title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The club began the 1930s decade successfully, with Stanley Cup wins in 1930 and 1931. The Canadiens and its then-Montreal rival, the Montreal Maroons, declined both on the ice and economically during the Great Depression. Losses grew to the point where the team owners considered selling the team to interests in Cleveland, Ohio, though local investors were ultimately found to finance the Canadiens. The Maroons suspended operations, and several of their players moved to the Canadiens.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: Led by the "Punch Line" of Maurice "Rocket" Richard, Toe Blake and Elmer Lach in the 1940s, the Canadiens enjoyed success again atop the NHL. From 1953 to 1960, the franchise won six Stanley Cups, including a record five straight from 1956 to 1960, with a new set of stars coming to prominence: Jean Beliveau, Dickie Moore, Doug Harvey, Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, Jacques Plante and Richard's younger brother, Henri.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens added ten more championships in 15 seasons from 1965 to 1979, with another dynastic run of four-straight Cups from 1976 to 1979. In the 1976–77 season, the Canadiens set two still-standing team records – for most points, with 132, and fewest losses, by only losing eight games in an 80-game season. The next season, 1977–78, the team had a 28-game unbeaten streak, the second-longest in NHL . The next generation of stars included Guy Lafleur, Yvan Cournoyer, Ken Dryden, Pete Mahovlich, Jacques Lemaire, Pierre Larouche, Steve Shutt, Bob Gainey, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson. Scotty Bowman, who would later set a record for most NHL victories by a coach, was the team's head coach for its last five Stanley Cup victories in the 1970s.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens won Stanley Cups in 1986, led by rookie star goaltender Patrick Roy, and in 1993, continuing their streak of winning at least one championship in every decade from the 1910s to the 1990s (this streak came to an end in the 2000s). In 1996, the Habs moved from the Montreal Forum, their home during 70 seasons and 22 Stanley Cups, to Molson Centre (now called Bell Centre).


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: Following Roy's departure in 1995, the Canadiens fell into an extended stretch of mediocrity, missing the playoffs in four of their next ten seasons and failing to advance past the second round of the playoffs until 2010. By the late 1990s, with both an ailing team and monetary losses exacerbated by a record-low value of the Canadian dollar, Montreal fans feared their team would end up relocated to the United States. Team owner Molson Brewery sold control of the franchise and the Molson Centre to American businessman George N. Gillett Jr. in 2001, with the right of first refusal for any future sale by Gillett and a condition that the NHL Board of Governors must unanimously approve any attempt to move to a new city. Led by club president Pierre Boivin, the Canadiens returned to being a lucrative enterprise, earning additional revenues from broadcasting and arena events. In 2009, Gillett sold the franchise to a consortium led by the Molson family which included The Woodbridge Company, BCE/Bell, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Michael Andlauer, Luc Bertrand and the National Bank Financial Group for $575 million, more than double the $275 million he spent on the purchase eight years prior.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens became the first team in NHL history to reach 3,000 victories with their 5–2 victory over the Florida Panthers on December 29, 2008.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: For the 2020–21 season, the league moved the Canadiens along with the other six teams from Canada to the North Division. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadiens only played against teams in the division in the regular season to avoid travel restrictions between the United States and Canada. All teams in the division played without fans to begin the season. The Canadiens advanced through the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs, beating the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the playoffs 4–3, overcoming a 3–1 Maple Leafs lead in the series. The Canadiens then swept the Winnipeg Jets in the second round, advancing to the Stanley Cup semifinals. The Canadiens defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in the semifinals, clinching an overtime victory in Game 6 of the series, and reaching their first Stanley Cup Finals in 28 years, whilst also being the first Canadian team to reach the Finals since the Vancouver Canucks in 2011. Montreal lost the Finals to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4 games to 1.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: In 2021–22, the Canadiens were unable to replicate their success from the prior season, ultimately finishing last in the league for the first time since the 1939–40 season and the first time in the NHL's expansion era, in what was one of the worst seasons in the team's history. In the process they set team records for most regulation losses (49), most goals against (319), fewest wins (22), and fewest points (55), while their .335 point percentage was the team's third-worst ever, after only 1925–26 (.319) and 1939–40 (.260).


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens organization operates in both English and French. For many years, public address announcements and press releases have been given in both languages, and the team website and social media outlets are in both languages as well. At home games, the first stanza of O Canada is sung in French, and the chorus is sung in English.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: One of sport's oldest and most recognizable logos, the classic 'C' and 'H' of the Montreal Canadiens was first used together in the 1917–18 season, when the club changed its name to "Club de hockey Canadien" from "Club athlétique Canadien", before evolving to its current form in 1952–53. The "H" stands for "hockey", not "Habitants," a popular misconception. According to NHL.com, the first man to refer to the team as "the Habs" was American Tex Rickard, owner of the Madison Square Garden, in 1924. Rickard apparently told a reporter that the "H" on the Canadiens' sweaters was for "Habitants". In French, the "Habitants" nickname dates back to at least 1914, when it was printed in Le Devoir to report a 9–3 win over Toronto on the ninth of February.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The team's colours since 1911 are blue, white and red. The home sweater is predominantly red in colour. There are four blue and white stripes, one across each arm, one across the chest and the other across the waistline. The main road sweater is mainly white with a red and blue stripe across the waist, red at the end of both arm sleeves red shoulder yokes. The basic design has been in use since 1914 and took its current form in 1925, generally evolving as materials changed. Because of the team's lengthy history and significance in Quebec, the sweater has been referred to as (the holy flannel sweater).


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: Since 2015, the Canadiens' home red sweater is the only uniform in the league to feature the French language version of the NHL shield logo (LNH) on the neck collar, in acknowledgment of Montreal's French Canadian heritage. The road white sweater retains the English NHL shield logo.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens used multiple designs prior to adopting the aforementioned design in 1914. The original shirt of the 1909–10 season was blue with a white C. The second season had a red shirt featuring a green maple leaf with the C logo, and green pants. Lastly, the season before adopting the current look the Canadiens wore a "barber pole" design jersey with red, white and blue stripes, and the logo being a white maple leaf reading "CAC", "Club athlétique Canadien". All three designs were worn during the 2009–10 season as part of the Canadiens centenary.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: In the 2020–21 season, the Canadiens unveiled a "Reverse Retro" alternate uniform in collaboration with Adidas. The uniform was essentially the same as their regular red uniform, but with blue as the primary colour and red as the stripe colour. A second "Reverse Retro" uniform was released in the 2022–23 season, again using the same template but with red relegated to the logo only and featuring a light blue base with white/dark blue/white stripes.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens' colours are a readily identifiable aspect of French Canadian culture. In the short story "The Hockey Sweater", Roch Carrier described the influence of the Canadiens and their jersey within rural Quebec communities during the 1940s.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The motto is from the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, which was written in 1915, the year before the Canadiens won their first Stanley Cup championship. The motto appears on the wall of the Canadiens' dressing room as well as on the inside collar of the new Adidas 2017–18 jerseys.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: Beginning in the 2004–05 NHL season, the Canadiens adopted Youppi! as their official mascot, the first costumed mascot in their long history. Youppi was the longtime mascot for the Montreal Expos baseball team but was dropped from the franchise when they moved to Washington, D.C. in 2004–05 and became the Washington Nationals. With the switch, Youppi became the first mascot in professional sports to switch leagues. He is also the first mascot in professional sports to get ejected from a game. In June 2020, Youppi became the first mascot from a Canadian-based club to be honoured in The Mascot Hall of Fame. Youppi's induction in the Mascot Hall of Fame was decided by a long voting process, which included the public vote.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens have developed strong rivalries with two fellow Original Six franchises, with whom they frequently shared divisions and competed in post-season play. The oldest is with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who first faced the Canadiens as the Toronto Arenas in 1917. The teams met 16 times in the playoffs, including five Stanley Cup Finals. Featuring the two largest cities in Canada and two of the largest fanbases in the league, the rivalry is sometimes dramatized as being emblematic of Canada's English and French linguistic divide. From 1938 to 1970, they were the only two Canadian teams in the league.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The team's other Original Six rival are the Boston Bruins, who since their NHL debut in 1924 have played the Canadiens more than any other team in both regular season play and the playoffs combined. The teams have played 34 playoff series, seven of which were in the finals.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens also had an intraprovincial rivalry with the Quebec Nordiques during its existence from 1979 to 1995, nicknamed the "Battle of Quebec."


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: Montreal Canadiens games are broadcast locally in both the French and English languages. CHMP 98.5 is the Canadiens' French-language radio flagship. As of the 2017–18 season, the team's regional television in both languages, and its English-language radio rights, are held by Bell Media. CKGM, "TSN Radio 690", is the English-language radio flagship; it acquired the rights under a seven-year deal which began in the 2011–12 season. In June 2017, Bell Media reached a five-year extension.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: Regional television rights in French are held by Réseau des sports (RDS) under a 12-year deal that began in the 2014–15 NHL season. A sister to the English-language network TSN, RDS was the only French-language sports channel in Canada until the 2011 launch of TVA Sports, and was also the previous national French rightsholder of the NHL; as a result, the Canadiens forwent a separate regional contract, and allowed all of its games to be televised nationally in French as part of RDS's overall NHL rights.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: With TVA Sports becoming the national French rightsholder in the 2014–15 season through a sub-licensing agreement with Sportsnet, RDS subsequently announced a 12-year deal to maintain regional rights to Canadiens games not shown on TVA Sports. As a result, games on RDS are blacked out outside the Canadiens' home market of Quebec, Atlantic Canada and parts of Eastern Ontario shared with the Ottawa Senators. At least 22 Canadiens games per season (primarily through its Saturday night "La super soirée LNH"), including all playoff games, are televised nationally by TVA Sports.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: TSN2 assumed the English-language regional television rights in the 2017–18 season, with John Bartlett on play-by-play, and Dave Poulin, Mike Johnson and Craig Button on colour commentary. All other games, including all playoff games, are televised nationally by Sportsnet or CBC. Bartlett returned to Sportsnet over the 2018 off-season, and was succeeded by Bryan Mudryk.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: English-language regional rights were previously held by Sportsnet East (with CJNT "City Montreal" as an overflow channel), under a 3-year deal that expired after the 2016–17 season; the games were called by Bartlett and Jason York. Prior to this deal, TSN held the rights from 2010 through 2014; the games were broadcast on a part-time channel with Dave Randorf on play-by-play.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: "This is a list of the last five seasons completed by the Canadiens. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Montreal Canadiens seasons."


