title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu Yaobang's rise to power was engineered by Deng Xiaoping, and Hu rose to the highest levels of the Party after Deng displaced Hua Guofeng as China's "paramount leader". In 1980 Hu became Party Secretary General, and was elected to the powerful Politburo Standing Committee. In 1981, Hu became CCP Chairman, but helped abolish the position of Party chairman in 1982, as part of a broader effort to distance China from Maoist politics. Most of the chairman's functions were transferred to the post of General Secretary, a post taken by Hu. Deng's displacement of Hua Guofeng marked the Party leadership's consensus that China should abandon strict Maoist economics in favor of more pragmatic policies, and Hu directed many of Deng's attempts to reform the Chinese economy. By 1982, Hu was the second most powerful person in China, after Deng. Throughout the last decade of Hu's career, he promoted the role of intellectuals as being fundamental to China's achievement of the Four Modernizations.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: During the early 1980s, Deng referred to Hu and Zhao Ziyang as his "left and right hands". After advancing to the position of general secretary, Hu promoted a number of political reforms, often collaborating with Zhao. The ultimate goals of Hu's reforms were sometimes vaguely defined. Hu attempted to reform China's political system by: requiring candidates to be directly elected in order to enter the Politburo; holding more elections with more than one candidate; increasing government transparency; increasing public consultation before determining Party policy; and, increasing the degree that government officials could be held directly responsible for their mistakes.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: During his time in office, Hu tried to rehabilitate the people who were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. Many Chinese people think that this was his most important achievement. He was also in favor of a pragmatic policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region after realising the mistakes of previous policies. He ordered the withdrawal of thousands of Han Chinese cadres from the Tibet Autonomous Region following a May 1980 visit to the region, believing that Tibetans and Uyghurs should be empowered to administer their own affairs. Han Chinese who remained were required to learn Tibetan and Uyghur. He set out six requirements to improve 'existing conditions', including the increase of state funds to the Tibet Autonomous Region, improvements in education, and efforts to revive Tibetan and Uyghur culture. At the same time, Hu stated that "anything that is not suited to Tibet's conditions should be rejected or modified". Hu made a point of explicitly apologizing to Tibetans for China's misrule of the region during this trip. He also declared to cancel Bingtuan (soldier farmers) in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu traveled widely throughout his time as general secretary, visiting 1500 individual districts and villages in order to inspect the work of local officials and to keep in touch with the common people. In 1971, Hu retraced the route of the Long March, and took the opportunity to visit and inspect remote military bases located in Tibet, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu was notable for his liberalism and the frank expression of his opinions, which sometimes agitated other senior Chinese leaders. On a trip to Inner Mongolia in 1984, Hu publicly suggested that Chinese people might start eating in a Western way (with forks and knives, on individual plates) in order to prevent communicable diseases. He was one of the first Chinese officials to abandon wearing a Mao suit in favor of Western business suits. When asked which of Mao Zedong's theories were desirable for modern China, he replied "I think, none".


