title: Harvey Milk

text: Christian conservatives were inspired by their victory, and saw an opportunity for a new, effective political cause. Gay activists were shocked to see how little support they received. An impromptu demonstration of over 3,000 Castro residents formed the night of the Dade County ordinance vote. Gay men and lesbians were simultaneously angry, chanting "Out of the bars and into the streets!", and elated at their passionate and powerful response. "The San Francisco Examiner" reported that members of the crowd pulled others out of bars along Castro and Polk Streets to "deafening" cheers. Milk led marchers that night on a five-mile (8 km) course through the city, constantly moving, aware that if they stopped for too long there would be a riot. He declared, "This is the power of the gay community. Anita's going to create a national gay force."<ref name="sfexam6/8/78">Sharpe, Ivan (June 8, 1977). "Angry Gays March Through S.F.", "The San Francisco Examiner", p. 1.</ref> Activists had little time to recover, however, as the scenario replayed itself when civil rights ordinances were overturned by voters in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon, throughout 1977 and into 1978.


title: Harvey Milk

text: California State Senator John Briggs saw an opportunity in the Christian fundamentalists' campaign. He was hoping to be elected governor of California in 1978, and was impressed with the voter turnout he saw in Miami. When Briggs returned to Sacramento, he wrote a bill that would ban gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools throughout California. Briggs claimed in private that he had nothing against gays, telling gay journalist Randy Shilts, "It's politics. Just politics." Random attacks on gays rose in the Castro. When the police response was considered inadequate, groups of gays patrolled the neighborhood themselves, on alert for attackers. On June 21, 1977, a gay man named Robert Hillsborough died from 15 stab wounds while his attackers gathered around him and chanted "Faggot!" Both Mayor Moscone and Hillsborough's mother blamed Anita Bryant and John Briggs. One week prior to the incident, Briggs had held a press conference at San Francisco City Hall where he called the city a "sexual garbage heap" because of homosexuals. Weeks later, 250,000 people attended the 1977 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade, the largest attendance at any Gay Pride event to that point.


title: Harvey Milk

text: In November 1976, voters in San Francisco decided to reorganize supervisor elections to choose supervisors from neighborhoods instead of voting for them in citywide ballots. Harvey Milk quickly qualified as the leading candidate in District 5, surrounding Castro Street.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Anita Bryant's public campaign opposing homosexuality and the multiple challenges to gay rights ordinances across the United States fueled gay politics in San Francisco. Seventeen candidates from the Castro District entered the next race for supervisor; more than half of them were gay. "The New York Times" ran an exposé on the veritable invasion of gay people into San Francisco, estimating that the city's gay population was between 100,000 and 200,000 out of a total 750,000.<ref name="Gold11/6/77">Gold, Herbert (November 6, 1977), "A Walk on San Francisco's Gay Side", "The New York Times", p. SM17.</ref> The Castro Village Association had grown to 90 businesses; the local bank, formerly the smallest branch in the city, had become the largest and was forced to build a wing to accommodate its new customers. Milk biographer Randy Shilts noted that "broader historical forces" were fueling his campaign.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk's most successful opponent was the quiet and thoughtful lawyer Rick Stokes, who was backed by the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. Stokes had been open about his homosexuality long before Milk had, and had experienced more severe treatment, once hospitalized and forced to endure electroshock therapy to 'cure' him. Milk, however, was more expressive about the role of gay people and their issues in San Francisco politics. Stokes was quoted saying, "I'm just a businessman who happens to be gay," and expressed the view that any normal person could also be homosexual. Milk's contrasting populist philosophy was relayed to "The New York Times": "We don't want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays ... I represent the gay street people—the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope! They need a piece of the pie!"


title: Harvey Milk

text: Other causes were also important to Milk: he promoted larger and less expensive child care facilities, free public transportation, and the development of a board of civilians to oversee the police. He advanced important neighborhood issues at every opportunity. Milk used the same manic campaign tactics as in previous races: human billboards, hours of handshaking, and dozens of speeches calling on gay people to have hope. This time, even "The San Francisco Chronicle" endorsed him for supervisor. On election day, November 8, 1977, he won by 30% against sixteen other candidates, and after his victory became apparent, he arrived on Castro Street on the back of his campaign manager's motorcycle—escorted by Sheriff Richard Hongisto—to what a newspaper story described as a "tumultuous and moving welcome".


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk had recently taken a new lover, a young man named Jack Lira, who was frequently drunk in public, and just as often escorted out of political events by Milk's aides. Since the race for the California State Assembly, Milk had been receiving increasingly violent death threats. Concerned that his raised profile marked him as a target for assassination, he recorded on tape his thoughts, and whom he wanted to succeed him if he were killed, adding: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door".


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk's swearing-in made national headlines, as he became the first non-incumbent openly gay man in the United States to win an election for public office.<ref name="cone1/8/1978">Cone, Russ (January 8, 1978). "Feinstein Board President", "The San Francisco Examiner", p. 1.</ref> He likened himself to pioneering African American baseball player Jackie Robinson and walked to City Hall arm in arm with Jack Lira, stating "You can stand around and throw bricks at Silly Hall or you can take it over. Well, here we are." The Castro District was not the only neighborhood to promote someone new to city politics. Sworn in with Milk were also a single mother (Carol Ruth Silver), a Chinese American (Gordon Lau), and an African American woman (Ella Hill Hutch)—all firsts for the city. Daniel White, a former police officer and firefighter, was also a first-time supervisor, and he spoke of how proud he was that his grandmother was able to see him sworn in.<ref name="nyt1/12/78">Ledbetter, Les (January 12, 1978). "San Francisco Legislators Meet in Diversity", "The New York Times", Vol. 127, no. 43818. p. A14.</ref>


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk's energy, affinity for pranking, and unpredictability at times exasperated Board of Supervisors President Dianne Feinstein. In his first meeting with Mayor Moscone, Milk called himself the "number one queen" and dictated to Moscone that he would have to go through Milk instead of the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club if he wanted the city's gay votes—a quarter of San Francisco's voting population. Milk also became Moscone's closest ally on the Board of Supervisors. The biggest targets of Milk's ire were large corporations and real estate developers. He fumed when a parking garage was slated to take the place of homes near the downtown area, and tried to pass a commuter tax so office workers who lived outside the city and drove into work would have to pay for city services they used. Milk was often willing to vote against Feinstein and other more tenured members of the board. In one controversy early in his term, Milk agreed with fellow Supervisor Dan White, whose district was located two miles south of the Castro, that a mental health facility for troubled adolescents should not be placed there. After Milk learned more about the facility, he decided to switch his vote, ensuring White's loss on the issue—a particularly poignant cause that White championed while campaigning. White did not forget it. He opposed every initiative and issue Milk supported.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk began his tenure by sponsoring a civil rights bill that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation. The ordinance was called the "most stringent and encompassing in the nation", and its passing demonstrated "the growing political power of homosexuals", according to "The New York Times". Only Supervisor White voted against it; Mayor Moscone enthusiastically signed it into law with a light blue pen that Milk had given him for the occasion.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Another bill Milk concentrated on was designed to solve the number one problem according to a recent citywide poll: dog excrement. Within a month of being sworn in, he began to work on a city ordinance to require dog owners to scoop their pets' feces. Dubbed the "pooper scooper law", its authorization by the Board of Supervisors was covered extensively by television and newspapers in San Francisco. Anne Kronenberg, Milk's campaign manager, called him "a master at figuring out what would get him covered in the newspaper". He invited the press to Duboce Park to explain why it was necessary, and while cameras were rolling, stepped in the offending substance, seemingly by mistake. His staffers knew he had been at the park for an hour before the press conference looking for the right place to walk in front of the cameras. It earned him the most fan mail of his tenure in politics and went out on national news releases.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk had grown tired of Lira's drinking and considered breaking up with him when Lira called a few weeks later and demanded Milk come home. When Milk arrived, he found Lira had hanged himself. Already prone to severe depression, Lira had attempted suicide previously. One of the notes he left for Milk indicated he was upset about the Anita Bryant and John Briggs campaigns.


title: Harvey Milk

text: John Briggs was forced to drop out of the 1978 race for California governor, but received enthusiastic support for Proposition 6, dubbed the Briggs Initiative. The proposed law would have made firing gay teachers—and any public school employees who supported gay rights—mandatory. Briggs' messages supporting Proposition 6 were pervasive throughout California, and Harvey Milk attended every event Briggs hosted. Milk campaigned against the bill throughout the state as well, and swore that even if Briggs won California, he would not win San Francisco. In their numerous debates, which toward the end had been honed to quick back-and-forth banter, Briggs maintained that homosexual teachers wanted to abuse and recruit children. Milk responded with statistics compiled by law enforcement that provided evidence that pedophiles identified primarily as heterosexual, and dismissed Briggs' assertions with one-liner jokes: "If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around."


title: Harvey Milk

text: Attendance at Gay Pride marches during the summer of 1978 in Los Angeles and San Francisco swelled. An estimated 250,000 to 375,000 attended San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade; newspapers claimed the higher numbers were due to John Briggs. Organizers asked participants to carry signs indicating their hometowns for the cameras, to show how far people came to live in the Castro District. Milk rode in an open car carrying a sign saying "I'm from Woodmere, N.Y." He gave a version of what became his most famous speech, the "Hope Speech", that "The San Francisco Examiner" said "ignited the crowd":<ref name="jacobs6/27/78">Jacobs, John (June 26, 1978). "An Ecumenical Alliance on the Serious Side of 'Gay' ", "The San Francisco Examiner", p. 3.</ref>


title: Harvey Milk

text: On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country ... We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets ... We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Despite the losses in battles for gay rights across the country that year, he remained optimistic, saying "Even if gays lose in these initiatives, people are still being educated. Because of Anita Bryant and Dade County, the entire country was educated about homosexuality to a greater extent than ever before. The first step is always hostility, and after that you can sit down and talk about it."