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: "Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against"


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Canadiens have retired 15 numbers in honour of 18 players, the most of any team in the NHL. All honourees were born in Canada and were members of at least two Stanley Cup winning Canadiens teams. Howie Morenz was the first honouree, on November 2, 1937. The NHL retired Wayne Gretzky's No. 99 for all its member teams at the 2000 NHL All-Star Game.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: The Montreal Canadiens have an affiliation with a number of inductees to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Sixty-five inductees from the players category are affiliated with the Canadiens. Thirty-seven of these players are from three separate notable dynasties: 12 from 1955 to 1960, 11 from 1964 to 1969, and 13 from 1975 to 1979. Howie Morenz and Georges Vezina were the first Canadiens given the honour in 1945, while Guy Carbonneau was the most recently inducted, in 2019. Along with players, a number of inductees from the builders category are affiliated with the club. The first inductee was Vice-President William Northey in 1945. The most recent inductee was Pat Burns in 2014.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: In addition to players and builders, five broadcasters for the Montreal Canadiens were also awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame. The first two recipients of the award were Danny Gallivan and Rene Lecavalier in 1984. The other three award recipients include Doug Smith (1985), Dick Irvin Jr. (1988), and Gilles Tremblay (2002).


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: These are the top-ten-point-scorers in franchise history. Figures are updated after each completed NHL regular season.


title: Montreal Canadiens

text: "Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games Played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game"


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software tool set used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D-printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and, formerly, video games. Blender's features include 3D modelling, UV mapping, texturing, digital drawing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animation, match moving, rendering, motion graphics, video editing, and compositing.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Dutch animation studio NeoGeo (not related to Neo Geo video game hardware) started to develop Blender as an in-house application, and based on the timestamps for the first source files, January 2, 1994 is considered to be Blender's birthday. Version 1.00 was released in January 1995, with the primary author being company co-owner and software developer Ton Roosendaal. The name "Blender" was inspired by a song by the Swiss electronic band Yello, from the album "Baby", which NeoGeo used in its showreel. Some design choices and experiences for Blender were carried over from an earlier software application, called Traces, that Roosendaal developed for NeoGeo on the Commodore Amiga platform during the 1987–1991 period.


title: Blender (software)

text: On January 1, 1998, Blender was released publicly online as SGI freeware. NeoGeo was later dissolved, and its client contracts were taken over by another company. After NeoGeo's dissolution, Ton Roosendaal founded Not a Number Technologies (NaN) in June 1998 to further develop Blender, initially distributing it as shareware until NaN went bankrupt in 2002. This also resulted in the discontinuation of Blender's development.


title: Blender (software)

text: In May 2002, Roosendaal started the non-profit Blender Foundation, with the first goal to find a way to continue developing and promoting Blender as a community-based open-source project. On July 18, 2002, Roosendaal started the "Free Blender" campaign, a crowdfunding precursor. The campaign aimed at open-sourcing Blender for a one-time payment of €100,000 (US$100,670 at the time), with the money being collected from the community. On September 7, 2002, it was announced that they had collected enough funds and would release the Blender source code. Today, Blender is free and open-source software, largely developed by its community as well as 24 employees employed by the Blender Institute.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing so that, in addition to GPL 2.0-or-later, Blender would have been available also under the "Blender License", which did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender Foundation. However, this option was never exercised and was suspended indefinitely in 2005. Blender is solely available under "GNU GPLv2 or any later" and was not updated to the GPLv3, as "no evident benefits" were seen.


title: Blender (software)

text: In 2019, with the release of version 2.80, the integrated game engine for making and prototyping video games was removed; Blender's developers recommended that users migrate to more powerful open source game engines such as Godot instead.


title: Blender (software)

text: In February 2002, it was clear that the company behind Blender, NaN, could not survive and would close its doors in March. Nevertheless, they put out one more release, Blender 2.25. As a sort of Easter egg and last personal tag, the artists and developers decided to add a 3D model of a chimpanzee head (called a "monkey" in the software). It was created by Willem-Paul van Overbruggen (SLiD3), who named it Suzanne after the orangutan in the Kevin Smith film "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back".


title: Blender (software)

text: Suzanne is Blender's alternative to more common test models such as the Utah Teapot and the Stanford Bunny. A low-polygon model with only 500 faces, Suzanne is included in Blender and often used as a quick and easy way to test materials, animations, rigs, textures, and lighting setups. It is as easily added to a scene as primitives such as a cube or plane.


title: Blender (software)

text: The following table lists notable developments during Blender's release history: green indicates the current version, yellow indicates currently supported versions, and red indicates versions that are no longer supported (though many later versions can still be used on modern systems).


title: Blender (software)

text: As of 2021, official releases of Blender for Microsoft Windows, and Linux, as well as a port for FreeBSD, are available in 64-bit versions. Blender is available for Windows 8.1 and above, and Mac OS X 10.13 and above.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender 2.76b was the last supported release for Windows XP and version 2.63 was the last supported release for PowerPC. Blender 2.83 LTS and 2.92 were the last supported versions for Windows 7. In 2013, Blender was released on Android as a demo, but hasn't been updated since.<ref name="Index of /demo/android"></ref>


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender has support for a variety of geometric primitives, including polygon meshes, Bézier curves, NURBS surfaces, metaballs, icospheres, text, and an n-gon modeling system called B-mesh. There is also an advanced polygonal modelling system which can be accessed through an edit mode. It supports features such as extrusion, bevelling, and subdividing.


title: Blender (software)

text: Modifiers apply non-destructive effects which can be applied upon rendering or exporting, such as subdivision surfaces.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender has multi-resolution digital sculpting, which includes dynamic topology, "baking", remeshing, re-symmetrization, and decimation. The latter is used to simplify models for exporting purposes (an example being game assets).


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender has a geometry node system for procedurally and non-destructively creating and manipulating geometry. It was first added to Blender 2.92, which focuses on object scattering and instancing. It takes the form of a modifier, so it can be stacked over other different modifiers. The system uses object attributes, which can be modified and overridden with string inputs. Attributes can include positions, normals and UV maps. All attributes can be viewed in an attribute spreadsheet editor. The Geometry Nodes utility also has the capability of creating primitive meshes. In Blender 3.0, support for creating and modifying curves objects was added to Geometry Nodes. In Blender 3.0, the Geometry Nodes workflow was completely redesigned with fields, in order to make the system more intuitive and work like shader nodes.


title: Blender (software)

text: The fluid simulator can be used for simulating liquids, like water being poured into a cup. It uses Lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM) to simulate fluids and allows for plenty of adjustment of particles and resolution. The particle physics fluid simulation creates particles that follow the smoothed-particle hydrodynamics method.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender has simulation tools for soft-body dynamics, including mesh collision detection, LBM fluid dynamics, smoke simulation, Bullet rigid-body dynamics, an ocean generator with waves, a particle system that includes support for particle-based hair, and real-time control during physics simulation and rendering.


title: Blender (software)

text: In Blender 2.82, a new fluid simulation system called Mantaflow was added, replacing the old FLIP system. In Blender 2.92, another fluid simulation system called APIC, which builds on Mantaflow, was added. Vortices and more stable calculations are improved from the FLIP system.


title: Blender (software)

text: Cloth simulation is done by simulating vertices with a rigid body simulation. If done on a 3D mesh, it will produce similar effects as the soft body simulation.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender's keyframed animation capabilities include inverse kinematics, armatures, hooks, curve- and lattice-based deformations, shape keys, non-linear animation, constraints, and vertex weighting. In addition, its Grease Pencil tools allow for 2D animation within a full 3D pipeline.


title: Blender (software)

text: Internal render engine with scanline rendering, indirect lighting, and ambient occlusion that can export in a wide variety of formats; A path tracer render engine called Cycles, which can take advantage of the GPU for rendering. Cycles supports the Open Shading Language since Blender 2.65.


title: Blender (software)

text: Cycles Hybrid Rendering is possible in Version 2.92 with Optix. Tiles are calculated with GPU in combination with cpu.


title: Blender (software)

text: EEVEE is a new physically based real-time renderer. It works both as a renderer for final frames, and as the engine driving Blender's real-time viewport for creating assets.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender allows procedural and node-based textures, as well as texture painting, projective painting, vertex painting, weight painting and dynamic painting.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender has a node-based compositor within the rendering pipeline, which is accelerated with OpenCL. It also includes a non-linear video editor called the Video Sequence Editor (VSE), with support for effects like Gaussian blur, color grading, fade and wipe transitions, and other video transformations. However, there is no built-in multi-core support for rendering video with the VSE.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender supports Python scripting for the creation of custom tools, prototyping, game logic, importing/exporting from other formats, and task automation. This allows for integration with several external render engines through plugins/addons.