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu was not prepared to abandon Marxism completely, but frankly expressed the opinion that Communism could not solve "all of mankind's problems". Hu encouraged intellectuals to raise controversial subjects in the media, including democracy, human rights, and the possibility of introducing legal limits to the Communist Party's influence within the Chinese government. Many party elders mistrusted Hu from the start and eventually grew to fear his influence.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu made sincere efforts to repair Sino-Japanese relations, but was criticized for the scope of his efforts. In 1984, when Beijing recognized the twelfth anniversary of Japan's diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic, Hu invited 3,000 Japanese youth to Beijing, and arranged for them to tour Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Xi'an. Many senior officials considered Hu's efforts extravagant, since Japan had only invited 500 Chinese youths to Japan the previous year. Hu was criticized internally for the lavish gifts that he gave to visiting Japanese officials, and for allowing his daughter to privately accompany Japanese prime minister Nakasone's son when they visited Beijing. Hu defended his actions by citing the importance of strong Sino-Japanese relations, and his belief that the atrocities committed by Japan in China during World War II were the actions of military warlords, and not ordinary citizens.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu alienated potential allies within the People's Liberation Army when he suggested for two consecutive years that the Chinese defense budget should be reduced, and senior military leaders began to criticize him. Military officials accused Hu of making poor choices when purchasing military hardware from Australia in 1985. When Hu visited Britain, military officials criticized him for drinking soup too loudly during a banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth II.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Zhao and Hu began a large-scale anti-corruption programme, and permitted the investigations of the children of high-ranking Party elders, who had grown up protected by their parents' influence. Hu's investigation of Party officials belonging to this "Crown Prince Party" made Hu unpopular with many powerful Party officials. After Deng refused to support some of Hu's reforms, Hu made private comments critical of Deng Xiaoping for his indecisiveness and "old-fashioned" way of thinking, opinions which Deng eventually became aware of.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: In December 1986, a group of students organized public protests across over a dozen cities in support of political and economic liberalization. The protests began in the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui, where they were led by the activist and astrophysicist, Fang Lizhi, who was then Vice Chancellor of the university. Fang talked openly about introducing political reforms which would end the influence of the Communist Party within the Chinese government. The protests were also led by two other "radical intellectuals", Wang Ruowang and Liu Binyan.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Deng Xiaoping disliked all three leaders, and ordered Hu to dismiss them from the Party in order to silence them, but Hu Yaobang refused. In January 1987, after two weeks of student protests demanding greater Western-style freedoms, a clique of Party elders and senior military officials forced Hu to resign on the grounds that he had been too lenient with student protesters and for moving too quickly towards free market-style economic reforms.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: After Hu's forced dismissal, Deng Xiaoping promoted Zhao Ziyang to replace the liberal Hu as Party general secretary, putting Zhao in a position to succeed Deng as "paramount leader". Hu officially resigned as Party general secretary on 16 January, but retained his seat in the Politburo Standing Committee. When Hu "resigned", the Party forced him to issue a humiliating "self-criticism of his mistakes on major issues of political principles in violation of the party's principle of collective leadership". During the event, which consisted of all of the Elders, Politburo, Secretariat, and the Central Advisory Commission, all of his allies abandoned him with the exception of his close friend, Xi Zhongxun, who stood up and defended him and lashed out at everybody for Hu's treatment. Hu had to keep Xi from losing his temper, telling him "Don't worry about it, Zhongxun, I've got this." After that, Hu became more reclusive and less active in Chinese politics, studying revolutionary history and practicing his calligraphy in his spare time, and taking long walks for exercise. Hu was generally viewed as having no real power after his resignation, and he was relegated to largely ceremonial roles.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu's "resignation" harmed the credibility of the CCP while improving Hu's own. Among Chinese intellectuals Hu became an example of a man who refused to compromise his convictions in the face of political resistance, and who had paid the price as a result. The promotion of a conservative, Li Peng, to the position of premier after Hu's departure from executive-level positions made the government less enthusiastic to pursue reform, and upset plans of an orderly succession of power from Deng Xiaoping to any politician similar to Hu.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: In October 1987, Hu retained his membership in the CCP's Central Committee at the 13th Party Congress, and was subsequently elected a member of the new Politburo by the first plenary session of the Central Committee. On 8 April 1989, Hu suffered a heart attack while attending a Politburo meeting in Zhongnanhai to discuss education reform. Hu was rushed to the hospital, accompanied by his wife. Hu died several days later, on 15 April. He was 73 years old. Hu's last words were that he should be buried simply, without extravagance, in his hometown.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: In his official obituary, Hu was described as "a long-tested and staunch communist warrior, a great proletarian revolutionist and statesman, an outstanding political leader for the Chinese army". Western reporters observed that Hu's obituary was intentionally "glowing" in order to divert suspicion that the Party had mistreated him. At the memorial service, Hu's widow Li Zhao blamed Hu's death on how harshly the party treated him, telling Deng Xiaoping "It's all because of you people!"


