals.
 * "How to draw Binky" - Often comedic ways on how to draw Binky, usually one of which is drawing randomly with your eyes closed.

Merchandise and advertising
After the success of Love Is Hell, Deborah Caplan, later Groening's wife, published Work Is Hell and two calendars, one in collaboration with cartoonist Lynda Barry. The books caught the attention of Pantheon/Randomhouse who wanted to expand the market for his books to include bookstores nationwide. The Life in Hell Cartoon Co. reserved the right to continue to sell the books to hip novelty and comic book stores along with the line of novelty items the couple had produced over the previous 5 years.

In addition to the books, the comic also spawned T-shirts, sweatshirts, greeting cards, posters, coffee mugs, and a short-lived newsletter called the "Life in Hell Times".

In the late 1980s, Groening drew several print advertisements for Apple Computer in the form of Life in Hell comic strips.

In 1989, after the birth of their first son, Deborah Caplan Groening and Matt decided to end their business because Deborah wanted to focus on motherhood and Matt was launching his career in television.

At the 2005 Comic-Con in San Diego, a series of deluxe Life in Hell vinyl figurines manufactured by CritterBox Toys was announced.

Binky and Bongo appear as background and enemy characters in the Simpsons arcade video game (coin-op).

Books

 * 1984 – Love Is Hell – (ISBN 0-394-74454-3)
 * 1986 – Work Is Hell – (ISBN 0-394-74864-6)
 * 1987 – School Is Hell – (ISBN 0-394-75091-8)
 * 1988 – Box Full of Hell – (ISBN 0-679-72111-8)
 * 1988 – Childhood Is Hell – (ISBN 0-679-72055-3)
 * 1989 – Greetings from Hell – (ISBN 0-679-72678-0)
 * 1989 – Akbar and Jeff's Guide to Life – (ISBN 0-679-72680-2)
 * 1990 – The Big Book of Hell – (ISBN 0-679-72759-0)
 * 1991 – With Love From Hell – (ISBN 0-06-096583-5)
 * 1991 – How to Go to Hell – (ISBN 0-06-096879-6)
 * 1992 – The Road to Hell – (ISBN 0-06-096950-4)
 * 1994 – Binky's Guide to Love – (ISBN 0-06-095078-1)
 * 1994 – Love Is Hell: Special Ultra Jumbo 10th Anniversary Edition – (ISBN 0-679-75665-5)
 * 1997 – The Huge Book of Hell – (ISBN 0-14-026310-1)
 * 2007 – Will and Abe's Guide to the Universe – (ISBN 0-06-134037-5)

title: Life in Hell