title: Blender (software)

text: A wide variety of import/export scripts that extend Blender capabilities (accessing the object data via an internal API) make it possible to interoperate with other 3D tools.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender organizes data as various kinds of "data blocks" (akin to glTF), such as Objects, Meshes, Lamps, Scenes, Materials, Images, and so on. An object in Blender consists of multiple data blocks – for example, what the user would describe as a polygon mesh consists of at least an Object and a Mesh data block, and usually also a Material and many more, linked together. This allows various data blocks to refer to each other. There may be, for example, multiple Objects that refer to the same Mesh, and making subsequent editing of the shared mesh results in shape changes in all Objects using this Mesh. Objects, meshes, materials, textures, etc. can also be linked to other .blend files, which is what allows the use of .blend files as reusable resource libraries.


title: Blender (software)

text: The software supports a variety of 3D file formats for import and export, among them Alembic, 3D Studio (3DS), FBX, DXF, SVG, STL (for 3D printing), UDIM, USD, VRML, WebM, X3D and OBJ.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender Game Engine was a built-in real-time graphics and logic engine with features such as collision detection, a dynamics engine, and programmable logic. It also allowed the creation of stand-alone, real-time applications ranging from architectural visualization to video games. In April 2018, the engine was removed from the upcoming Blender 2.8 release series, due to updates and revisions to the engine lagging behind other game engines such as the open-source Godot, and Unity. In the 2.8 announcements, the Blender team specifically mentioned the Godot engine as a suitable replacement for migrating Blender Game Engine users.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender Internal, a biased rasterization engine and scanline renderer used in previous versions of Blender, was also removed for the 2.80 release in favor of the new "Eevee" renderer, a realtime physically based renderer.


title: Blender (software)

text: Most of the commands are accessible via hotkeys. There are also comprehensive graphical menus. Numeric buttons can be "dragged" to change their value directly without the need to aim at a particular widget, as well as being set using the keyboard. Both sliders and number buttons can be constrained to various step sizes with modifiers like the and keys. Python expressions can also be typed directly into number entry fields, allowing mathematical expressions to specify values.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender includes many modes for interacting with objects, the two primary ones being "Object Mode" and "Edit Mode", which are toggled with the key. Object mode is used to manipulate individual objects as a unit, while Edit mode is used to manipulate the actual object data. For example, an Object Mode can be used to move, scale, and rotate entire polygon meshes, and Edit Mode can be used to manipulate the individual vertices of a single mesh. There are also several other modes, such as Vertex Paint, Weight Paint, and Sculpt Mode.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender GUI builds its tiled windowing system on top of one or multiple windows provided by the underlying platform. One platform window (often sized to fill the screen) is divided into sections and subsections that can be of any type of Blender's views or window types. The user can define multiple layouts of such Blender windows, called screens, and switch quickly between them by selecting from a menu or with keyboard shortcuts. Each window type's own GUI elements can be controlled with the same tools that manipulate the 3D view. For example, one can zoom in and out of GUI-buttons using similar controls, one zooms in and out in the 3D viewport. The GUI viewport and screen layout are fully user-customizable. It is possible to set up the interface for specific tasks such as video editing or UV mapping or texturing by hiding features not used for the task.


title: Blender (software)

text: Cycles is a path-tracing render engine that is designed to be interactive and easy to use, while still supporting many features. It has been included with Blender since 2011, with the release of Blender 2.61. Cycles supports with AVX, AVX2 and AVX-512 extensions, as well as CPU acceleration in modern hardware.


title: Blender (software)

text: Cycles supports GPU rendering, which is used to speed up rendering times. There are three GPU rendering modes: CUDA, which is the preferred method for older Nvidia graphics cards; OptiX, which utilizes the hardware ray-tracing capabilities of Nvidia's Turing architecture & Ampere architecture; and OpenCL, which supports rendering on AMD Radeon graphics cards (with added Intel Iris and Xe support in 2.92). The toolkit software associated with these rendering modes does not come within Blender and needs to be separately installed and configured as per their respective source instructions.


title: Blender (software)

text: Multiple GPUs are also supported, which can be used to create a render farm—having multiple GPUs, however, does not increase the available memory since each GPU can only access its own memory. Since Version 2.90, this limitation of SLI cards is broken with Nvidia's NVlink.


title: Blender (software)

text: Apple's Metal API got initial implementation in blender 3.1 for Apple computers with M1 chips and AMD graphics cards.


title: Blender (software)

text: A Benchmark of Blender 3.2 shows great advantages of long supported CUDA against newer API OptiX and brand new HIP for AMD Hardware. Some Improvements in performance will be available for HIP and OptiX in Blender 3.3 and 3.4.


title: Blender (software)

text: The integrator is the core rendering algorithm used for lighting computations. Cycles currently supports a path tracing integrator with direct light sampling. It works well for a variety of lighting setups, but it is not as suitable for caustics and certain other complex lighting situations. Rays are traced from the camera into the scene, bouncing around until they find a light source (a lamp, an object material emitting light, or the world background), or until they are simply terminated based on the number of maximum bounces determined in the light path settings for the renderer. To find lamps and surfaces emitting light, both indirect light sampling (letting the ray follow the surface bidirectional scattering distribution function, or BSDF) and direct light sampling (picking a light source and tracing a ray towards it) are used.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender users can create their own nodes using the Open Shading Language (OSL), although it is important to note that this feature is not supported by GPUs.


title: Blender (software)

text: Materials define the look of meshes, NURBS curves, and other geometric objects. They consist of three shaders to define the mesh's surface appearance, volume inside, and surface displacement.


title: Blender (software)

text: The "surface shader" defines the light interaction at the surface of the mesh. One or more bidirectional scattering distribution functions, or BSDFs, can specify if incoming light is reflected, refracted into the mesh, or absorbed. The alpha value is one measure of translucency.


title: Blender (software)

text: When the surface shader does not reflect or absorb light, it enters the volume (light transmission). If no volume shader is specified, it will pass straight through (or be refracted, see refractive index or IOR) to another side of the mesh.


title: Blender (software)

text: If one is defined, a "volume shader" describes the light interaction as it passes through the volume of the mesh. Light may be scattered, absorbed, or even emitted at any point in the volume.


title: Blender (software)

text: The shape of the surface may be altered by "displacement shaders". In this way, textures can be used to make the mesh surface more detailed.


title: Blender (software)

text: Depending on the settings, the displacement may be virtual-only modifying the surface normals to give the impression of displacement (also known as bump mapping) – real, or a combination of real displacement with bump mapping.


title: Blender (software)

text: EEVEE (or Eevee) is a real-time PBR renderer included in Blender from version 2.8. This render engine was given the nickname Eevee, after the Pokémon. The name was later made into the backronym "Extra Easy Virtual Environment Engine" or EEVEE.


title: Blender (software)

text: Since the opening of the source code, Blender has experienced significant refactoring of the initial codebase and major additions to its feature set.


title: Blender (software)

text: Improvements include an animation system refresh; a stack-based modifier system; an updated particle system (which can also be used to simulate hair and fur); fluid dynamics; soft-body dynamics; GLSL shaders support in the game engine; advanced UV unwrapping; a fully recoded render pipeline, allowing separate render passes and "render to texture"; node-based material editing and compositing; and projection painting.


title: Blender (software)

text: Part of these developments was fostered by Google's Summer of Code program, in which the Blender Foundation has participated since 2005.


title: Blender (software)

text: Historically, Blender has used Phabricator to manage its development but due to the announcement in 2021 that Phabricator would be discontinued, the Blender Institute began work on migrating to another software in early 2022. After extensive debate on what software it should choose it was finally decided to migrate to Gitea. The migration from Phabricator to Gitea is currently a work in progress.


title: Blender (software)

text: Official planning for the next major revision of Blender after the 2.7 series began in the latter half of 2015, with potential targets including a more configurable UI (dubbed "Blender 101"), support for Physically based rendering (PBR) (dubbed EEVEE for "Extra Easy Virtual Environment Engine") to bring improved realtime 3D graphics to the viewport, allowing the use of C++11 and C99 in the codebase, moving to a newer version of OpenGL and dropping support for versions before 3.2, and a possible overhaul of the particle and constraint systems. Blender Internal renderer has been removed from 2.8. "Code Quest" was a project started in April 2018 set in Amsterdam, at the Blender Institute. The goal of the project was to get a large development team working in one place, in order to speed up the development of Blender 2.8. By June 29, 2018, the Code Quest project ended, and on July 2, the alpha version was completed. Beta testing commenced on November 29, 2018, and was anticipated to take until July 2019. Blender 2.80 was released on July 30, 2019.


title: Blender (software)

text: On April 23, 2021, the Blender Foundation announced the Cycles X project, where they improved the Cycles architecture for future development. Key changes included a new kernel, removal of default tiled rendering (replaced by progressive refine), removal of branched path tracing, and the removal of OpenCL support. Volumetric rendering was also replaced with better algorithms. Cycles X had only been accessible in an experimental branch until September 21, 2021, when it was merged into the master build.


title: Blender (software)

text: Blender is extensively documented on its website. There are also a number of online communities dedicated to support, such as the Blender Stack Exchange.


title: Blender (software)

text: Due to Blender's open-source nature, other programs have tried to take advantage of its success by repackaging and selling cosmetically modified versions of it. Examples include IllusionMage, 3DMofun, 3DMagix, and Fluid Designer, the latter being recognized as Blender-based.