title: Harvey Milk

text: Citing the potential infringements on individual rights, former governor of California Ronald Reagan voiced his opposition to the proposition, as did Governor Jerry Brown and President Jimmy Carter, the latter in an afterthought following a speech he gave in Sacramento. On November 7, 1978, the proposition lost by more than a million votes, astounding gay activists on election night. In San Francisco, 75 percent voted against it.


title: Harvey Milk

text: On November 10, 1978 (10 months after he was sworn in), Dan White resigned his position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, saying that his annual salary of $9,600 was not enough to support his family.<ref name="exam11/11/78">"Mayor Hunts a Successor for White", "The San Francisco Examiner", (November 11, 1978), p. 1.</ref> Within days, White requested that his resignation be withdrawn and he be reinstated, and Mayor Moscone initially agreed.<ref name="nyt11/29/78">Ledbetter, Les (November 29, 1978). "2 Deaths Mourned by San Franciscans", "The New York Times", Vol. 128, no. 44051. p. 1.</ref> However, further consideration—and intervention by other supervisors—convinced Moscone to appoint someone more in line with the growing ethnic diversity of White's district and the liberal leanings of the Board of Supervisors.<ref name="time12/11/78">"Another Day of Death", "Time", December 11, 1978. Retrieved on September 6, 2008.</ref>


title: Harvey Milk

text: On November 18 and 19, news broke of the mass suicide of 900 members of the Peoples Temple. The cult had relocated from San Francisco to Guyana. California Representative Leo Ryan was in Jonestown to check on the remote community, and he was killed by gunfire at an airstrip as he tried to escape the tense situation. Dan White remarked to two aides who were working for his reinstatement, "You see that? One day I'm on the front page and the next I'm swept right off."


title: Harvey Milk

text: Moscone planned to announce White's replacement on November 27, 1978. A half hour before the press conference, White avoided metal detectors by entering City Hall through a basement window and went to Moscone's office, where witnesses heard shouting followed by gunshots. White shot Moscone in the shoulder and chest, then twice in the head.<ref name="nyt11/28/78">Turner, Wallace (November 28, 1978). "Suspect Sought Job", "The New York Times", Vol. 128, no. 44050. p. 1.</ref> White then quickly walked to his former office, reloading his police-issue revolver with hollow-point bullets along the way, and intercepted Milk, asking him to step inside for a moment. Dianne Feinstein heard gunshots and called police, then found Milk face down on the floor, shot five times, including twice in the head. Soon after, she announced to the press, "Today San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of immense proportions. As President of the Board of Supervisors, it is my duty to inform you that both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed, and the suspect is Supervisor Dan White." Milk was 48 years old. Moscone was 49.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Within an hour, White called his wife from a nearby diner; she met him at a church and was with him when he turned himself in. Many people left flowers on the steps of City Hall, and that evening 25,000 to 40,000 formed a spontaneous candlelight march from Castro Street to City Hall. The next day, the bodies of Moscone and Milk were brought to the City Hall rotunda where mourners paid their respects. Six thousand mourners attended a service for Mayor Moscone at St. Mary's Cathedral. Two memorials were held for Milk; a small one at Temple Emanu-El and a more boisterous one at the Opera House.


title: Harvey Milk

text: In the wake of the Jonestown suicides, Moscone had recently increased security at City Hall. Cult survivors recounted drills for suicide preparations that Jones had called "White Nights". Rumors about the murders of Moscone and Milk were fueled by the coincidence of Dan White's name and Jones's suicide preparations. A stunned District Attorney called the assassinations so close to the news about Jonestown "incomprehensible", but denied any connection. Governor Jerry Brown ordered all flags in California to be flown at half staff, and called Milk a "hard-working and dedicated supervisor, a leader of San Francisco's gay community, who kept his promise to represent all his constituents". President Jimmy Carter expressed his shock at both murders and sent his condolences. Speaker of the California Assembly Leo McCarthy called it "an insane tragedy". "A City in Agony" topped the headlines in "The San Francisco Examiner" the day after the murders; inside the paper stories of the assassinations under the headline "Black Monday" were printed back to back with updates of bodies being shipped home from Guyana. An editorial describing "A city with more sadness and despair in its heart than any city should have to bear" went on to ask how such tragedies could occur, particularly to "men of such warmth and vision and great energies". Dan White was charged with two counts of murder and held without bail, eligible for the death penalty owing to the recent passage of a statewide proposition that allowed death or life in prison for the murder of a public official. One analysis of the months surrounding the murders called 1978 and 1979 "the most emotionally devastating years in San Francisco's fabulously spotted history".


title: Harvey Milk

text: The 32-year-old White, who had been in the Army during the Vietnam War, had run on a tough anti-crime platform in his district. Colleagues declared him a high-achieving "all-American boy". He was to have received an award the next week for rescuing a woman and child from a 17-story burning building when he was a firefighter in 1977. Though he was the only supervisor to vote against Milk's gay rights ordinance earlier that year, he had been quoted as saying, "I respect the rights of all people, including gays". Milk and White at first got along well. One of White's political aides (who was gay) remembered, "Dan had more in common with Harvey than he did with anyone else on the board". White had voted to support a center for gay seniors, and to honor Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin's 25th anniversary and pioneering work.


title: Harvey Milk

text: After Milk's vote for the mental health facility in White's district, however, White refused to speak with Milk and communicated with only one of Milk's aides. Other acquaintances remembered White as very intense. "He was impulsive ... He was an extremely competitive man, obsessively so ... I think he could not take defeat," San Francisco's assistant fire chief told reporters. White's first campaign manager quit in the middle of the campaign, and told a reporter that White was an egotist and it was clear that he was antigay, though he denied it in the press. White's associates and supporters described him "as a man with a pugilistic temper and an impressive capacity for nurturing a grudge". The aide who had handled communications between White and Milk remembered, "Talking to him, I realized that he saw Harvey Milk and George Moscone as representing all that was wrong with the world".


title: Harvey Milk

text: When Milk's friends looked in his closet for a suit for his casket, they learned how much he had been affected by the recent decrease in his income as a supervisor. All of his clothes were coming apart and all of his socks had holes. His remains were cremated and his ashes were split. His closest friends scattered most of the ashes in San Francisco Bay. Other ashes were encapsulated and buried beneath the sidewalk in front of 575 Castro Street, where Castro Camera had been located. There is a memorial to Milk at the Neptune Society Columbarium, ground floor, San Francisco, California. Harry Britt, one of four people Milk listed on his tape as an acceptable replacement should he be assassinated, was chosen to fill that position by the city's acting mayor, Dianne Feinstein.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Dan White's arrest and trial caused a sensation and illustrated severe tensions between the liberal population and the city police. The San Francisco Police were mostly working-class Irish descendants who intensely disliked the growing gay immigration as well as the liberal direction of the city government. After White turned himself in and confessed, he sat in his cell while his former colleagues on the police force told Harvey Milk jokes; police openly wore "Free Dan White" T-shirts in the days after the murder. An undersheriff for San Francisco later stated: "The more I observed what went on at the jail, the more I began to stop seeing what Dan White did as the act of an individual and began to see it as a political act in a political movement." White showed no remorse for his actions, and exhibited vulnerability only during an eight-minute call to his mother from jail.


title: Harvey Milk

text: The jury for White's trial consisted of white middle-class San Franciscans who were mostly Catholic; gays and ethnic minorities were excused from the jury pool. Some of the members of the jury cried when they heard White's tearful recorded confession, at the end of which the interrogator thanked White for his honesty. White's defense attorney, Doug Schmidt, argued that his client was not responsible for his actions; Schmidt used the legal defense known as diminished capacity: "Good people, fine people, with fine backgrounds, simply don't kill people in cold blood." Schmidt tried to prove that White's anguished mental state was a result of manipulation by the politicos in City Hall who had consistently disappointed and confounded him, finally promising to give his job back only to refuse him again. Schmidt said that White's mental deterioration was demonstrated and exacerbated by his junk food binge the night before the murders, since he was usually known to have been health-food conscious. Area newspapers quickly dubbed it the Twinkie defense. White was acquitted of the first degree murder charge on May 21, 1979, but found guilty of voluntary manslaughter of both victims, and he was sentenced to serve seven and two-thirds years. With the sentence reduced for time served and good behavior, he would be released in five. He cried when he heard the verdict.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Acting Mayor Feinstein, Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver, and Milk's successor Harry Britt condemned the jury's decision. When the verdict was announced over the police radio, someone sang "Danny Boy" on the police band. A surge of people from the Castro District walked again to City Hall, chanting "Avenge Harvey Milk" and "He got away with murder". Pandemonium rapidly escalated as rocks were hurled at the front doors of the building. Milk's friends and aides tried to stop the destruction, but the mob of more than 3,000 ignored them and lit police cars on fire. They shoved a burning newspaper dispenser through the broken doors of City Hall, then cheered as the flames grew. One of the rioters responded to a reporter's question about why they were destroying parts of the city: "Just tell people that we ate too many Twinkies. That's why this is happening." The chief of police ordered the police not to retaliate, but to hold their ground. The White Night riots, as they became known, lasted several hours.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Later that evening, several police cruisers filled with officers wearing riot gear arrived at the Elephant Walk Bar on Castro Street. Harvey Milk's protégé Cleve Jones and a reporter for the "San Francisco Chronicle", Warren Hinckle, watched as officers stormed into the bar and began to beat patrons at random. After a 15-minute melee, they left the bar and struck out at people walking along the street.


title: Harvey Milk

text: After the verdict, District Attorney Joseph Freitas faced a furious gay community to explain what had gone wrong. The prosecutor admitted to feeling sorry for White before the trial, and neglected to ask the interrogator who had recorded White's confession (and who was a childhood friend of White's and his police softball team coach) about his biases and the support White received from the police because, he said, he did not want to embarrass the detective in front of his family in court. Nor did Freitas question White's frame of mind or lack of a history of mental illness, or bring into evidence city politics, suggesting that revenge may have been a motive. Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver testified on the last day of the trial that White and Milk were not friendly, yet she had contacted the prosecutor and insisted on testifying. It was the only testimony the jury heard about their strained relationship. Freitas blamed the jury who he claimed had been "taken in by the whole emotional aspect of [the] trial".