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Although he had become a semi-retired official by the time of his death, and had been removed from positions of real power for his "mistakes", public pressure forced the Chinese government to give him a state funeral, attended by Party leaders. The eulogy at Hu's funeral praised his work in restoring political normality and promoting economic development after the Cultural Revolution. Public mourners at Hu's funeral lined up long, a reaction which surprised China's leaders. Shortly after Hu's funeral, students in Beijing began petitioning the government to officially reverse the verdict that had led to Hu's "resignation", and to provide a more elaborate public funeral. The government then held a public memorial service for Hu in the Great Hall of the People.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: On 22 April 1989, 50,000 students marched to Tiananmen Square to participate in Hu's memorial service, and to deliver a letter of petition to Premier Li Peng. Many people were dissatisfied with the party's slow response and relatively subdued funerary arrangements. Public mourning began on the streets of Beijing and elsewhere. In Beijing, this was centred on the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square. The mourning became a public conduit for anger against perceived nepotism in the government, the unfair dismissal and early death of Hu, and the behind-the-scenes role of the "old men", officially retired leaders who nevertheless maintained quasi-legal power, such as Deng Xiaoping. The protests eventually escalated into the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Hu's promotion of the ideas on freedom of speech and freedom of press greatly influenced the students participating in the protests.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: After Hu's funeral, his body was cremated, and his ashes were buried in Babaoshan. Hu's wife, Li Zhao, was unhappy with the location of Hu's grave, and successfully petitioned the government to move Hu's remains to a more suitable site. Eventually Hu's remains were moved to a large mausoleum in Gongqingcheng, Jiangxi, a city that Hu had helped found in 1955. Hu's mausoleum is arguably the most impressive tomb of any senior CCP leader.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Li Zhao collected money for the construction of Hu's tomb from both private and public sources; and, with the help of her son, they selected an appropriate location in Gongqingcheng. The tomb was constructed in the shape of a pyramid, on the top of a hill. On 5 December 1990, Hu's ashes were flown to Gongqingcheng, carried by his son, Hu Deping. The ceremony was attended by Wen Jiabao, numerous Jiangxi public officials, and 2,000 members of the Communist Youth League. Gongqingcheng's factories and schools were closed for the day, allowing 7,000 local citizens to attend. At the ceremony, Li Zhao made a speech expressing her gratitude towards the government and for the people who attended.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 eventually ended in the violent suppression of protesters on 4 June 1989, in which hundreds of civilians were killed. Because the protests had been sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang, the government determined that any public discussion of Hu and his legacy could destabilize China by renewing debate about the political reforms that Hu supported. Because of the public association with Hu and the Tiananmen Square protests, Hu Yaobang's name became taboo on the mainland, and the Chinese government censored any mention of him in the media. In one example of government censorship, printed media which commemorated the anniversary of his death in 1994 were withdrawn from publication.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Hu Jintao announced plans to rehabilitate Hu Yaobang in August 2005, with events organised for 20 November, the 90th anniversary of Hu's birth. Ceremonies were planned in Beijing, where Hu died, in Hunan, where Hu was born, and in Jiangxi, where Hu was buried. Western observers noted that the move to rehabilitate Hu Yaobang may have been part of a broader political effort by Hu Jintao to gain support from reform-minded colleagues, who had always respected Hu Yaobang.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Some political analysts have argued that Hu Jintao's administration wished to be associated with Hu Yaobang. Both Hu's (no relation) rose to power through the Communist Youth League, and have been described as part of the same "Youth League Clique". Hu Yaobang's support was partially responsible for Hu Jintao's rapid promotion during the 1980s.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Some observers noted that Hu Yaobang's rehabilitation made it more likely that the Party would be willing to re-evaluate the 1989 Tiananmen protests, but other observers expressed skepticism. Memorials with the purpose of recognizing the date of someone's birth or death are often signs of political trends within China, with some pointing to the prospect of further reform. Skeptics noted that Hu Jintao made a statement praising the governments of Cuba and North Korea (in spite of their economic "flaws") shortly after announcing Hu Yaobang's public commemoration, implying that it would be unlikely that the party would pursue a dramatic programme of political reform in the near future.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: On 18 November 2005, the Communist Party officially celebrated the 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang's birth with activities at the People's Hall (the date was changed to two days before it was officially scheduled). Around 350 people attended, including premier Wen Jiabao, vice president Zeng Qinghong, and numerous other Party officials, celebrities, and members of Hu Yaobang's family. It was rumored that Hu Jintao wanted to attend, but was prevented from doing so by other senior members of the Party who still disliked Hu Yaobang. Wen was not given the opportunity to talk, and Zeng Qinghong was the most senior Party member to speak. In his speech, Zeng said that members should learn from Hu's merits, especially his frankness and genuine concern for the Chinese people. Zeng stated that Hu had "contributed all his life and built immortal merits for the liberation and happiness of the Chinese people ... His historic achievements and moral character will always be remembered by the Party and our people."