title: Blender (software)

text: Since 2005, every 1–2 years the Blender Foundation has announced a new creative project to help drive innovation in Blender. In response to the success of the first open movie project, "Elephants Dream", in 2006, the Blender Foundation founded the Blender Institute to be in charge of additional projects, with two projects announced at first: "Big Buck Bunny", also known as Project Peach (a "furry and funny" short open animated film project); and "Yo Frankie!", or Project Apricot, an open game utilizing the Crystal Space game engine that reused some of the assets created for "Big Buck Bunny".


title: Blender (software)

text: In September 2005, some of the most notable Blender artists and developers began working on a short film using primarily free software, in an initiative known as the Orange Movie Project hosted by the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk). The codename, "Orange", about the fruit, started the trend of giving each project a different fruity name. The resulting film, "Elephants Dream", premiered on March 24, 2006.


title: Blender (software)

text: On October 1, 2007, a new team started working on a second open project, "Peach", for the production of the short movie "Big Buck Bunny". This time, however, the creative concept was different. Instead of the deep and mystical style of "Elephants Dream", things are more "funny and furry" according to the official site. The movie had its premiere on April 10, 2008. This later made its way to Nintendo 3DS's Nintendo Video in May 2012.


title: Blender (software)

text: "Apricot" was the project name for the production of a game based on the universe and characters of the Peach movie ("Big Buck Bunny") using free software, including the Crystal Space framework. The resulting game is titled "Yo Frankie!". The project started on February 1, 2008, and development was completed at the end of July. A finalized product was expected at the end of August; however, the release was delayed. The game was eventually released on December 9, 2008, under either the GNU GPL or LGPL, with all content being licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender Foundation's Project Durian (in keeping with the tradition of fruits as code names) was this time chosen to make a fantasy action epic of about twelve minutes in length, starring a teenage girl and a young dragon as the main characters. The film premiered online on September 30, 2010. A game based on "Sintel" was officially announced on Blenderartists.org on May 12, 2010.


title: Blender (software)

text: Many of the new features integrated into Blender 2.5 and beyond were a direct result of Project Durian.


title: Blender (software)

text: On October 2, 2011, the fourth open movie project, codenamed "Mango", was announced by the Blender Foundation. A team of artists assembled using an open call of community participation. It is the first Blender open movie to use live action as well as CG.


title: Blender (software)

text: Filming for Mango started on May 7, 2012, and the movie was released on September 26, 2012. As with the previous films, all footage, scenes and models were made available under a free content compliant Creative Commons license.


title: Blender (software)

text: According to the film's press release, "The film's premise is about a group of warriors and scientists, who gather at the 'Oude Kerk' in Amsterdam to stage a crucial event from the past, in a desperate attempt to rescue the world from destructive robots."


title: Blender (software)

text: On January 10, 2011, Ton Roosendaal announced that the fifth open movie project would be codenamed "Gooseberry" and that its goal would be to produce a feature-length animated film. He speculated that production would begin sometime between 2012 and 2014. The film was to be written and produced by a coalition of international animation studios. The studio lineup was announced on January 28, 2014, and production began soon thereafter. As of March 2014, a moodboard had been constructed and development goals set. The initial ten minute pilot was released on YouTube on August 10, 2015. It won the SIGGRAPH 2016 Computer Animation Festival Jury's Choice award.


title: Blender (software)

text: On November 13, 2015, "Glass Half" was released in HD format. This project demonstrates real-time rendering capabilities using OpenGL for 3D cartoon animation. It also marks the end of the fruit naming scheme. "Glass Half" was financed by the Blender Foundation with proceeds from the Blender Cloud. It is a short, roughly three-minute long comedy in a gibberish language that addresses subjectivity in art.


title: Blender (software)

text: "Caminandes" is a series of animated short films envisioned by Pablo Vazquez of Argentina. It centers on a llama named Koro in Patagonia and his attempts to overcome various obstacles. The series only became part of the Open Movie Project starting with the second episode.


title: Blender (software)

text: "Agent 327: Operation Barbershop" is a three-minute teaser released on May 15, 2017, for a planned full-length animated feature. The three-minute teaser is uploaded to YouTube by the official Blender Studio channel. Co-directed by Colin Levy and Hjalti Hjálmarsson, it is based on the classic Dutch comic series Agent 327. This teaser film also acts as a proof-of-concept to attract funding for the full-length animated feature. "Agent 327: Operation Barbershop" showcases the latest technology of Cycles engine, the render engine that has been included in Blender since 2011. Assets from this teaser have been released under Creative Commons license via Blender Cloud.


title: Blender (software)

text: "Hero" is the first open movie project to demonstrate the capabilities of the "Grease Pencil", a 2D animation tool in Blender 2.8. It was put on YouTube on April 16, 2018. It has a roughly four-minute runtime, which includes over a minute of "behind-the-scenes" "making-of" footage. It showcases the art of Spanish animator Daniel Martínez Lara.


title: Blender (software)

text: ""Spring is the story of a shepherd girl and her dog, who face ancient spirits to continue the cycle of life. This poetic and visually stunning short film was written and directed by Andy Goralczyk, inspired by his childhood in the mountains of Germany.""


title: Blender (software)

text: On October 25, 2017, an animated short film named "Spring" was announced. "Spring" was released April 4, 2019. Its purpose was to test Blender 2.8's capabilities before its official release.


title: Blender (software)

text: ""Fueled by caffeine, a young woman runs through the bittersweet memories of her past relationship.""


title: Blender (software)

text: On May 29, 2020, the open movie "Coffee Run" was released. It was the first open movie to be rendered in the EEVEE render engine. It was released on July 30, 2019.


title: Blender (software)

text: A collection of assets and animated scenes created by the Blender Studio in 2020, with an emphasis on expressive non-photorealistic rendering and experimental shading. All assets created for this are freely available to all.


title: Blender (software)

text: "Sprite Fright" is the 13th open movie. It is set in Britain and draws inspiration from 1980's horror comedy. It is directed by Pixar story artist Mathew Luhn with Hjalti Hjalmarsson. It is about a group of teenagers being attacked and killed by Sprites after they litter the forest.


title: Blender (software)

text: It premiered at Eye Film in the Netherlands on 28 October 2021 and was publicly released on Blender Studio and YouTube on 29 October 2021.


title: Blender (software)

text: An upcoming cinematic short with an emphasis on photo-realism. The short will take place in Iceland and will be intended to improve Blender's PBR texturing workflow.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender Studio platform, launched in March 2014 as Blender Cloud, is a subscription-based cloud computing platform where members can access Blender add-ons, courses and to keep track of the production of Blender Studio's open movies. It is currently operated by the Blender Studio, formerly a part of the Blender Institute. It was launched to promote and fundraiser for "Project: Gooseberry", and is intended to replace the selling of DVDs by the Blender Foundation with a subscription-based model for file hosting, asset sharing and collaboration. Blender Add-ons included in Blender Studio are CloudRig, Blender Kitsu, Contact sheet Add-on, Blender Purge and Shot Builder. It was rebranded from Blender Cloud to Blender Studio on 22 October 2021.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender development fund is a subscription where individuals and companies can fund Blender's development. Corporate members include Epic Games, Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Unity, Intel, Decentraland, Amazon Web Services, Meta, AMD, Adobe and many more. You can also provide one time donations to Blender. It supports Bank Transfer, PayPal and Cryptocurrency.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender ID is a unified login for Blender software and service users, providing a login for Blender Studio, the Blender Store, the Blender Conference, Blender Network, Blender Development Fund, and the Blender Foundation Certified Trainer Program.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender Open Data is a platform to collect, display, and query benchmark data produced by the Blender community with related Blender Benchmark software.


title: Blender (software)

text: The Blender Network was an online platform to enable online professionals to conducts business with Blender and provide online support. It was terminated on 31 March 2021.


title: Blender (software)