title: Harvey Milk

text: The murders of Milk and Moscone and White's trial changed city politics and the California legal system. In 1980, San Francisco ended district supervisor elections, fearing that a Board of Supervisors so divisive would be harmful to the city and that they had been a factor in the assassinations. A grassroots neighborhood effort to restore district elections in the mid-1990s proved successful, and the city returned to neighborhood representatives in 2000. As a result of Dan White's trial, California voters changed the law to reduce the likelihood of acquittals of accused who knew what they were doing but claimed their capacity was impaired. Diminished capacity was abolished as a defense to a charge, but courts allowed evidence of it when deciding whether to incarcerate, commit, or otherwise punish a convicted defendant. The "Twinkie defense" has entered American mythology, popularly described as a case where a murderer escapes justice because he binged on junk food, simplifying White's lack of political savvy, his relationships with George Moscone and Harvey Milk, and what "San Francisco Chronicle" columnist Herb Caen described as his "dislike of homosexuals".


title: Harvey Milk

text: Dan White served just over five years for the double homicide of Moscone and Milk; he was released from prison on January 7, 1984. On October 21, 1985, White was found dead in a running car in his ex-wife's garage, having committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. He was 39 years old. His defense attorney told reporters that he had been despondent over the loss of his family and the situation he had caused, adding, "This was a sick man."<ref name="nyt10/22/85">Lindsey, Robert (October 22, 1985). "Dan White, Killer of San Francisco Mayor, a suicide", "The New York Times", Vol. 135, no. 46570. p. A18.</ref>


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk's political career centered on making government responsive to individuals, gay liberation, and the importance of neighborhoods to the city. At the onset of each campaign, an issue was added to Milk's public political philosophy. His 1973 campaign focused on the first point, that as a small business owner in San Francisco—a city dominated by large corporations that had been courted by municipal government—his interests were being overlooked because he was not represented by a large financial institution. Although he did not hide the fact that he was gay, it did not become an issue until his race for the California State Assembly in 1976. It was brought to the fore in the supervisor race against Rick Stokes, as it was an extension of his ideas of individual freedom.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk strongly believed that neighborhoods promoted unity and a small-town experience, and that the Castro should provide services to all its residents. He opposed the closing of an elementary school; even though most gay people in the Castro did not have children, Milk saw his neighborhood having the potential to welcome everyone. He told his aides to concentrate on fixing potholes and boasted that 50 new stop signs had been installed in District 5. Responding to city residents' largest complaint about living in San Francisco—dog feces—Milk made it a priority to enact the ordinance requiring dog owners to take care of their pets' droppings. Randy Shilts noted, "some would claim Harvey was a socialist or various other sorts of ideologues, but, in reality, Harvey's political philosophy was never more complicated than the issue of dogshit; government should solve people's basic problems."


title: Harvey Milk

text: Karen Foss, a communications professor at the University of New Mexico, attributes Milk's impact on San Francisco politics to the fact that he was unlike anyone else who had held public office in the city. She writes, "Milk happened to be a highly energetic, charismatic figure with a love of theatrics and nothing to lose ... Using laughter, reversal, transcendence, and his insider/outsider status, Milk helped create a climate in which dialogue on issues became possible. He also provided a means to integrate the disparate voices of his various constituencies." Milk had been a rousing speaker since he began campaigning in 1973, and his oratory skills only improved after he became City Supervisor. His most famous talking points became known as the "Hope Speech", which became a staple throughout his political career. It opened with a play on the accusation that gay people recruit impressionable youth into their numbers: "My name is Harvey Milk—and I want to recruit you." A version of the Hope Speech that he gave near the end of his life was considered by his friends and aides to be the best, and the closing the most effective:


title: Harvey Milk

text: And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.


title: Harvey Milk

text: In the last year of his life, Milk emphasized that gay people should be more visible to help to end the discrimination and violence against them. Although Milk had not come out to his mother before her death many years before, in his final statement during his taped prediction of his assassination, he urged others to do so:


title: Harvey Milk

text: I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects ... I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help.


title: Harvey Milk

text: However, Milk's assassination has become entwined with his political efficacy, partly because he was killed at the zenith of his popularity. Historian Neil Miller writes, "No contemporary American gay leader has yet to achieve in life the stature Milk found in death." His legacy has become ambiguous; Randy Shilts concludes his biography writing that Milk's success, murder, and the inevitable injustice of White's verdict represented the experience of all gays. Milk's life was "a metaphor for the homosexual experience in America". According to Frances FitzGerald, Milk's legend has been unable to be sustained as no one appeared able to take his place in the years after his death: "The Castro saw him as a martyr but understood his martyrdom as an end rather than a beginning. He had died, and with him a great deal of the Castro's optimism, idealism, and ambition seemed to die as well. The Castro could find no one to take his place in its affections, and possibly wanted no one." On the 20th anniversary of Milk's death, historian John D'Emilio said, "The legacy that I think he would want to be remembered for is the imperative to live one's life at all times with integrity." For a political career so short, Cleve Jones attributes more to his assassination than his life: "His murder and the response to it made permanent and unquestionable the full participation of gay and lesbian people in the political process."


title: Harvey Milk

text: The City of San Francisco has paid tribute to Milk by naming several locations after him. Where Market and Castro streets intersect in San Francisco flies an enormous Gay Pride flag, situated in Harvey Milk Plaza. The San Francisco Gay Democratic Club changed its name to the Harvey Milk Memorial Gay Democratic Club in 1978 (it is currently named the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club) and boasts that it is the largest Democratic organization in San Francisco.


title: Harvey Milk

text: In April 2018, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and mayor Mark Farrell approved and signed legislation renaming Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport after Milk, and planned to install artwork memorializing him. This followed a previous attempt to rename the entire airport after him, which was turned down. Officially opening on July 23, 2019, Harvey Milk Terminal 1 is the world's first airport terminal named after a leader of the LGBTQ community.


title: Harvey Milk

text: In New York City, Harvey Milk High School is a school program for at-risk youth that concentrates on the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students and operates out of the Hetrick Martin Institute.


title: Harvey Milk

text: In July 2016, US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus advised Congress that he intended to name the second ship of the Military Sealift Command's John Lewis-class oilers USNS "Harvey Milk". All ships of the class are to be named after civil rights leaders. In November 2021 the ship was launched.


title: Harvey Milk

text: In response to a grassroots effort, in June 2018 the city council of Portland, Oregon voted to rename a thirteen-block southwestern section of Stark Street to Harvey Milk Street. The mayor, Ted Wheeler, declared that it "sends a signal that we are an open and a welcoming and an inclusive community".


title: Harvey Milk

text: In 1982, freelance reporter Randy Shilts completed his first book: a biography of Milk, titled "The Mayor of Castro Street". Shilts wrote the book while unable to find a steady job as an openly gay reporter. "The Times of Harvey Milk", a documentary film based on the book's material, won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Director Rob Epstein spoke later about why he chose the subject of Milk's life: "At the time, for those of us who lived in San Francisco, it felt like it was life changing, that all the eyes of the world were upon us, but in fact most of the world outside of San Francisco had no idea. It was just a really brief, provincial, localized current events story that the mayor and a city council member in San Francisco were killed. It didn't have much reverberation." Milk was also the subject of Helene Meyers work, "Got Jewish Milk: Screening Epstein and Van Sant for Intersectional Film History", which explored the contemporary depiction of Milk and his "Jewishness".


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk's life has been the subject of a musical theater production; an eponymous opera; a cantata; a children's picture book; a French-language historical novel for young-adult readers; and the biopic "Milk", released in 2008 after 15 years in the making. The film was directed by Gus Van Sant and starred Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as Dan White, and won two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. It took eight weeks to film, and often used extras who had been present at the actual events for large crowd scenes, including a scene depicting Milk's "Hope Speech" at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk was included in the ""Time" 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century" as "a symbol of what gays can accomplish and the dangers they face in doing so". Despite his antics and publicity stunts, according to writer John Cloud, "none understood how his public role could affect private lives better than Milk ... [he] knew that the root cause of the gay predicament was invisibility". "The Advocate" listed Milk third in their "40 Heroes" of the 20th century issue, quoting Dianne Feinstein: "His homosexuality gave him an insight into the scars which all oppressed people wear. He believed that no sacrifice was too great a price to pay for the cause of human rights."


title: Harvey Milk

text: In August 2009, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to the gay rights movement stating "he fought discrimination with visionary courage and conviction". Milk's nephew Stuart accepted for his uncle. Shortly after, Stuart co-founded the Harvey Milk Foundation with Anne Kronenberg with the support of Desmond Tutu, co-recipient of 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom and now a member of the Foundation's advisory board. Later in the year, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger designated May 22 as Harvey Milk Day and inducted Milk in the California Hall of Fame.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Since 2003, the story of Harvey Milk has been featured in three exhibitions created by the GLBT Historical Society, a San Francisco–based museum, archives, and research center, to which the estate of Scott Smith donated Milk's personal belongings that were preserved after his death. On May 22, 2014, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp honoring Harvey Milk, the first openly LGBT political official to receive this honor. The stamp features a photo taken in front of Milk's Castro Camera store and was unveiled on what would have been his 84th birthday.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Harry Britt summarized Milk's impact the evening Milk was shot in 1978: "No matter what the world has taught us about ourselves, we can be beautiful and we can get our thing together ... Harvey was a prophet ... he lived by a vision ... Something very special is going to happen in this city and it will have Harvey Milk's name on it."