title: Hu Yaobang

text: The official three-volume biography and a collection of Hu's writings were slated for release in China. The project was originally begun by a group of Hu's former aides, led by Zhang Liqun (who died in 2003). After the government learned of the project, it insisted on taking control of it. One of the main issues that government censors identified was the concern that details of Hu's relationship with Deng Xiaoping (especially details of Hu's removal from power after resisting orders to crack down on student demonstrators in 1987) would reflect poorly on Deng's legacy. The authors of Hu's biography subsequently rejected offers from the government to released a censored version. Only one volume (dealing with events up to the end of the Cultural Revolution) of the biography written by Hu's former aides was eventually published, with the other two volumes held by the government and remaining unpublished.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: Although magazines publishing commemorative articles were initially stopped from being released, the ban was lifted in 2005 and these magazines were publicly issued. "Yanhuang Chunqiu", a reform-minded magazine, was allowed to publish a series of articles in 2005 commemorating the birthday of Hu Yaobang, but the government acted to limit the availability of the magazine. The issue commemorating Hu sold 50,000 copies, but the remaining 5,000 copies were destroyed by propaganda officials. This was the first time since his death that Hu's name appeared publicly.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: In April 2010 (the 21st anniversary of Hu's death), Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao wrote an article in the "People's Daily" titled "Recalling Hu Yaobang when I return to Xingyi". Presented as an essay, it recollected an investigation of ordinary people's lives by Hu Yaobang and Wen Jiabao in Xingyi County, Guizhou, in 1986. Wen, who worked with Hu from 1985 to 1987, praised Hu's "superior working style of being totally devoted to the suffering of the masses", and his "lofty morality and openness [of character]". Wen's essay elicited an enthusiastic reaction in Chinese-language websites, generating over 20,000 responses on Sina.com on the day the article appeared. The article was interpreted by observers familiar with the Chinese political system as a confirmation by Wen that he was a protégé of Hu, rather than Zhao Ziyang.


title: Hu Yaobang

text: On 20 November 2015, the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Hu Yaobang, Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping held a high-profile commemoration ceremony for Hu Yaobang in Beijing. In contrast to the event held by the previous leadership ten years earlier, the 100th anniversary event was deliberately high-profile and attended by all members of the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi lavished Hu with praise for his accomplishments, and said that Hu "dedicated his life to the party and to the people. His led a glorious life, a life of struggle ... his contributions will shine in history." Hu appeared as a character in the 2015 historical drama "Deng Xiaoping at History's Crossroads".


title: Madame Web

text: Madame Web (Cassandra Webb) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She first appeared in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #210, published November 1980, and was created by writer Denny O'Neil and artist John Romita Jr. She is usually depicted as a supporting character in the "Spider-Man" comic book series, where she appears as an elderly woman with myasthenia gravis, connected to a life support system resembling a spiderweb.


title: Madame Web

text: Madame Web was a clairvoyant, and precognitive mutant who first showed up to help Spider-Man find a kidnap victim. She was not one of the mutants that lost their power during the "Decimation" storyline. She was attacked by Sarah and Ana Kravinoff, who killed her, but not before she was able to pass her powers of precognition as well as her blindness on to Julia Carpenter, who became the next Madame Web. Webb is the grandmother of the fourth Spider-Woman, Charlotte Witter.


title: Madame Web

text: Madame Web was created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist John Romita Jr., and first appeared in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #210 (November 1980).


title: Madame Web

text: Cassandra Webb was born in Salem, Oregon. She is a paralyzed, blind, telepathic, clairvoyant, and precognitive mutant, allowing her to work as a professional medium. She was originally stricken with myasthenia gravis and was connected to a life support system designed by her husband Jonathan Webb, which included a series of tubes shaped like a spider-web.