text: There are several communities around Blender, such as BlenderArtists and Blender Market. All user communities are independent from blender.org and Blender Foundation.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the sixth-largest city in Texas, and the second-largest city in the Southwestern United States behind Phoenix, Arizona. The city is also the second-largest majority-Hispanic city in the U.S., with 81% of its population being Hispanic. Its metropolitan statistical area covers all of El Paso and Hudspeth counties in Texas, and had a population of 868,859 in 2020. El Paso has consistently been ranked as one of the safest large cities in America.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso stands on the Rio Grande across the Mexico–United States border from Ciudad Juárez, the most-populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua with over 1.5 million people. The Las Cruces area, in the neighboring U.S. state of New Mexico, has a population of 219,561. On the U.S. side, the El Paso metropolitan area forms part of the larger El Paso–Las Cruces combined statistical area, with a population of 1,088,420.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: These three cities form a combined international metropolitan area sometimes referred to as the "Paso del Norte" or the "Borderplex". The region of 2.7 million people constitutes the largest bilingual and binational work force in the Western Hemisphere.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The city is home to three publicly traded companies, and former Western Refining, now Marathon Petroleum, as well as home to the Medical Center of the Americas, the only medical research and care provider complex in West Texas and Southern New Mexico, and the University of Texas at El Paso, the city's primary university. The city hosts the annual Sun Bowl college football postseason game, the second-oldest bowl game in the country.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso has a strong federal and military presence. William Beaumont Army Medical Center, Biggs Army Airfield, and Fort Bliss are located in the area. Fort Bliss is one of the largest military complexes of the United States Army and the second-largest training area in the U.S. behind nearby White Sands Missile Range. The fort is headquartered in El Paso but a large part of the training area is in New Mexico. Also headquartered in El Paso are the Drug Enforcement Administration domestic field division 7, El Paso Intelligence Center, Joint Task Force North, United States Border Patrol El Paso Sector, and U.S. Border Patrol Special Operations Group.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso is a five-time All-America City Award winner, winning in 1969, 2010, 2018, 2020, and 2021, and "Congressional Quarterly" ranked it in the top-three safest large cities in the United States between 1997 and 2014, including holding the title of safest city between 2011 and 2014.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso region has had human settlement for thousands of years, as evidenced by Folsom points from hunter-gatherers found at Hueco Tanks. This suggests 10,000 to 12,000 years of human habitation. The earliest known cultures in the region were maize farmers. When the Spanish arrived, the Manso, Suma, and Jumano tribes populated the area. These were subsequently incorporated into the "mestizo" culture, along with immigrants from central Mexico, captives from Comanchería, and "genízaros" of various ethnic groups. The Mescalero Apache were also present.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition trekked through present-day El Paso and forded the Rio Grande where they visited the land that is present-day New Mexico in 1581–1582. The expedition was led by Francisco Sánchez, called "El Chamuscado", and Fray Agustín Rodríguez, the first Spaniards known to have walked along the Rio Grande and visited the Pueblo Indians since Francisco Vásquez de Coronado 40 years earlier. Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate was born in 1550 in Zacatecas, Zacatecas, Mexico and was the first New Spain (Mexico) explorer known to have rested and stayed 10 days by the Rio Grande near El Paso, in 1598, celebrating a Thanksgiving Mass there on April 30, 1598. Four survivors of the Narváez expedition, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and his enslaved Moor Estevanico, are thought to have crossed the Rio Grande into present-day Mexico about 75 miles south of El Paso in 1535. El Paso del Norte (present-day Ciudad Juárez) was founded on the south bank of the Río Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande), in 1659 by Fray Garcia de San Francisco. In 1680, the small village of El Paso became the temporary base for Spanish governance of the territory of New Mexico as a result of the Pueblo Revolt, until 1692, when Santa Fe was reconquered and once again became the capital.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Texas Revolution (1836) was generally not felt in the region, as the American population was small, not being more than 10% of the population. However, the region was claimed by Texas as part of the treaty signed with Mexico and numerous attempts were made by Texas to bolster these claims, but the villages that consisted of what is now El Paso and the surrounding area remained essentially a self-governed community with both representatives of the Mexican and Texan governments negotiating for control until Texas irrevocably took control in 1846. During this interregnum, 1836–1848, Americans nonetheless continued to settle the region. As early as the mid-1840s, alongside long extant Hispanic settlements such as the Rancho de Juan María Ponce de León, Anglo-American settlers such as Simeon Hart and Hugh Stephenson had established thriving communities of American settlers owing allegiance to Texas. Stephenson, who had married into the local Hispanic aristocracy, established the Rancho de San José de la Concordia, which became the nucleus of Anglo-American and Hispanic settlement within the limits of modern-day El Paso, in 1844: the Republic of Texas, which claimed the area, wanted a chunk of the Santa Fe trade. During the Mexican–American War, the Battle of El Bracito was fought nearby on Christmas Day, 1846. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo effectively made the settlements on the north bank of the river part of the US, separate from Old El Paso del Norte on the Mexican side. The present New Mexico–Texas boundary placing El Paso on the Texas side was drawn in the Compromise of 1850.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso remained the largest settlement in New Mexico as part of the Republic of Mexico until its cession to the U.S. in 1848, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo specified the border was to run north of El Paso De Norte around the Ciudad Juárez Cathedral which became part of the state of Chihuahua.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso County was established in March 1850, with San Elizario as the first county seat. The United States Senate fixed a boundary between Texas and New Mexico at the 32nd parallel, thus largely ignoring history and topography. A military post called the "Post opposite El Paso" (meaning opposite El Paso del Norte, across the Rio Grande) was established in 1849 on Coons' Rancho beside the settlement of Franklin, which became the nucleus of the future El Paso, Texas; after the army left in 1851, the rancho went into default and was repossessed; in 1852, a post office was established on the rancho bearing the name El Paso as an example of cross-border town naming until El Paso del Norte was renamed Juarez in 1888. After changing hands twice more, the El Paso company was set up in 1859 and bought the property, hiring Anson Mills to survey and lay out the town, thus forming the current street plan of downtown El Paso.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: In "Beyond the Mississippi" (1867), Albert D. Richardson, traveling to California via coach, described El Paso as he found it in late 1859:


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Texan town of El Paso had four hundred inhabitants, chiefly Mexicans. Its business men were Americans, but Spanish was the prevailing language. All the features were Mexican: low, flat adobe buildings, shading cottonwoods under which dusky, smoking women and swarthy children sold fruit, vegetables, and bread; habitual gambling universal, from the boys' game of pitching "quartillas" (three cent coins) to the great saloons where huge piles of silver dollars were staked at monte. In this little village, a hundred thousand dollars often changed hands in a single night through the potent agencies of monte and poker. There were only two or three American ladies; and most of the whites kept Mexican mistresses. All goods were brought on wagons from the Gulf of Mexico, and sold at an advance of three or four hundred per cent on Eastern prices.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: From hills overlooking the town, the eye takes in a charming picture—a far-stretching valley, enriched with orchards, vineyards and corn-fields, through which the river traces a shining pathway. Across it appear the flat roofs and cathedral towers of the old Mexican El Paso; still further, dim misty mountains melt into blue sky.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: During the Civil War, Confederate military forces were in the area until it was captured by the Union California Column in August 1862. It was then headquarters for the 5th Regiment California Volunteer Infantry from August 1863 until December 1864.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: After the Civil War's conclusion, the town's population began to grow as Texans continued to move into the villages and soon became the majority. El Paso itself, incorporated in 1873, encompassed the small area communities that had developed along the river. In the 1870s, a population of 23 non-Hispanic Whites and 150 Hispanics was reported. With the arrival of the Southern Pacific, Texas and Pacific, and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroads in 1881, the population boomed to 10,000 by the 1890 census, with many Anglo-Americans, recent immigrants, old Hispanic settlers, and recent arrivals from Mexico. The location of El Paso and the arrival of these more wild newcomers caused the city to become a violent and wild boomtown known as the "Six-shooter Capital" because of its lawlessness. Indeed, prostitution and gambling flourished until World War I, when the Department of the Army pressured El Paso authorities to crack down on vice (thus "benefitting" vice in neighboring Ciudad Juárez). With the suppression of the vice trade and in consideration of the city's geographic position, the city continued into developing as a premier manufacturing, transportation, and retail center of the U.S. Southwest.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: In 1909, William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a historic first meeting between a U.S. president and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president crossed the border into Mexico, but tensions rose on both sides of the border, including threats of assassination, so the Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, U.S. Secret Service agents, FBI agents, and U.S. marshals were all called in to provide security. Frederick Russell Burnham, a celebrated scout, was put in charge of a 250-strong private security detail hired by John Hays Hammond, who in addition to owning large investments in Mexico, was a close friend of Taft from Yale and a U.S. vice presidential candidate in 1908. On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route. Burnham and Moore captured, disarmed, and arrested the assassin within only a few feet of Taft and Díaz. By 1910, an overwhelming number of people in the city were Americans, creating a settled environment, but this period was short-lived as the Mexican Revolution greatly impacted the city, bringing an influx of refugees—and capital—to the bustling boom town. Spanish-language newspapers, theaters, movie houses, and schools were established, many supported by a thriving Mexican refugee middle class. Large numbers of clerics, intellectuals, and businessmen took refuge in the city, particularly between 1913 and 1915. Ultimately, the violence of the Mexican Revolution followed with the large Mexican diaspora, who had fled into El Paso. In 1915 and again in 1916 and 1917, various Mexican revolutionary societies planned, staged, and launched violent attacks against both Texans and their political Mexican opponents in El Paso. This state of affairs eventually led to the vast Plan de San Diego, which resulted in the murder of 21 American citizens. The subsequent reprisals by local militia soon caused an escalation of violence, wherein an estimated 300 Mexicans and Mexican-Americans lost their lives. These actions affected almost every resident of the entire Rio Grande Valley, resulting in millions of dollars of losses; the end result of the Plan of San Diego was long-standing enmity between the two ethnic groups.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Simultaneously, other Texans and Americans gravitated to the city, and by 1920, along with the U.S. Army troops, the population exceeded 100,000 and non-Hispanic Whites once again were in the clear majority. Nonetheless, the city increased the segregation between Mexicans and Mexican-Americans with non-Hispanic Whites. One prominent form of segregation, in the form of immigration controls to prevent disease, allegedly were abused to create nonconsensual pornographic images of women distributed in local bars. These rumors along with the perceived hazard from kerosene baths led to the 1917 Bath riots. As a result of the increased segregation, the Catholic Church attempted to garner the Mexican-American community's allegiance through education and political and civic involvement organizations, including the National Catholic Welfare Fund. In 1916, the Census Bureau reported El Paso's population as 53% Mexican and 44% Non-Hispanic whites. Mining and other industries gradually developed in the area. The El Paso and Northeastern Railway was chartered in 1897, to help extract the natural resources of surrounding areas, especially in southeastern New Mexico Territory. The 1920s and 1930s had the emergence of major business development in the city, partially enabled by Prohibition-era bootlegging. The military demobilization, and an agricultural economic depression, which hit places like El Paso first before the larger Great Depression was felt in the big cities, though, hit the city hard. In turn, as in the rest of the United States, the Depression era overall hit the city hard, and El Paso's population declined through the end of World War II, with most of population losses coming from the non-Hispanic White community. Nonetheless, they remained the majority to the 1940s.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: During and following the war, military expansion in the area, as well as oil discoveries in the Permian Basin, helped to engender rapid economic expansion in the mid-1900s. Copper smelting, oil refining, and the proliferation of low-wage industries (particularly garment making) led the city's growth. Additionally, the departure of region's rural population, which was mostly non-Hispanic White, to cities like El Paso, brought a short-term burst of capital and labor, but this was balanced by additional departures of middle-class Americans to other parts of the country that offered new and better-paying jobs. In turn, local businesses looked south to the opportunities afforded by cheap Mexican labor. Furthermore, the period from 1942 to 1956 had the bracero program, which brought in cheap Mexican labor into the rural area to replace the losses of the non-Hispanic White population. In turn, seeking better-paying jobs, these migrants also moved to El Paso. By 1965, Hispanics once again were a majority. Meanwhile, the postwar expansion slowed again in the 1960s, but the city continued to grow with the annexation of surrounding neighborhoods and in large part because of its significant economic relationship with Mexico.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Farah Strike, 1972–1974, occurred in El Paso, Texas. This strike was originated and led by Chicanas, or Mexican-American women, against the Farah Manufacturing Company, due to complaints against the company inadequately compensating workers. "Texas Monthly" described the Farah Strike as the "strike of the century".