title: Harvey Milk

text: In 2010, radio producer JD Doyle aired the two-hour Harvey Milk Music on his Queer Music Heritage radio program. The mission of the broadcast was to gather music about and inspired by the Harvey Milk story. That broadcast and playlist of songs is archived online.


title: Harvey Milk

text: Milk was inducted in 2012 into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago which celebrates LGBT history and people. He was named one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. Paris, France named a square Place Harvey-Milk in Le Marais in 2019.


title: Harvey Milk

text: The USNS "Harvey Milk", a United States Navy oiler launched on 6 November 2021, bears his name: it is the first U.S. Navy ship named for an openly gay leader. In July 2016, United States Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus advised Congress that he intended to name the Military Sealift Command's John Lewis-class oilers after prominent civil rights leaders, with the second to be named for gay rights activist Harvey Milk. Milk served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War aboard the submarine rescue ship and held the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) at the time that he was forced to accept an "other than honorable" discharge rather than face a court martial for his homosexuality. The ship was officially named at a ceremony in San Francisco on 16 August 2016, generating some controversy considering Milk's antiwar stance later in his life. It is the first U.S. Navy ship named for an openly gay leader. The first cut of steel occurred on 13 December 2019, marking the beginning of construction of the vessel.


title: Devin Haney

text: Devin Miles Haney (; born November 17, 1998) is an American professional boxer. He is the current undisputed lightweight champion, having held the WBC title since 2019 and the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and "Ring" titles since June 2022. As of June 2022, he is ranked as the world's best active lightweight by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, second by BoxRec and first by ESPN.


title: Devin Haney

text: Haney was born in San Francisco and lived in Oakland, California as a child, but moved to Las Vegas with his father Bill at the age of 14. He started boxing at the age of seven.


title: Devin Haney

text: On February 2, 2018, Haney was scheduled to fight Filipino Harmonito Dela Torre in an eight-round opening bout. Dela Torre had problems obtaining a visa and subsequently withdrew from the fight. Unable to find an opponent, the date was scrapped.


title: Devin Haney

text: On January 11, 2019, Haney dominated a very tough opponent in Xolisani Ndongeni on the way to a 10-round unanimous decision win.


title: Devin Haney

text: On May 25, 2019, Haney defeated Antonio Moran via a vicious seventh-round knockout, in his first match under the Matchroom banner.


title: Devin Haney

text: On September 13, 2019, Haney defeated Zaur Abdullaev (11–0) to win the vacant WBC interim lightweight title.


title: Devin Haney

text: In October 2019, Haney became the youngest (i.e. latest-born) world champion in boxing when he was elevated as the WBC lightweight champion after previous WBC lightweight champion Vasiliy Lomachenko was promoted to "Franchise Champion" by the WBC.


title: Devin Haney

text: On the undercard of KSI vs. Logan Paul II in November 2019, Haney made his first title defense against Alfredo Santiago (12–0), and won by unanimous decision. He injured his shoulder during the fight, requiring surgery that would keep him out until the summer of 2020. He maintained the title "champion in recess."


title: Devin Haney

text: In April 2020, Haney claimed that he could beat unified lightweight champion Vasiliy Lomachenko during an interview with 78SportsTV. When asked if would "end the hype of Loma", Haney said, "I'll tell you this. I will never lose to a white boy in my life. I don't care what nobody got to say. Fight a white boy 10 times, I'm going to beat him 10 times." Haney was criticized for this racist comment. Haney came out on Twitter after and said, "I'm not racist and I never will be a racist. I'm chasing greatness." He also said he spoke with WBC president Mauricio Sulaimán and "confirmed to him directly my commitment to be a role model and my absolute rejection of discrimination of any kind." Haney's comments were compared to Bernard Hopkins' declaration that he would "never let a white boy beat me" before his fight with Joe Calzaghe, which Hopkins lost.


title: Devin Haney

text: On October 2, 2020, it was revealed that Haney would make the second defense of his WBC lightweight title against the former unified featherweight titlist Yuriorkis Gamboa, on November 7, 2020. The bout was held at the Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida, and was broadcast by DAZN. Most media members predicted an easy victory for the reigning champion, which was reflected in the betting odds as well, with most odds-makers having Haney as a -5000 favorite. Haney won the fight by a dominant unanimous decision, with two of the judges awarding him every single round of the fight, while the third judge scored it 118–109 in favor of Haney. Gamboa was deducted a point in the eleventh round for holding. Haney out-landed Gamboa 133 to 84 in total punches, and 82 to 63 in power punches landed.


title: Devin Haney

text: In what was seen by many as Haney's toughest test of his career so far, Haney made the third defense of his WBC lightweight title against former three-weight world champion Jorge Linares on May 29, 2021. He won by unanimous decision with the judges scoring the bout 116–112, 116–112, 115–113 in his favor. Haney controlled the action for most of the fight, but was hurt when Linares caught him with a powerful right-left combination toward the end of the tenth round. Haney survived the final two rounds largely by tying Linares up and negating his opponent's attempts at trying to engage with him. The crowd voiced their displeasure with what they perceived as excessive clinching by booing Haney when he jumped up on the ropes in celebration immediately after the final bell, as well as booing during the announcement of the official decision.


title: Devin Haney

text: Joseph Diaz had been scheduled to defend his WBC interim lightweight title against Ryan García on November 27, 2021, until García withdrew from the fight due to a hand injury. This led to back and forth on social media between Haney and Diaz, culminating in an official announcement on November 3 that Diaz would now be challenging for Haney's full world title on December 4, instead of defending his interim title against García. On the night, Haney defeated Diaz by unanimous decision, with scores of 117–111, 117–111, 116–112 in his favor. After the fight, the victor announced his desire to face unified champion George Kambosos Jr. for all four major world titles in the lightweight division, stating, "Let's do it for all the belts. The real undisputed."


title: Devin Haney

text: In front of a sold-out crowd in Melbourne, Australia in June 2022, Haney defeated George Kambosos Jr. by outpointing and outboxing the Australian fighter to become the first undisputed lightweight champion in the four-belt era. The judges scored the bout 116–112, 116–112, 118–110, all in favor of Haney. The deal for the fight included an automatic rematch clause which Kambosos exercised, with the rematch occurring in October 2022 in Australia.


title: Devin Haney

text: Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr. met in their rematch at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia on October 16, 2022. Haney defeated Kambosos via unanimous decision with the scores of 118–110 (twice) and 119–109.


title: Nürburgring

text: The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. The north loop is long and contains more than of elevation change from its lowest to highest points. Jackie Stewart nicknamed the track "The Green Hell".


title: Nürburgring

text: Originally, the track featured four configurations: the -long ("Whole Course"), which in turn consisted of the ("North Loop") and the ("South Loop"). There was also a warm-up loop called ("Finish Loop") or ("Concrete Loop"), around the pit area.


title: Nürburgring

text: Between 1982 and 1983, the start/finish area was demolished to create a new , which is now used for all major and international racing events. However, the shortened is still in use for racing, testing and public access.


title: Nürburgring

text: In 1907, the first Eifelrennen race was held on the one-off Taunus circuit, a made up of public roads starting between the towns of Wehrheim and Saalburg just north of Frankfurt. In the early 1920s, ADAC Eifelrennen races were held on the twisty Nideggen public road circuit near Cologne and Bonn. Around 1925, the construction of a dedicated race track was proposed just south of the Nideggen circuit around the ancient castle of the town of Nürburg, following the examples of Italy's Monza and Targa Florio courses, and Berlin's AVUS, yet with a different character. The layout of the circuit in the mountains was similar to the Targa Florio event, one of the most important motor races at that time. The original Nürburgring was to be a showcase for German automotive engineering and racing talent. Construction of the track, designed by the "Eichler Architekturbüro" from Ravensburg (led by architect Gustav Eichler), began in September 1925.


title: Nürburgring

text: The track was completed in spring 1927, and the ADAC Eifelrennen races were continued there. The first races to take place on 18 June 1927 showed motorcycles and sidecars, and were won by Toni Ulmen on an English 350 cc Velocette. The cars followed a day later, and Rudolf Caracciola was the winner of the over 5000 cc class in a Mercedes-Benz Compressor. In addition, the track was opened to the public in the evenings and on weekends, as a one-way toll road. The entire track consisted of 174 bends (prior to 1971 changes), and averaged in width. The fastest time ever around the full "Gesamtstrecke" was by Louis Chiron, at an average speed of in his Bugatti.


title: Nürburgring

text: In 1929 the full Nürburgring was used for the last time in major racing events, as future Grands Prix would be held only on the "Nordschleife". Motorcycles and minor races primarily used the shorter and safer "Südschleife". Memorable pre-war races at the circuit featured the talents of early "Ringmeister" (Ringmasters) such as Rudolf Caracciola, Tazio Nuvolari and Bernd Rosemeyer.


title: Nürburgring

text: After World War II, racing resumed in 1947 and in 1951, the "Nordschleife" of the Nürburgring again became the main venue for the German Grand Prix as part of the Formula One World Championship (with the exception of 1959, when it was held on the AVUS in Berlin). A new group of "Ringmeister" arose to dominate the race – Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, John Surtees, Jackie Stewart and Jacky Ickx.


title: Nürburgring

text: On 5 August 1961, during practice for the 1961 German Grand Prix, Phil Hill became the first person to complete a lap of the "Nordschleife" in under 9 minutes, with a lap of 8 minutes 55.2 seconds (153.4 km/h or 95.3 mph) in the Ferrari 156 "Sharknose" Formula One car. Over half a century later, even the highest performing road cars still have difficulty breaking 8 minutes without a professional race driver or one very familiar with the track. Also, several rounds of the German motorcycle Grand Prix were held, mostly on the "Südschleife", but the Hockenheimring and the Solitudering were the main sites for Grand Prix motorcycle racing.


title: Nürburgring

text: In 1953, the ADAC 1000 km Nürburgring race was introduced, an Endurance race and Sports car racing event that counted towards the World Sportscar Championship for decades. The 24 Hours Nürburgring for touring car racing was added in 1970.