title: Madame Web

text: When Spider-Man approached her to help find kidnapped "Daily Globe" publisher K.J. Clayton (actually an impersonator), Madame Web used her powers to help him locate and rescue both the real and the fake Clayton, but disclosed to him that she had divined his secret identity.


title: Madame Web

text: In the "Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut!" story arc, she contacts Spider-Man for assistance when Black Tom Cassidy dispatches the Juggernaut to capture her in the hope that her psychic powers would help them defeat the X-Men, only for her to nearly die after Juggernaut separated her from her life-support system. This triggered a vicious fight between Spider-Man and the Juggernaut, who was subsequently trapped in a construction site's wet cement foundation.


title: Madame Web

text: From the shock to her system, however, Madame Web apparently lost her memory of Spider-Man's secret identity.


title: Madame Web

text: Webb is the grandmother of the fourth Spider-Woman, Charlotte Witter. She participates in an arcane ritual known as the "Gathering of the Five", gaining immortality; she is restored to youth and her myasthenia gravis is cured. Webb serves as a mentor of sorts to the third Spider-Woman, the young Mattie Franklin.


title: Madame Web

text: Madame Web resurfaced, with her psychic powers intact, after "Decimation".However, since "House of M" (in which she did appear young) she seems to have regained her aged appearance, though the myasthenia gravis remains gone.


title: Madame Web

text: Madame Web again returns in a back-up feature in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #600. She looks into the future, showing what are apparently quick looks into Spider-Man's future, only to see someone "unravelling the web of fate", and fearfully exclaiming "They're hunting spiders." After that, she is attacked by Ana Kravinoff and her mother Sasha. The pair incapacitate her and then claim "we now have our eyes". She is seen still held captive by Ana and her mother, as they inspect their new quarry, Mattie Franklin. While still bound in a chair, she apologizes to a then-unconscious Mattie, who is later killed by Sasha Kravinoff as part of a sacrificial ritual that revived Grim Hunter.


title: Madame Web

text: At the conclusion of "Grim Hunt", Madame Web has her throat slashed by Sasha Kravinoff in retaliation, as Sasha believed that Madame Web was deceiving her and knew the outcome of the events that transpired. Before dying, she reveals she is no longer blind, and passes her psychic powers over to Julia Carpenter.


title: Madame Web

text: During the "" storyline, Madame Web was cloned by the Jackal. She tipped off Prowler about a bank robbery vision she had which he managed to stop the bank robbery. When Prowler goes to get more information on the hacker from Madame Web, she tells him that she sees buildings filled with agony that cannot escape. When the villains at New U Technologies are getting out of control, Jackal sends Electro to find Prowler to put them under check again. Electro goes to Madame Web's room and tortures the telepath into giving her Prowler's location with the intent to kill him. Julia Carpenter senses that Madame Web is alive from telepathic feedback resulting from Electro's attack. Julia infiltrates New U Technologies and uses the opportunity to investigate the near-abandoned facility. During this time, Julia is led to Madame Web who refuses to take her medication to aid her in healing from Electro's attack. Madame Web has seen the future and refuses to be a part of it. Before dying from clone degeneration, Madame Web tells Julia to save Prowler.


title: Madame Web

text: Madame Web is a mutant who possesses several psychic abilities. She can use telepathy to read the minds of others. She has the ability to see the future. Madame Web can project an astral form of herself away from her physical body. She can perform psychic surgery on the minds of others. She is sensitive to psychic energies, allowing her to sense the presence of psionic powers in others, to see the area surrounding her, and events which take place far away from her. Additionally, Madame Web has a gifted intellect.


title: Madame Web

text: When dying, she displayed the ability to transfer her mutation to another individual, such as Julia Carpenter. Madame Web was a victim of "myasthenia gravis", a disorder of neuromuscular junction transmission. As a result, she was an invalid, entirely dependent on external, life support for survival. This is no longer the case as she was cured of the condition some time ago. She is also blind and relies on her powers to compensate. Madame Web is cybernetically linked to a spider-web-like life-support chair which attends to all of her bodily needs.