title: El Paso, Texas

text: On August 3, 2019, a domestic terrorist shooting committed by a white supremacist occurred at a Walmart in El Paso, which left 23 people dead and 23 others injured.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso is located at the intersection of three states (Chihuahua, New Mexico, and Texas) and two countries (Mexico and the U.S.). It is the only major Texas city in the Mountain Time Zone. Ciudad Juarez was once in the Central Time Zone, but both cities are now on Mountain Time.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso is closer to the capital cities of four other states: Phoenix, Arizona ( away); Santa Fe, New Mexico ( away); Ciudad Chihuahua, Chihuahua, ( away), and Hermosillo, Sonora ( away)—than it is to the capital of its own state, Austin ( away). It is closer to Los Angeles, California ( away) than it is to Orange, Texas ( away), the easternmost town in the same state as this city.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso is located within the Chihuahuan Desert, the easternmost section of the Basin and Range Region. The Franklin Mountains extend into El Paso from the north and nearly divide the city into two sections; the west side forms the beginnings of the Mesilla Valley, and the east side expands into the desert and lower valley. They connect in the central business district at the southern end of the mountain range.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The city's elevation is above sea level. North Franklin Mountain is the highest peak in the city at above sea level. The peak can be seen from in all directions. Additionally, this mountain range is home to the famous natural red-clay formation, the Thunderbird, from which the local Coronado High School gets its mascot's name. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of .


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Franklin Mountains State Park, one of the largest urban parks in the United States, lies entirely in El Paso, extending from the north and dividing the city into several sections along with Fort Bliss and El Paso International Airport.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Rio Grande Rift, which passes around the southern end of the Franklin Mountains, is where the Rio Grande flows. The river defines the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez to the south and west until the river turns north of the border with Mexico, separating El Paso from Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Mt. Cristo Rey, an example of a pluton, rises within the Rio Grande Rift just to the west of El Paso on the New Mexico side of the Rio Grande. Nearby volcanic features include Kilbourne Hole and Hunt's Hole, which are Maar volcanic craters west of the Franklin Mountains.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso has a transitional climate between cold desert climate (Köppen "BWk") and hot desert climate (Köppen "BWh") featuring hot summers, with little humidity, and cool to mild dry winters. Rainfall averages per year, much of which occurs from June through September, and is predominantly caused by the North American Monsoon. During this period, southerly and southeasterly winds carry moisture from the Pacific, the Gulf of California, and the Gulf of Mexico into the region. When this moisture moves into the El Paso area and places to the southwest, orographic lift from the mountains, combined with strong daytime heating, causes thunderstorms, some severe enough to produce flash flooding and hail, across the region.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The sun shines 302 days per year on average in El Paso, 83% of daylight hours, according to the National Weather Service; from this, the city is nicknamed "The Sun City". Due to its arid, windy climate, El Paso often experiences sand and dust storms during the dry season, particularly during the springtime between March and early May. With an average wind speed often exceeding and gusts that have been measured at over , these wind storms kick up large amounts of sand and dust from the desert, causing loss of visibility.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso and the nearby mountains also receive snow. Weather systems have produced over of snow on several occasions. In the 1982–1983 winter season, three major snowstorms produced record seasonal snowfall. On December 25–26, 1982, of snow fell, producing a white Christmas for the city. This was followed by another on December 30–31, 1982. On April 4–7, 1983, of snow fell on El Paso, bringing the seasonal total to nearly . On December 13–14, 1987, a record storm dumped over of snow on El Paso, and two weeks later (December 25–26), another fell, bringing the monthly total for December 1987 to an all-time record high of of snow.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The average annual snowfall for the city varies widely between different neighborhoods at different elevations, but is at the airport (but with a median of 0, meaning most years see no snow at all). Snow is most rare around Ysleta and the eastern valley area, which usually include large numbers of palm trees; in the higher neighborhoods, palm trees are more vulnerable to snow and cold snaps and are often seen with brown, frost-damaged fronds.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: One example of El Paso's varying climate at its most extreme was the damaging winter storm of early February 2011, which caused closures of schools, businesses, and City Hall. The snow, which was light, stopped after about a day, but during the ensuing cold episode, municipal utilities went into a crisis. The high temperature on February 2, 2011, was , the lowest daily maximum on record. In addition, the low temperature on February 3 was , breaking the monthly record low set during the cold wave of 1899. Loss of desert vegetation, such as Mexican/California palm trees, oleanders, and iceplants to the cold weather was one of the results. Two local power plants failed, forcing El Paso Electric to institute rolling blackouts over several days, and electric wires were broken, causing localised blackouts. Many water utility pipes froze, causing areas of the city to be without water for several days.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Monthly means range from in December to in July, but high temperatures typically peak in June before the monsoon arrives, while daily low temperatures typically peak in July or early August with the higher humidity the monsoon brings (translating to warmer nights). On average, 42 night lows are at or below freezing, with 118 days of + highs and 28 days of + highs annually; extremely rarely do temperatures stay below the freezing mark all day. The city's record high is on June 30, 1994, and its record low is on January 11, 1962; the highest daily minimum was on July 1 and 3, 1994, with weather records for the area maintained by the National Weather Service since 1879.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Although the average annual rainfall is only about 8.8 in (225 mm), many parts of El Paso are subject to occasional flooding during intense summer monsoonal thunderstorms. In late July and early August 2006, up to of rain fell in a week, the flood-control reservoirs overflowed and caused major flooding citywide. The city staff estimated damage to public infrastructure at $21 million, and to private property (residential and commercial) at $77 million. Much of the damage was associated with development in recent decades in arroyos protected by flood-control dams and reservoirs, and the absence of any storm drain utility in the city to handle the flow of rain water.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: This part of town contains some of the city's oldest and most historic neighborhoods. Located in the heart of the city, it is home to about 44,993 people. Development of the area started in 1827 with the first resident, Juan Maria Ponce de Leon, a wealthy merchant from Paso del Norte (present-day Ciudad Juárez), who built the region's first structure establishing Rancho Ponce within the vicinity of S. El Paso Street and Paisano Dr. when the city was barely beginning. Today, central El Paso has grown into the center of the city's economy and a thriving urban community. It contains numerous historic sites and landmarks, mostly in the Sunset Heights district. It is close to the El Paso International Airport, the international border, and Fort Bliss. It is part of the El Paso Independent School District.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Dr. James Day, an El Paso historian, said that downtown's main business area was originally centered between Second Avenue (now Paisano Drive) and San Francisco Avenue. At a later point, the main business area was centered around Stanton Street and Santa Fe Street. In the late 1800s, most of the White American residents lived to the north of the non-White areas, living in brick residences along Magoffin, Myrtle, and San Antonio Avenues. Hispanic-American residents lived in an area called Chihuahuita ("little Chihuahua"), which was located south of Second Avenue and west of Santa Fe Street. Several African Americans and around 300 Chinese Americans also lived in Chihuahuita. Many of the Chinese Americans participated in the building of railroads in the El Paso area. Another downtown neighborhood is El Segundo Barrio, which is near the Mexico–U.S. border.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Better known as West El Paso or the West Side, the area includes a portion of the Rio Grande floodplain upstream from downtown, which is known locally as the Upper Valley and is located on the west side of the Franklin Mountains. The Upper Valley is the greenest part of the county due to the Rio Grande. The West Side is home to some of the most affluent neighborhoods within the city, such as the Coronado Hills, Country Club, and Three Hills neighborhoods. It is one of the fastest-growing areas of El Paso. The main high schools in the westside include Canutillo High School, Coronado High School (El Paso, Texas), and Franklin High School (El Paso, Texas).