title: Nürburgring

text: By the late 1960s, the "Nordschleife" and many other tracks were becoming increasingly dangerous for the latest generation of F1 cars. In 1967, a chicane was added before the start/finish straight, called "Hohenrain", in order to reduce speeds at the pit lane entry. This made the track longer. Even this change, however, was not enough to keep Stewart from nicknaming it "The Green Hell" () following his victory in the 1968 German Grand Prix amid a driving rainstorm and thick fog. In 1970, after the fatal crash of Piers Courage at Zandvoort, the F1 drivers decided at the French Grand Prix to boycott the Nürburgring unless major changes were made, as they did at Spa the year before. The changes were not possible on short notice, and the German GP was moved to the Hockenheimring, which had already been modified.


title: Nürburgring

text: In accordance with the demands of the F1 drivers, the "Nordschleife" was reconstructed by taking out some bumps, smoothing out some sudden jumps (particularly at Brünnchen), and installing Armco safety barriers. The track was made straighter, following the race line, which reduced the number of corners. The German GP could be hosted at the Nürburgring again, and was for another six years from 1971 to 1976.


title: Nürburgring

text: In 1973 the entrance into the dangerous and bumpy Kallenhard corner was made slower by adding another left-hand corner after the fast Metzgesfeld sweeping corner. Safety was improved again later on by removing the jumps on the long main straight and widening it, and taking away the bushes right next to the track at the main straight, which had made that section of the Nürburgring dangerously narrow. A second series of three more F1 races was held until 1976. However, primarily due to its length of over , and the lack of space due to its situation on the sides of the mountains, increasing demands by the F1 drivers and the FIA's CSI commission were too expensive or impossible to meet. For instance, by the 1970s the German Grand Prix required five times the marshals and medical staff as a typical F1 race, something the German organizers were unwilling to provide. Additionally, even with the 1971 modifications it was still possible for cars to become airborne off the track. The Nürburgring was also unsuitable for the burgeoning television market; its vast expanse made it almost impossible to effectively cover a race there. As a result, early in the season it was decided that the 1976 race would be the last to be held on the old circuit.


title: Nürburgring

text: Niki Lauda, the reigning world champion and only person ever to lap the full "Nordschleife" in under seven minutes (6:58.6, 1975), proposed to the other drivers that they boycott the circuit in 1976. Lauda was not only concerned about the safety arrangements and the lack of marshals around the circuit, he also did not like the prospect of running the race in another rainstorm. Usually when that happened, some parts of the circuit were wet and other parts were dry, which is what the conditions of the circuit were for that race. The other drivers voted against the idea and the race went ahead. Lauda crashed in his Ferrari coming out of the left-hand kink before Bergwerk after a new magnesium component on his Ferrari's rear suspension failed. He was badly burned as his car was still loaded with fuel in lap 2. Lauda was saved by the combined actions of fellow drivers Arturo Merzario, Guy Edwards, Brett Lunger, and Harald Ertl.


title: Nürburgring

text: The crash also showed that the track's distances were too long for regular fire engines and ambulances, even though the "ONS-Staffel" was equipped with a Porsche 911 rescue car, marked (R). The old Nürburgring never hosted another F1 race again, as the German Grand Prix was moved to the Hockenheimring for 1977. The German motorcycle Grand Prix was held for the last time on the old Nürburgring in 1980, also permanently moving to Hockenheim.


title: Nürburgring

text: By its very nature, the "Nordschleife" was impossible to make safe in its old configuration. It soon became apparent that it would have to be completely overhauled if there was any prospect of Formula One returning there - the Nürburgring's administration and race organizers were not willing to provide the enormous expense of providing the number of marshals needed for a Grand Prix - up to six times the amount that most other circuits needed. With this in mind, in 1981 work began on a -long new circuit, which was built on and around the old pit area.


title: Nürburgring

text: At the same time, a bypass shortened the "Nordschleife" to , and with an additional small pit lane, this version was used for races in 1983, e.g. the 1000km Nürburgring endurance race, while construction work was going on nearby. During qualifying for that race, the late Stefan Bellof set a lap of 6:11.13 for the "Nordschleife" in his Porsche 956, or on average. This lap held the all-time record for 35 years (partially because no major racing has taken place there since 1984) until it was surpassed by Timo Bernhard in the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, which ran the slightly longer version of the circuit in 5:19.546- averaging on 29 June 2018.


title: Nürburgring

text: Meanwhile, more run-off areas were added at corners like Aremberg and Brünnchen, where originally there were just embankments protected by Armco barriers. The track surface was made safer in some spots where there had been nasty bumps and jumps. Racing line markers were added to the corners all around the track as well. Also, bushes and hedges at the edges of corners were taken out and replaced with Armco and grass.


title: Nürburgring

text: The former "Südschleife" had not been modified in 1970–1971 and was abandoned a few years later in favour of the improved "Nordschleife". It is now mostly gone (in part due to the construction of the new circuit) or converted to a normal public road, but since 2005 a vintage car event has been hosted on the old track layout, including part of the parking area.


title: Nürburgring

text: The new track was completed in 1984 and named "GP-Strecke" (: literally, ""Grand Prix Course""). It was built to meet the highest safety standards.


title: Nürburgring

text: However, it was considered in character a mere shadow of its older sibling. Some fans, who had to sit much farther away from the track, called it "Eifelring", "Ersatzring", "Grünering" or similar nicknames, believing it did not deserve to be called Nürburgring. Like many circuits of the time, it offered few overtaking opportunities.


title: Nürburgring

text: Prior to the 2013 German Grand Prix both Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton said they liked the track. Webber described the layout as "an old school track" before adding, "It’s a beautiful little circuit for us to still drive on so I think all the guys enjoy driving here." While Hamilton said "It’s a fantastic circuit, one of the classics and it hasn’t lost that feel of an old classic circuit."


title: Nürburgring

text: To celebrate its opening, an exhibition race was held on 12 May. The 1984 Nürburgring Race of Champions featured an array of notable drivers driving identical Mercedes 190E 2.3–16's: the line-up was Elio de Angelis, Jack Brabham (Formula 1 World Champion 1959, 1960, 1966), Phil Hill (1961), Denis Hulme (1967), James Hunt (1976), Alan Jones (1980), Jacques Laffite, Niki Lauda (1975, 1977)*, Stirling Moss, Alain Prost*, Carlos Reutemann, Keke Rosberg (1982), Jody Scheckter (1979), Ayrton Senna*, John Surtees (1964) and John Watson. [Drivers marked with * won the Formula 1 World Championship subsequent to the race]. Senna won ahead of Lauda, Reutemann, Rosberg, Watson, Hulme and Jody Scheckter, being the only one to resist Lauda's performance who – having missed the qualifying – had to start from the last row and overtook all the others except Senna. There were nine former and two future Formula 1 World Champions competing, in a field of 20 cars with 16 Formula 1 drivers; the other four were local drivers: Klaus Ludwig, Manfred Schurti, Udo Schütz and Hans Herrmann.


title: Nürburgring

text: Besides other major international events, the Nürburgring has seen the brief return of Formula One racing, as the 1984 European Grand Prix was held at the track, followed by the 1985 German Grand Prix. As F1 did not stay, other events were the highlights at the new Nürburgring, including the 1000km Nürburgring, DTM, motorcycles, and newer types of events, like truck racing, vintage car racing at the AvD "Oldtimer Grand Prix", and even the "Rock am Ring" concerts.


title: Nürburgring

text: Following the success and first world championship of Michael Schumacher, a second German F1 race was held at the Nürburgring between 1995 and 2006, called the European Grand Prix, or in 1997 and 1998, the Luxembourg Grand Prix.


title: Nürburgring

text: For 2002, the track was changed, by replacing the former "Castrol-chicane" at the end of the start/finish straight with a sharp right-hander (nicknamed "Haug-Hook"), in order to create an overtaking opportunity. Also, a slow Omega-shaped section was inserted, on the site of the former kart track. This extended the GP track from , while at the same time, the Hockenheimring was shortened from .


title: Nürburgring

text: Both the Nürburgring and the Hockenheimring events have been losing money due to high and rising Formula One license fees charged by Bernie Ecclestone and low attendance due to high ticket prices; starting with the 2007 Formula One season, Hockenheim and Nürburgring alternated in hosting the German GP.


title: Nürburgring

text: In Formula One, Ralf Schumacher collided with his teammate Giancarlo Fisichella and his brother at the start of the 1997 race which was won by Jacques Villeneuve. In 1999, in changing conditions, Johnny Herbert managed to score the only win for the team of former "Ringmeister" Jackie Stewart. One of the highlights of the 2005 season was Kimi Räikkönen's spectacular exit while in the last lap of the race, when his suspension gave way after being rattled lap after lap by a flat-spotted tyre that was not changed due to the short-lived rule.


title: Nürburgring

text: Prior to the 2007 European Grand Prix, the "Audi S" (turns 8 and 9) was renamed "Michael Schumacher S" after Michael Schumacher. Schumacher had retired from Formula One the year before, but returned in 2010, and in 2011 became the second Formula One driver to drive through a turn named after them (after Ayrton Senna driving his "S for Senna" at Autódromo José Carlos Pace).


title: Nürburgring

text: In 2007, the FIA announced that Hockenheimring and Nürburgring would alternate with the German Grand Prix with Nürburgring hosting in 2007. Due to name-licensing problems, it was held as the European Grand Prix that year. In 2014, the new owners of the Nürburgring were unable to secure a deal to continue hosting the German Grand Prix in the odd-numbered years, so the 2015 and 2017 German Grands Prix were cancelled.


title: Nürburgring

text: In July 2020, it was announced that after seven years, the race track would be an official Formula One Grand Prix with the event taking place from 9 to 11 October 2020. This race was called the Eifel Grand Prix in honour of the nearby mountain range, meaning the venue held a Grand Prix under a fourth different name having hosted races under the German, European and Luxembourg Grands Prix titles previously. That race was won by Lewis Hamilton, who equalled Michael Schumacher's record of wins.


title: Nürburgring

text: While it is unusual for deaths to occur during sanctioned races, there are many accidents and several deaths each year during public sessions. It is common for the track to be closed several times a day for cleanup, repair, and medical intervention. While track management does not publish any official figures, several regular visitors to the track have used police reports to estimate the number of fatalities as between 3 and 12 in a full year. Jeremy Clarkson noted in "Top Gear" in 2004 that "over the years this track has claimed over 200 lives".


title: Nürburgring

text: Several touring car series still compete on the "Nordschleife", using either only the simple version with its separate small pit lane, or a combined -long track that uses a part of the original modern F1 track (without the Mercedes Arena section, which is often used for support pits) plus its huge pit facilities. Entry-level competition requires a regularity test (GLP) for street-legal cars. Two racing series (RCN/CHC and VLN) compete on 15 Saturdays each year, for several hours.


title: Nürburgring

text: The annual highlight is the 24 Hours Nürburgring weekend, held usually in mid-May, featuring 220 cars – from small cars to Turbo Porsches or factory race cars built by BMW, Opel, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz, over 700 drivers (amateurs and professionals), and up to 290,000 spectators.


title: Nürburgring

text: As of 2015 the World Touring Car Championship holds the FIA WTCC Race of Germany at the Nordschleife as a support category to the 24 Hours.


title: Nürburgring

text: Automotive media outlets and manufacturers use the "Nordschleife" as a standard to publish their lap times achieved with their production vehicles.


title: Nürburgring

text: BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld made history on 28 April 2007 as the first driver in over thirty years to tackle the Nürburgring "Nordschleife" track in a contemporary Formula One car. Heidfeld's three laps in an F1.06 were part of festivities celebrating BMW's contribution to motorsport. About 45,000 spectators showed up for the main event, the third four-hour VLN race of the season. Conceived largely as a photo opportunity, the lap times were not as fast as the car was capable of, BMW instead choosing to run the chassis at a particularly high ride height to allow for the "Nordschleife" abrupt gradient changes and to limit maximum speeds accordingly. Former F1 driver Hans-Joachim Stuck was injured during the race when he crashed his BMW Z4.


title: Nürburgring

text: As part of the festivities before the 2013 24 Hours Nürburgring race, Michael Schumacher and other Mercedes-Benz drivers took part in a promotional event which saw Schumacher complete a demonstration lap of the Nordschleife at the wheel of a 2011 Mercedes W02. As with Heidfeld's lap, and also partly due to Formula One's strict in-season testing bans, the lap left many motorsport fans underwhelmed.


title: Nürburgring

text: Since its opening in 1927, the track has been used by the public for the so-called "Touristenfahrten": anyone with a road-legal car or motorcycle, as well as tour buses, motor homes, or cars with trailers, are able to access the Nordschleife. It is opened every day of the week, except when races take place. The track may be closed for weeks during the winter months, depending on weather conditions and maintenance work. Passing on the right is prohibited, and some sections have speed limits; the normal traffic rules (StVO in German) apply also here.


title: Nürburgring

text: The Nürburgring is a popular attraction for many driving enthusiasts and riders from all over the world, partly because of its history and the challenge it provides. The lack of oncoming traffic and intersections sets it apart from regular roads, and the absence of a blanket speed limit is a further attraction.


title: Nürburgring

text: Normal ticket buyers on tourist days cannot quite complete a full lap of the "Nordschleife", which bypasses the modern "GP-Strecke", as they are required to slow down and pass through a "pit lane" section where toll gates are installed. On busier days, a mobile ticket barrier is installed on the main straight in order to reduce the length of queues at the fixed barriers. This is open to all ticket holders. On rare occasions, it is possible to drive both the "Nordschleife" and the Grand Prix circuit combined.


title: Nürburgring

text: Drivers interested in lap times often time themselves from the first bridge after the barriers to the last gantry (aka Bridge-to-Gantry or BTG time) before the exit. However, the track's general conditions state that any form of racing, including speed record attempts, is forbidden. The driver's insurance coverage may consequently be voided, leaving the driver fully liable for damage. Normal, non-racing, non-timed driving accidents might be covered by driver's insurance, but it is increasingly common for insurers to insert exclusion clauses that mean drivers and riders on the Nürburgring only have third-party coverage or are not covered at all.


title: Nürburgring

text: Drivers who have crashed into the barriers, suffered mechanical failure or been otherwise required to be towed off track during "Touristenfahrten" sessions are referred to as having joined the "Bongard Club". This nickname is derived from the name of the company which operates the large yellow recovery flatbed trucks which ferry those unfortunate drivers and their vehicles to the nearest exit. Due to the high volume of traffic, there is an emphasis on quickly clearing and repairing any compromised safety measures so the track can be immediately re-opened for use.


title: Nürburgring

text: Additionally, those found responsible for damage to the track or safety barriers are required to pay for repairs, along with the time and cost associated with personnel and equipment to address those damages, making any accident or breakdown a potentially expensive incident. Because it is technically operated as a public toll road, failing to report an accident or instance where track surfaces are affected is considered unlawfully leaving the scene of an accident. This is all part of the rules and regulations which aim to ensure a safe experience for all visitors to the track.


title: Nürburgring

text: The entire Nürburgring was open to the public from its initial opening. At several points around the circuit there were access roads and toll points from which drivers and riders could begin or end a drive. The had one of these at the bottom of the uphill stretch near .


title: Nürburgring

text: One of the original purposes of the "Nordschleife" was as a test track for auto manufacturers, and its demanding layout had been traditionally used as a proving ground. Weekdays are often booked for so-called "Industriefahrten" for auto makers and the media. With the advent of the Internet, awareness of the "Nordschleife" has risen in Germany and abroad, in addition to publicity in print media. In 1999, Porsche reported that their new 996 GT3 had lapped the Nürburgring in under eight minutes, and in subsequent years, manufacturers from overseas also showed up to test cars. Some high-performance models are promoted with videotaped laps published on the web, and the claimed lap times generate discussion. Few of these supercars are actually entered in racing where the claims could be backed up.


title: Nürburgring

text: For sixteen weeks per year, the industry pool () rents exclusive daytime use of the track for automotive development, and endurance testing. the industry pool consisted of approximately 30 car manufacturers, associations, and component suppliers. By 2019, the track was being rented by the industry pool for 18 weeks per year.


title: Nürburgring

text: The TV series "Top Gear" sometimes used the "Nordschleife" for its challenges, often involving Sabine Schmitz. The first corner of the "Nordschleife" loop was renamed as the "Sabine-Schmitz-Kurve" in Schmitz's honor after she died of cancer in 2021. In addition, during series 17 (summer 2011) of "Top Gear", James May was very critical of the ride quality of cars whose development processes included testing on the "Nordschleife", saying that cars which were tested at Nordschleife got ruined.


title: Nürburgring

text: Multiple layouts of the Nürburgring have been featured in video games, such as the "Gran Turismo" series, the "Forza Motorsport" series, the , "iRacing" and "Assetto Corsa". "Grand Prix Legends", a historic racing simulator also included the Nürburgring on its roster of default Grand Prix tracks.


title: Nürburgring

text: Other pastimes are hosted at the Nürburgring, such as the Rock am Ring, Germany's biggest rock music festival, attracting close to 100,000 rock fans each year since 1985. Since 1978, the "Nordschleife" is also the venue of a major running event ("Nürburgring-Lauf/Run am Ring"). In 2003, a major bicycling event ("Rad am Ring") was added and it became the multi-sports event "Rad & Run am Ring".


title: Nürburgring

text: In 2009, new commercial areas opened, including a hotel and shopping mall. In the summer of 2009, ETF Ride Systems opened a new interactive dark ride application called "Motor Mania" at the racetrack, in collaboration with Lagotronics B.V. The roller coaster "ring°racer" was scheduled to open in 2011 however was delayed significantly due to technical issues. It eventually opened October 31, 2013 however closed after just four days of operation on November third.


title: Nürburgring

text: In 2012, the track was preparing to file for bankruptcy as a result of nearly $500 million in debts and the inability to secure financing. On 1 August 2012, the government of Rheinland-Pfalz guaranteed $312 million to allow the track to meet its debt obligations.


title: Nürburgring

text: In 2013, the Nürburgring was for sale for US$165 million (€127.3 million). The sale process was by sealed-bid auction with an expected completion date of "Late Summer". This meant there was to be a new owner in 2013, unencumbered by the debts of the previous operation, with the circuit expected to return to profitability.


title: Nürburgring

text: On 11 March 2014 it was reported that the Nürburgring was sold for 77 million euros ($106.8 million). Düsseldorf-based Capricorn Development was the buyer. The company was to take full ownership of the Nürburgring on 1 January 2015. But in October 2014, Russian billionaire, the chairman of Moscow-based Pharmstandard, Viktor Kharitonin, bought a majority stake in the Nürburgring.


title: Nürburgring

text: In May 2015, the Nürburgring was set to hold the first Grüne Hölle Rock festival as a replacement for the Rock am Ring festival, but the project did not take place. Grüne Hölle Rock changed their name to Rock im Revier and the event was held in the Schalke area.


title: Nürburgring

text: The "Nordschleife" operates in a clockwise direction, and was formerly known for its abundance of sharp crests, causing fast-moving, firmly-sprung racing cars to jump clear off the track surface at many locations.