title: El Paso, Texas

text: West-central El Paso is located north of Interstate 10 and west of the Franklin Mountains. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and the Cincinnati Entertainment district are located in the heart of the area. Historic districts Kern Place and Sunset Heights are in this part of town.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Kern Place was founded in 1914 by Peter E. Kern, for whom the neighborhood was named. The homes of Kern Place are unique in architecture and some were built by residents themselves. One of the better known homes is the Paul Luckett Home located at 1201 Cincinnati Ave. above Madeline Park, and is made of local rock. It is known as "The Castle" due to its round walls and a crenelated rooftop.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Kern Place is extremely popular with college and university students. The area is known for its glitzy entertainment district, restaurants and coffee shops that cater to both business patrons and university students. After UTEP's basketball and football games, UTEP fans pack the Kern Place area for food and entertainment at Cincinnati Street, a small bar district. This bar scene has grown over the years and has attracted thousands to its annual Mardi Gras block party, as well as after sporting events or concerts. Young men and women make up the majority of the crowds who stop in between classes or after work.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Sunset Heights is one of the most historic areas in town, which has existed since the latter part of the 1890s. Many wealthy residents have had their houses and mansions built on this hill. Although some buildings have been renovated to their former glory, many have been neglected and have deteriorated. During the Mexican Revolution, a widely popular Mexican revolutionary leader, Doroteo Arango (also known as Francisco "Pancho" Villa), owned and resided in this area during the 1910s. During the 1910 Mexican Revolution many Mexicans fled Mexico and settled in Sunset Heights.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: This part of town is located north of central El Paso and east of the Franklin Mountains. Development of the area was extensive during the 1950s and 1960s. It is one of the more ethnically diverse areas in the city due to the concentration of military families. The Northeast has not developed as rapidly as other areas, such as east El Paso and northwest El Paso, but its development is steadily increasing. The population is expected to grow more rapidly as a result of the troop increase at Ft. Bliss in the coming years. The area has also gained recognition throughout the city for the outstanding high-school athletic programs at Andress High School, Parkland High School, Irvin High School, and Chapin High School.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: In May 2021 a major developer announced plans for a Master Planned Community in the Northeast modeled after Scarborough's Sunfield Master Planned Community in Buda, Texas. The first phase of the development is to include about 2,500 homes, 10-acre park, walking trails, a four-acre resort-like area with a lazy river, kiddy splash pad, pool, grass areas, and a food truck area, the developers reported. Jessica Herrera, director of the city of El Paso Economic and International Development Department, in a statement released by the developers, said Campo del Sol will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues, "which will stimulate other growth and development on the north side of town".


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The area is located north of Interstate 10, east of Airway Blvd., and south of Montana Ave. It is the largest and fastest growing area of town with a population over 200,000. It includes the 79936 ZIP Code, which was considered in 2013 as the most populous in the nation with over 114,000 people.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Formerly known as the lower valley, it includes part of Eastside and all lower valley districts. It is the third-largest area of the city, behind east El Paso and central El Paso. Hawkins Road and Interstate 10 border the Mission Valley. This location is considered the oldest area of El Paso, dating back to the late 16th century when present-day Texas was under the rule of New Spain.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: In 1680, the Isleta Pueblo tribe revolted against the Spaniards who were pushed south to what is now El Paso. Some Spaniards and tribe members settled here permanently. Soon afterward, three Spanish missions were built; they remain standing, currently functioning as churches: Ysleta Mission-1682 (La Misión de Corpus Christi y de San Antonio de la Ysleta del Sur/Our Lady of Mt. Carmel), Socorro Mission-1759 (Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción del Socorro)-1759, and San Elizario Chapel (Capilla de San Elcear)-1789.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: On April 30, 1598, the northward-bound Spanish conquistadors crossed large sand dunes about 27 miles south of present-day downtown El Paso. The expeditionaries and their horses reportedly ran toward the river, and two horses drank themselves to death. Don Juan de Oñate, a New Spain-born conquistador of Spanish parents, was an expedition leader who ordered a big feast north of the Río Grande in what is now San Elizario. This was the first documented and true Thanksgiving in North America. Oñate declared" la Toma" (taking possession), claiming all territory north of the Río Grande for King Philip II of Spain.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo (related to the insurgent Isleta Pueblo Tribe) is also located in this valley. The Tigua is one of three Indian tribes in Texas whose sovereignty is recognized by the United States government. Ysleta is spelled with a "Y" because 19th-century script did not differentiate between a capital "Y" and a capital "I".