title: Nürburgring

text: Although by no means the most fearsome, "Flugplatz" is perhaps the most aptly (although coincidentally) named and widely remembered. The name of this part of the track comes from a small airfield, which in the early years was located close to the track in this area. The track features a very short straight that climbs sharply uphill for a short time, then suddenly drops slightly downhill, and this is immediately followed by two very fast right-hand kinks. Chris Irwin's career was ended following a massive accident at "Flugplatz", in a Ford 3L GT sports car in 1968. Manfred Winkelhock flipped his March Formula Two car at the same corner in 1980. This section of the track was renovated in 2016 after an accident in which a Nissan GTR flew over the fence and killed a spectator. The "Flugplatz" is one of the most important parts of the Nürburgring because after the two very fast right-handers comes what is possibly the fastest part of the track: a downhill straight called "Kottenborn", into a very fast curve called "Schwedenkreuz" (Swedish Cross). Drivers are flat out for some time here.


title: Nürburgring

text: Right before "Flugplatz" is "Quiddelbacher-Höhe" (peak, as in "mountain summit"), where the track crosses a bridge over the Bundesstraße 257.


title: Nürburgring

text: The "Fuchsröhre" is soon after the very fast downhill section succeeding the "Flugplatz". After negotiating a long right-hand corner called "Aremberg" (which is after "Schwedenkreuz") the road goes slightly uphill, under a bridge and then it plunges downhill, and the road switches back left and right and finding a point of reference for the racing line is difficult. This whole sequence is flat out and then, the road climbs sharply uphill. The road then turns left and levels out at the same time; this is one of the many jumps of the Nürburgring where the car goes airborne. This leads to the "Adenauer Forst" (forest) turns. The "Fuchsröhre" is one of the fastest and most dangerous parts of the Nürburgring because of the extremely high speeds in such a tight and confined place; this part of the Nürburgring goes right through a forest and there is only about of grass separating the track from Armco barrier, and beyond the barriers is a wall of trees.


title: Nürburgring

text: Perhaps the most notorious corner on the long circuit, "Bergwerk" has been responsible for some serious and sometimes fatal accidents. A tight right-hand corner, coming just after a long, fast section and a left-hand kink on a small crest, was where Carel Godin de Beaufort fatally crashed. The fast kink was also the scene of Niki Lauda's infamous fiery accident during the 1976 German Grand Prix. This left kink is often referred to as the "Lauda-Links" (Lauda left). The "Bergwerk", along with the "Breidscheid"/"Adenauer" Bridge corners before it, are one of the series of corners that make or break one's lap time around the Nürburgring because of the fast, lengthy uphill section called "Kesselchen" (Little Valley) that comes after the "Bergwerk".


title: Nürburgring

text: Although being one of the slower corners on the "Nordschleife", the "Karussell" is perhaps its most famous and one of its most iconic- it is one of two berm-style, banked corners on the track. Soon after the driver has negotiated the long uphill section after "Bergwerk" and gone through a section called "Klostertal" (Monastery Valley), the driver turns right through a long hairpin, past an abandoned section called "Steilstrecke" (Steep Route) and then goes up another hill towards the "Karrusell". The entrance to the corner is blind, although Juan Manuel Fangio is reputed to have advised a young driver to "aim for the tallest tree," a feature that was also built into the rendering of the circuit in the "Gran Turismo 4" and "Grand Prix Legends" video games. Once the driver has reached the top of the hill, the road then becomes sharply banked on one side and level on the other- this banking drops off, rather than climbing up like most bankings on circuits. The sharply banked side has a concrete surface, and there is a foot-wide tarmac surface on the bottom of the banking for cars to get extra grip through the very rough concrete banking. Cars drop into the concrete banking, and keep the car in the corner (which is 210 degrees, much like a hairpin bend) until the road levels out and the concrete surface becomes tarmac again. This corner is very hard on the driver's wrists and hands because of the prolonged bumpy cornering the driver must do while in the "Karrusell". Usually, cars come out of the top of the end of the banking to hit the apex that comes right after the end of the "Karrusell".


title: Nürburgring

text: The combination of a recognisable corner, slow-moving cars, and the variation in viewing angle as cars rotate around the banking, means that this is one of the circuit's most popular locations for photographers. It is named after German pre-WWII racing driver Rudolf Caracciola, who reportedly made the corner his own by hooking the inside tires into a drainage ditch to help his car "hug" the curve. As more concrete was uncovered and more competitors copied him, the trend took hold. At a later reconstruction, the corner was remade with real concrete banking, as it remains to this day.


title: Nürburgring

text: Shortly after the "Karussell" is a steep section, with gradients in excess of 16%, leading to a right-hander called "Hohe Acht", which is some 300 m higher in altitude than "Breidscheid".


title: Nürburgring

text: A favourite spectator vantage point, the "Brünnchen" section is composed of two right-hand corners and a very short straight. The first corner goes sharply downhill and the next, after the very short downhill straight, goes uphill slightly. This is a section of the track where on public days, accidents happen particularly at the blind uphill right-hand corner. Like almost every corner at the Nürburgring, both right-handers are blind. The short straight used to have a steep and sudden drop-off that caused cars to take off and a bridge that went over a pathway; these were taken out and smoothed over when the circuit was rebuilt in 1970 and 1971.


title: Nürburgring

text: The "Pflanzgarten", which is soon after the "Brünnchen", is one of the fastest, trickiest and most difficult sections of the Nürburgring. It is full of jumps, including two huge ones, one of which is called "Sprunghügel" (Jump Hill). This very complex section is unique in that it is made up of two different sections; getting the entire "Pflanzgarten" right is crucial to a good lap time around the Nürburgring. This section was the scene of Briton Peter Collins's fatal accident during the 1958 German Grand Prix, and the scene of a number of career-ending accidents in Formula One in the 1970s —Britons Mike Hailwood and Ian Ashley were two victims of the Pflanzgarten.


title: Nürburgring

text: "Pflanzgarten 1" is made up of a slightly banked, downhill left-hander which then suddenly switches back left, then right. Then immediately, giving the driver nearly no time to react (knowledge of this section is key) the road drops away twice: the first jump is only slight, then right after (somewhat like a staircase) the road drops away very sharply which usually causes almost all cars to go airborne at this jump; the drop is so sudden. Then, immediately after the road levels out very shortly after the jump and the car touches the ground again, the road immediately and suddenly goes right very quickly and then right again; this is what makes up the end of the first "Pflanzgarten"- a very fast multiple apex sequence of right-hand corners.


title: Nürburgring

text: The road then goes slightly uphill and then through another jump; the road suddenly drops away and levels out and at the same time, the road turns through a flat-out left-hander. Then, the road drops away again very suddenly, which is the second huge jump of the "Pflanzgarten" known as the "Sprunghügel". The road then goes downhill then quickly levels out, then it goes through a flat-out right-hander and this starts the "Stefan Bellof S" (named as such because Bellof crashed a Porsche 956 there during the 1983 Nurburgring 1000 km), which was known as "Pflanzgarten 2" prior to 2013. The "Stefan Bellof S" is very tricky because the road quickly switches back left and right—a car is going so fast through here that it is like walking on a tightrope. It is very difficult to find the racing line here because the curves come up so quickly, so it is hard to find any point of reference. Then, after a jump at the end of the switchback section, it goes through a flat-out, top gear right-hander and into a short straight that leads into two very fast curves called the "Schwalbenschwanz" (Swallow's Tail).


title: Nürburgring

text: The room for error on every part of the consistently high-speed "Pflanzgarten" and the "Stefan Bellof S" is virtually non-existent (much like the entire track itself). The road and the surface of the "Pflanzgarten" and the "Stefan Bellof S" moves around unpredictably; knowledge of this section is key to getting through cleanly.


title: Nürburgring

text: The "Schwalbenschwanz" is a sequence of very fast sweepers located after the "Stefan Bellof S". After a short straight, there is a very fast right-hand sweeper that progressively goes uphill, and this leads into a blind left-hander that is a bit slower. The apex is completely blind, and the corner then changes gradient a bit; it goes up then down, which leads into a short straight that ends at the "Kleines Karussell". Originally, this part had a bridge that went over a stream and was very bumpy; this bridge was taken out and replaced with a culvert (large industrial pipe) so that the road could be smoothed over.


title: Nürburgring

text: The "Kleines Karussell" is similar to its bigger brother, except that it is a 90-degree corner instead of 210 degrees, and is faster and slightly less banked. Once this part of the track is dealt with, the drivers are near the end of the lap; with two more corners to negotiate before the long "Döttinger Höhe" straight.


title: Nürburgring

text: The Nürburgring "Südschleife" (south loop) was a German motor racing circuit which was built in 1927 at the same time as the world-famous Nürburgring "Nordschleife" (north loop).


title: Nürburgring

text: The "Südschleife" and "Nordschleife" layouts were joined together by the "Start und Ziel" (start/finish) area, and could therefore be driven as one track that was over long. Races were held at the combined layout only until 1931. The "Südschleife" was used for the ADAC Eifelrennen from 1928 until 1931 and from 1958 until 1968, as well as for the Eifelpokal and other minor races.


title: Nürburgring

text: The "Südschleife" was rarely used after the "Nordschleife" was rebuilt and updated in 1970 and 1971, and was finally destroyed by the building of the current Nürburgring Grand Prix circuit in the early 1980s. Today only small sections of the original track remain.


title: Nürburgring

text: The shared start/finish area of the Nürburgring complex consisted of two back-to-back straights joined together at the southern end by a tight loop. The entrance to the "Südschleife" lay on the outside edge of this hairpin and was signposted as the road to Bonn. It immediately dropped sharply downhill and under a public road before winding through a heavily-wooded section.


title: Nürburgring

text: Tight corners soon gave way to fast downhill sections with flowing bends until, at the outskirts of the nearby town of Müllenbach, the track turned sharply right northwards and began a long climb up the hill.


title: Nürburgring

text: At the end of this run came a right hairpin turn which led to a long left curve around the bottom of a hill. This led onto the back straight of the start/finish area. At this point it was possible to continue onto the "Nordschleife" or take two sharp right-hand turns in order to enter the starting straight once again.


title: Nürburgring

text: Photographs of the track in use show that trees and hedges were not cut back in many areas, being allowed to grow right up to the trackside. Although the "Nordschleife" had very little in the way of run-off areas, the "Südschleife" seems to have had none at all, which was likely to have been a factor in the choice of circuit for major events.


title: Nürburgring

text: The route sections bore the following names, among others "Bränkekopf", "Aschenschlag", "Seifgen", "Bocksberg", "Müllenbach" und "Scharfer Kopf".


title: Nürburgring

text: In 1938 a small section of new track (the "Stichstraße") was laid which allowed drivers nearing the end of the "Südschleife" to bypass the start/finish straights and take a right turn which led back to the start of the downhill twists. This shortened a lap to around . This layout was used for tourist rides and for testing.


title: Nürburgring

text: The current Grand Prix circuit required the complete destruction of the start/finish area but at a point around into the "Südschleife", a modern public road now follows the route, although the bends have been eased and the vegetation does not come as close to the road as it did when the track was open.


title: Nürburgring

text: This public road continues into the town of Müllenbach but leaves the route of the old track on the outskirts. Nothing remains of the famous corners there.


title: Nürburgring

text: The road up the hill still exists and is sometimes used to allow access to parking areas for the Grand Prix track. The lower sections are no longer maintained.


title: Nürburgring

text: Surviving sections, and the parking lots, are still used in competition. The Cologne-Ahrweiler Rally often uses the Südschleife in competition.


title: Nürburgring

text: Lap times recorded on the Nürburgring "Nordschleife" are published by several manufacturers. They are published and discussed in print media, and online.


title: Nürburgring

text: The lap record on the Südschleife is held by Helmut Kelleners with 2:38.6 minutes = , driven with a March 707 in the CanAm run of the 3rd International AvD SCM circuit race on 18 October 1970. Previous record holder was Brian Redman, who achieved 2:47.0 minutes = in the Formula 2 race on 21 April 1968 with a Ferrari.


title: Nürburgring

text: The Nürburgring is known for its frequently changing weather. The near-fatal accident of Niki Lauda in 1976 was accompanied by poor weather conditions and also the 2007 Grand Prix race saw an early deluge take several cars out through aquaplaning, with Vitantonio Liuzzi making a lucky escape, hitting a retrieving truck with the rear wing first, rather than the fatal accident that befell Jules Bianchi seven years later at Suzuka. In spite of this reputation, the Nürburg weather station only recorded an average of between 1981 and 2010. Contrasting this, the relatively nearby Ardennes racetrack of Spa-Francorchamps in Wallonia, Belgium has a much rainier climate, as can be implied by data from the village hosting the track called Stavelot and the village of Malmedy, through which the circuit passes.


title: Nürburgring

text: Nürburg has a semi-continental climate with both oceanic and continental tendencies. It does however land in the former category (Köppen "Cfb"). Due to the Nordschleife's varied terrain and elevation, weather may be completely different on either end of the track. The elevation shift also makes thermal differences a strong possibility. The modern Grand Prix circuit also has sizeable elevation changes between the start-finish straight and the lowest point on the opposite end of the track, but the geographical distance and actual elevation gain between the two are lower. Annual sunshine is in the 1500s, which is low by European standards, but only slightly gloomier than the nearest large city of Cologne located on a plain. Contrasting that, Nürburg has cooler weather year-round due to the higher elevation of the Eifel Mountains than the Rhine Valley.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: Moskva (, ), formerly Slava () was a guided missile cruiser of the Russian Navy. Commissioned in 1983, she was the lead ship of the Project 1164 "Atlant" class, named after the city of Moscow. With a crew of 510, "Moskva" was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet and the most powerful warship in the region.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: The cruiser was deployed during conflicts in Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), and Syria (2015). She led the naval assault during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, from February 2022 until her sinking on 14 April 2022.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: "Slava" was laid down in 1976 in Shipyard 445 of the 61 Kommunara Shipbuilding Plant in Mykolaiv, Ukrainian SSR, launched in 1979, and commissioned into the Soviet Navy on 30 January 1983. Between 18 and 22 November 1986, the ship visited the Greek port of Piraeus.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: "Slava" played a role in the Malta Summit (2–3 December 1989) between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush. She was used by the Soviet delegation, while the US delegation had their sleeping quarters aboard . The ships were anchored in a roadstead off the coast of Marsaxlokk. Stormy weather and choppy seas resulted in some meetings being cancelled or rescheduled, and gave rise to the moniker the "Seasick Summit" among international media. In the end, the meetings took place aboard , a Soviet cruise ship anchored in Marsaxlokk Bay.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: "Slava" returned to Mykolaiv in December 1990 for a refit that lasted until late 1998. On 15 May 1995, the ship was formally renamed "Moskva".


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: Recommissioned into the Russian Navy in April 2000, "Moskva" replaced the as the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In early April 2003, "Moskva", along with the frigate , "Smetlivy", and a landing ship departed Sevastopol for exercises in the Indian Ocean with a Pacific Fleet task group ("Marshal Shaposhnikov" and "Admiral Panteleyev") and the Indian Navy. The force was supported by the Project 1559V tanker "Ivan Bubnov" and the Project 712 ocean-going tug "Shakhter".


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: "Moskva" visited Malta's Grand Harbour in October 2004, and the Ensemble of the Black Sea Fleet performed at a concert at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta for the occasion. In 2008 and 2009, she visited the Mediterranean and participated in naval drills with the ships of the Northern Fleet.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In August 2008, in support of the Russian invasion of Georgia, "Moskva" was deployed to secure the Black Sea. During a brief surface engagement, the Georgian Navy scored one missile hit on "Moskva" before being overwhelmed. After Russia's recognition of Abkhazia's independence, the ship was stationed at the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: On 3 December 2009, "Moskva" was laid up for a month at floating dry dock "PD-30" in Sevastopol for a scheduled interim overhaul which comprised replacement of cooling and other machinery, reclamation work at the bottom and outboard fittings, propulsion shafts and screws, clearing and painting of bottom and above-water parts of the ship's hull.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In April 2010 it was reported that "Moskva" would join other navy units in the Indian Ocean to conduct exercises. In August 2013 the cruiser visited Havana, Cuba.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In late August 2013, "Moskva" was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea in response to the build-up of US warships along the coast of Syria. During the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, "Moskva" blockaded the Ukrainian fleet in Donuzlav Lake.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: On 17 September 2014, "Moskva" was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea, taking shift from guard ship "Pytlivy".


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In July 2015, "Moskva" visited Luanda, to strengthen military cooperation with Angola. From the end of September 2015, while in the eastern Mediterranean, the cruiser was charged with the air defences for the Russian aviation group based near the Syrian town of Latakia that conducted the air campaign in Syria. On 25 November 2015, after the 2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown, it was reported that "Moskva", armed with the S-300F surface-to-air missile system, would be deployed near the coastal Syria-Turkey border. In 2016, she was replaced by sister ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. On 22 July 2016 "Moskva" was awarded the Order of Nakhimov.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: Upon return from her deployment in January 2016, "Moskva" was to undergo a refit and upgrade but due to lack of funds her future remained uncertain as of July 2018.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In June 2019, "Moskva" left the port of Sevastopol in the Black Sea to test her combat systems and main propulsion.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In February 2020, Russian Orthodox officials said that a very rare and important Christian relic purported to be a part of the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified was to be placed aboard the ship.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: On 3 July 2020, "Moskva" completed two and a half months of repairs and maintenance intended to allow her to remain in service until 2040. The first post-repair deployment was scheduled for August 2020; however, in reality, she only began to prepare for the deployment in February 2021. She was at sea on exercises in March 2021, and fired the new Vulkan anti-ship missiles in April 2021.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: "Moskva", the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, helped lead the naval assault during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine from February until April 2022. She was the most powerful surface vessel in the Black Sea region at the time, and Ukraine's only threat against it were a limited number of Neptune missiles.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In February 2022, the cruiser left Sevastopol to participate in the attack on Ukraine. The ship was later used against the Ukrainian armed forces during the attack on Snake Island, together with the Russian patrol boat "Vasily Bykov". "Moskva" hailed the island's garrison over the radio and demanded its surrender, and was told "Russian warship, go fuck yourself". After this, all contact was lost with Snake Island, and the thirteen-member Ukrainian garrison was captured. "Slava"-class cruisers are built for both air and sea superiority, and have no land-attack missiles. "Moskva" mainly stayed behind other Russian warships, providing air cover for military demonstrations of amphibious landings with Odesa as the apparent target.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: In the late hours of 13 April 2022 Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych reported "Moskva" was on fire and Odesa governor Maksym Marchenko said their forces hit "Moskva" with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles. A radar image showed the ship was about south of Odesa around 7 p.m. local time (GMT+3), shortly after the damage occurred. Two reports indicated the ship sank before 3 a.m., 14 April.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: The Russian Ministry of Defence said a fire caused a munitions explosion, and the ship sank in stormy seas while being towed to port. "Moskva" is the largest warship to be sunk in combat since the in the 1982 Falklands War, and the largest Russian warship to be sunk since World War II.


title: Russian cruiser Moskva

text: According to the Lithuanian defense minister, there were 485 crew members aboard, including 66 officers. He also said that a Turkish ship responded to a distress call and saved 54 crew members at 2 a.m. local time. Russia stated one sailor from the "Moskva" was killed and 27 were missing, while 396 crew members were rescued. In November 2022, after families demanded information, a Russian court in Crimea acknowledged the deaths of a further 17 sailors, mostly conscripts. A Russian recruitment office mistakenly sent conscription papers to a missing "Moskva" sailor in October 2022.


title: Waterworld

text: Waterworld is a 1995 American post-apocalyptic action film directed by Kevin Reynolds and co-written by Peter Rader and David Twohy. It was based on Rader's original 1986 screenplay and stars Kevin Costner, who also produced it with Charles Gordon and John Davis. It was distributed by Universal Pictures.