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Some people in this area and its twin city across the river, Ciudad Juárez, are direct descendants of the Spaniards.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso is surrounded by many cities and communities in both Texas and New Mexico. The most populated suburbs in Texas are Socorro, Horizon City, Fort Bliss, and San Elizario. Other Texas suburbs are Anthony, Canutillo, Sparks, Fabens, and Vinton.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Although Anthony, Santa Teresa, Sunland Park, and Chaparral lie adjacent to El Paso County, they are considered to be part of the Las Cruces, New Mexico metropolitan area by the United States Census Bureau.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso's second-tallest building, the Wells Fargo Plaza, was built in the early 1970s as State National Plaza. The black-windowed, building is famous for its 13 white horizontal lights (18 lights per row on the east and west sides of the building, and seven bulbs per row on the north and south sides) that were lit at night. The tower did use a design of the United States flag during the July 4 holidays, as well as the American hostage crisis of 1980, and was lit continuously following the September 11 attacks in 2001 until around 2006. During the Christmas holidays, a design of a Christmas tree was used, and at times, the letters "UTEP" were used to support University of Texas at El Paso athletics. The tower is now only lit during the holiday months, or when special events take place in the city.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: At the 2010 U.S. census, 649,121 people, 216,694 households, and 131,104 families resided in the city. The 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimates determined El Paso had a population of 681,728, an increase of 5.2% since the 2010 census. By the 2020 United States census, there were 678,815 people, 230,905 households, and 162,460 families residing in the city.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The population density was 2,263.0 people per square mile (873.7/km) in 2010. There were 227,605 housing units at an average density of 777.5 per square mile (300.2/km). Of the 216,894 households in 2010, 37.6% had children under 18 living with them, 48.5% were married couples living together, 20.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.3% were not families. About 21.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 24.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.95 and the average family size was 3.47. The 226,787 households in 2019 averaged of 2.97 people per household.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: In the city, the age distribution was 29.1% under the age of 18, 7.5% from 20 to 24, 26.2% from 25 to 44, 22.8% from 45 to 64, and 11.1% who were 65 or older. The median age was 32.5 years according to census statistics from 2010.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: As of 2010, the median income for a household in the city was $44,431, and for a family was $50,247. Males had a median income of $28,989 versus $21,540 for females. The per capita income for the city was $21,120. About 17.3% of families and 20.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.5% of those under age 18 and 18.4% of those age 65 or over. The 2019 census estimates determined the city had an owner-occupied housing rate of 58.9% and median value of owner-occupied housing units at $127,400. The median gross rent from 2015 to 2019 was $837. From 2015 to 2019, the city's median monthly homeowner cost with a mortgage was $1,255 and without a mortgage $429. El Paso had a median household income of $47,568 and per capita income of $22,734 in 2019. Roughly 19% of the population lived at or below the poverty line.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Census estimates from 2012 to 2013 determined the city's population was: White – 92.0% (non-Hispanic whites: 11.8%), African American or Black – 3.9%, two or more races – 1.5%, Asian – 1.3%, Native American – 1.0%, and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander – 0.2%. Ethnically, the city was 82.8% Hispanic or Latino of any race as of 2013. In 2019, 12.8% of the population was non-Hispanic white, 3.6% Black or African American, 0.6% American Indian or Alaska Native, 1.4% Asian, 0.2% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 2.7% two or more races, and 81.4% Hispanic or Latin American of any race. At the 2020 census, its population was 12.2% non-Hispanic white, 3.1% Black or African American, 82.8% Hispanic or Latino of any race, and 1.3% Asian alone.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: By 1996, a German community existed in El Paso, as the German Air Force headquarters for North America is in El Paso. A German school in El Paso serves all grade levels, though as of 1996, most of its students begin attending American schools at the secondary level. The German school is on Fort Bliss.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Christianity is the largest religion in the city and its metropolitan statistical area. Nearly 45% of its population claim affiliation with the Catholic Church as of 2020, and are served by the Roman Catholic Diocese of El Paso. Protestants form a minority of Christians in the city limits, and the remainder of the non-Christian population were followers of Judaism, Islam, or eastern faiths, including Buddhism or Hinduism. The irreligious made the second largest non-Christian demographic.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso has a diversified economy focused primarily within international trade, military, government civil service, oil and gas, health care, tourism, and service sectors. The El Paso metro area had a GDP of $29.03 billion in 2017. There was also $92 billion worth of trade in 2012. Over the past 15 years the city has become a significant location for American-based call centers. Cotton, fruit, vegetables, and livestock are also produced in the area. El Paso has added a significant manufacturing sector with items and goods produced that include petroleum, metals, medical devices, plastics, machinery, defense-related goods, and automotive parts. On July 22, 2020, Amazon announced plans to open the first 625,000 square foot fulfillment center in El Paso. The city is the second-busiest international crossing point in the U.S. behind San Diego.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso is home to one "Fortune "500 company, Western Refining, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This makes the city one of six Texas metro areas to have at least one "Fortune" 500 company call it home; the others being Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, and Corpus Christi. The second publicly traded company is Helen of Troy Limited, a NASDAQ-listed company that manufactures personal health-care products under many labels, such as OXO, Dr. Scholl's, Vidal Sassoon, Pert Plus, Brut, and Sunbeam, and the third is El Paso Electric listed on the NYSE, a public utility engaging in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in West Texas and southern New Mexico. The fourth publicly traded company is Western Refining Logistics, also traded in the NYSE. It is a Western Refining subsidiary, which owns, operates, develops, and acquires terminals, storage tanks, pipelines, and other logistics assets.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: More than 70 "Fortune" 500 companies have offices in El Paso, including AT&T, ADP, Boeing, Charles Schwab, Delphi, Dish Network, Eureka, Hoover, Raytheon, Prudential Financial, USAA and Verizon Wireless. Hispanic Business Magazine included 28 El Paso companies in its list of the 500 largest Hispanic owned businesses in the United States. El Paso's 28 companies are second only to Miami's 57. The list of the largest Hispanic owned businesses includes companies like Fred Loya Insurance, a Hispanic 500 company and the 18th largest Hispanic business in the nation. Other companies on the list are Dos Lunas Spirits, Dynatec Labs, Spira Footwear, DATAMARK, Inc. and El Taco Tote. El Paso was home to El Paso Corporation formerly known as El Paso Natural Gas Company.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The city also has a large military presence with Fort Bliss, William Beaumont Army Medical Center, and Biggs Army Airfield. The defense industry in El Paso employs over 41,000 and provides a $6 billion annual impact to the city's economy. In 2013, Fort Bliss was chosen as the newly configured U.S. Air Force Security Forces Regional Training Center which added 8,000 to 10,000 Air Force personnel annually.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: In addition to the military, the federal government has a strong presence in El Paso to manage its status and unique issues as an important border region. Operations headquartered in El Paso include the DEA Domestic Field Division 7, El Paso Intelligence Center, Joint Task Force North, U.S. Border Patrol El Paso Sector, and U.S. Border Patrol Special Operations Group.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Call-center operations employ more than 10,000 people in the area. Automatic Data Processing has an office in West El Paso, employing about 1,100 people with expansion plans to reach 2,200 by 2020.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Tourism is another major industry in El Paso, bringing in $1.5 billion and over 2.3 million visitors annually due to the city's sunny weather, natural beauty, rich cultural history, and many outdoor attractions.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Education is also a driving force in El Paso's economy. El Paso's three large school districts are among the largest employers in the area, employing more than 20,000 people among them. UTEP has an annual budget of nearly $418 million and employs nearly 4,800 people. A 2010 study by the university's Institute for Policy and Economic Development stated the university's impact on local businesses is $417 million annually.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Amigo Airsho is one of El Paso's premier events, and is ranked as one of the top-10 air shows in the country, filled with air entertainment and ground activities. Acts include the Franklin's Flying Circus, where performers walk on the wings of an airborne plane. Ground activities include a jet-powered school bus. After 31 years of being held at Biggs Army Airfield, the show was moved to Dona Ana Airport in 2014.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The KLAQ Great River Raft Race is an annual event celebrated on the second to last Saturday of June. Participants are encouraged to ride the river and float the Rio Grande with family and friends. The organizers encourage the building of unique rafts that get down the river, with prizes and trophies awarded for the most points earned, best-looking crew, and best-decorated raft. The race starts at the Vinton Bridge and ends 3 miles downstream at the Canutillo Bridge.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Southwestern International PRCA Rodeo is the 17th-oldest rodeo in the nation and El Paso's longest-running sporting event. Consistently ranked as one of the top 50 shows in the country by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, this charitable event is a true celebration of western culture and heritage.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: La Fiesta de las Flores is one of the oldest Hispanic festivals in the Southwest. The three-day fiesta is held each year during the Labor Day weekend and emphasizes El Paso's Hispanic heritage and culture. The festival attracts 20,000 to 30,000 visitors from El Paso County, New Mexico, West Texas, and the State of Chihuahua, Mexico. Activities included in the fiesta are crowning of the queen, a Fiesta Parade, Senior Appreciation Dance, Military Appreciation Day, and live entertainment. The fiesta is also well known for the authentic regional cuisine, arts and crafts, games, and services available for the enjoyment of all attendees. Over 80 booths, sponsored by local vendors and nonprofit organizations, create the Hispanic ambience and culture.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Balloonfest is an annual event celebrated on Memorial Day weekend and is self described as "3 days of hot air balloons filling the El Paso skies, 3 afternoons of concerts and fun in the sun at Wet N' Wild Waterworld in Anthony, Texas". Over 60 balloons take to the air from TFCU launch field, which is adjacent to the water park. After the balloons launch, visitors have a weekend of water rides, swimming, concerts, and grilling. The concert aspect of the event features local bands, starting at noon, and different headlining artists in the afternoon. Overnight camping has been added for 2014.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Sun City Pride is the largest annual LGBT event in the region, attracting thousands every June. The event was established in 2007.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The annual El Paso Downtown Street Festival is held during the last weekend of June in downtown El Paso near the El Paso Convention Center. It is the oldest musical festival in the city and brings local, regional, and nationally known acts.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The annual Neon Desert Music Festival is a two-day event usually held on the last Saturday and Sunday of May on five stages in downtown El Paso, stretching from San Jacinto Plaza to Cleveland Square. The festival brings over 30 acts from the worlds of indie rock, Latin, and electronic dance music.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The outdoor concert series, started in 1983, is held annually at the Chamizal National Memorial and draws over 60,000 attendees. It features local and international performers with wide-ranging musical genres: Classical, Country, Tejano, rock and others. The evening concerts are showcased every Sunday afternoon and start in early June and end in the middle of August.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The only El Paso musical festival not held downtown, instead it is held at Ascarate Park. The Sun City Music Festival is a two-day event dubbed as the largest electronic dance music festival in Texas.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Texas Showdown Festival is an annual event celebrating musicians and tattoo artists under one roof. Dubbed as the world's largest tattoo and musical festival, the event is held usually the last weekend of July at the El Paso County Coliseum.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The outdoor musical extravaganza "Viva! El Paso" is performed in the McKelligon Canyon Amphitheatre. It is locally produced and chronicles the 400-year history and cultural evolution of the El Paso region. The show is performed each Friday and Saturday night in June, July, and August. It has entertained local residents and out-of-town visitors for over 35 years.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Symphony was established in the 1930s, and is the oldest performing-arts organization in El Paso and the longest continuously running symphony orchestra in Texas. It has received both national and international recognition as a result of its very successful tours of Germany in 1996 and Turkey in 2000, and continues to represent the El Paso region with pride and distinction.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Symphony Orchestra Association season is anchored by 12 classical concerts. Special events serve as outreach toward new audiences.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Ballet was largely nonexistent in El Paso until the arrival of Ingeborg Heuser, a professional ballerina from Germany, in the 1950s. Heuser taught ballet at UTEP for 47 years and founded the city's first professional ballet company, firstly known as Texas Western Civic Ballet and eventually as "Ballet El Paso". The company dissipated due to financial trouble in 1997 and Heuser retired from UTEP soon after.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Youth Ballet was founded in 2009 by Heuser's student, Marta Katz, following Heuser's departure from the university. With students from the youth ballet, Heuser staged her last "Nutcracker" in 2006. The youth company continues to perform the "Nutcracker" and other preprofessional pieces in and around the El Paso area. The company provides the only platform for young ballet dancers to train and perform at such a level within the city since the folding of Ballet El Paso.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso City Ballet is a current professional ballet company in El Paso, providing local employment for professional dancers in the field of ballet. The company performs a variety of classical and contemporary works choreographed by Artistic Director Lisa Skaf and artists from the US and Latin America. It has been active since 2005, performing yearly productions.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Plaza Theatre is a National Historic Building of Significance built in 1930. It features the 2,050-seat Kendall Kidd Performance Hall, and the smaller 200-seat Philanthropy Theatre. It hosts Broadway productions, musical concerts, individual performers, and the annual Plaza Classic Film Festival.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Abraham Chavez Theatre is a 2,500-seat concert hall adjacent to the Williams Convention Center. Its exterior resembles a "sombrero" and features a three-story glass main entrance. The theatre is named after Maestro Abraham Chavez, who was the longtime conductor of the El Paso Symphony. Inside, the theatre has a lobby and a 40-by-56-ft stage, as well as 14 dressing rooms. The theater's seating is in three levels. Also, a meeting room is adjacent to the theater.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: Events held at Chavez Theatre include concerts, Broadway shows, graduation ceremonies, performances of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, and other special events.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: McKelligon Canyon is a park, located in the Franklin Mountains, open to hikers and picnickers. In the canyon, McKelligon Canyon Amphitheatre is surrounded on three sides by canyon walls; the 1,500-seat amphitheater is used for concerts and special events, such as "Viva! El Paso".


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Playhouse, a community theatre, provides entertainment and educational experiences to a diverse multicultural population through the high-quality production of plays and theatrical events. The playhouse provides a venue for artists, technicians, patrons, and community members to participate in the arts through regularly scheduled season productions and holiday performances. The theater is affiliated with Kids-N-Co, a theater for child actors to children's performances .


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The UTEP Dinner Theatre located inside the UTEP campus, and was founded in 1983 and is entirely produced, designed and directed by students. The theatre presents 4 fully staged musicals each season and a fully staged student produced musical.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The Centennial Museum and Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, located on the grounds of UTEP, includes a comprehensive collection of El Paso Brown, Native American pottery, as well as educational exhibits for students.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Museum of Archaeology is located on the eastern slope of North Franklin Mountain, west of Gateway South Blvd. on TransMountain Rd. Its grounds include native plants of the American Southwest, as well samples of Native American shelters, in an unspoiled location. The museum includes dioramas for school children that illustrate the culture and geology of the American Southwest, such as Hueco Tanks in El Paso County. One diorama (see image to the right) is of the Cueva de la Olla (cave of the pot) which is located in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua, an example of the Paquimé culture.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: The El Paso Museum of Art is located next to the Plaza Theater adjacent to San Jacinto Plaza, the public square downtown. It contains works of Southwestern artists such as Tom Lea.


title: El Paso, Texas

text: El Paso is home to the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest consecutive college football contest (after the Rose Bowl). Its first game was held in 1935.