title: Madame Web

text: In September 2019, Sony announced that a "Madame Web" solo film is in development with Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama writing the film, which will be part of the Sony's Spider-Man Universe. In February 2022, it was reported that Dakota Johnson will play the lead character, with Sydney Sweeney set to co-star. Celeste O'Connor, Isabela Merced, and Tahar Rahim were added to the cast in May, Emma Roberts was added in June. Mike Epps was added in July. In April 2022, the film's release date was announced to be July 7, 2023.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe (CoE; , ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it has 46 member states, with a population of approximately 675 million; it operates with an annual budget of approximately 500 million euros.


title: Council of Europe

text: The organisation is distinct from the European Union (EU), although it is sometimes confused with it, partly because the EU has adopted the original European flag, created for the Council of Europe in 1955, as well as the European anthem. No country has ever joined the EU without first belonging to the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is an official United Nations Observer.


title: Council of Europe

text: Being an international organization, the Council of Europe cannot make laws, but it does have the ability to push for the enforcement of select international agreements reached by member states on various topics. The best-known body of the Council of Europe is the European Court of Human Rights, which functions on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights.


title: Council of Europe

text: The council's two statutory bodies are the Committee of Ministers, comprising the foreign ministers of each member state, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which is composed of members of the national parliaments of each member state. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the member states. The Secretary General presides over the secretariat of the organisation. Other major CoE bodies include the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM) and the European Audiovisual Observatory.


title: Council of Europe

text: The headquarters of the Council of Europe, as well as its Court of Human Rights, are situated in Strasbourg, France. English and French are its two official languages. The Committee of Ministers, the PACE, and the Congress of the Council of Europe also use German and Italian for some of their work.


title: Council of Europe

text: In a speech in 1929, French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand floated the idea of an organisation which would gather European nations together in a "federal union" to resolve common problems. But it was Britain's wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill who first publicly suggested the creation of a "Council of Europe" in a BBC radio broadcast on 21 March 1943, while the Second World War was still raging. In his own words, he tried to "peer through the mists of the future to the end of the war", and think about how to re-build and maintain peace on a shattered continent. Given that Europe had been at the origin of two world wars, the creation of such a body would be, he suggested, "a stupendous business". He returned to the idea during a well-known speech at the University of Zurich on 19 September 1946, throwing the full weight of his considerable post-war prestige behind it. But there were many other statesmen and politicians across the continent, many of them members of the European Movement, who were quietly working towards the creation of the council. Some regarded it as a guarantee that the horrors of war could never again be visited on the continent, others came to see it as a "club of democracies", built around a set of common values that could stand as a bulwark against totalitarian states belonging to the Eastern Bloc. Others again saw it as a nascent "United States of Europe", the resonant phrase that Churchill had reached for at Zurich in 1946.


title: Council of Europe

text: The future structure of the Council of Europe was discussed at the Congress of Europe which brought together several hundred leading politicians, government representatives and members of civil society in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1948. There were two competing schools of thought: some favoured a classical international organisation with representatives of governments, while others preferred a political forum with parliamentarians. Both approaches were finally combined through the creation of a Committee of Ministers (in which governments were represented) and a Consultative Assembly (in which parliaments were represented), the two main bodies mentioned in the Statute of the Council of Europe. This dual intergovernmental and inter-parliamentary structure was later copied for the European Communities, NATO and OSCE.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe was signed into existence on 5 May 1949 by the Treaty of London, the organisation's founding Statute which set out the three basic values that should guide its work: democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It was signed in London on that day by ten states: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom, though Turkey and Greece joined three months later. On 10 August 1949, 100 members of the council's Consultative Assembly, parliamentarians drawn from the twelve member nations, met in Strasbourg for its first plenary session, held over 18 sittings and lasting nearly a month. They debated how to reconcile and reconstruct a continent still reeling from war, yet already facing a new East–West divide, launched the concept of a trans-national court to protect the basic human rights of every citizen, and took the first steps in a process that would eventually lead to the creation of the European Union.


title: Council of Europe

text: In August 1949, Paul-Henri Spaak resigned as Belgium's foreign minister in order to be elected as the first president of the assembly. Behind the scenes, he too had been quietly working towards the creation of the council, and played a key role in steering its early work. However, in December 1951, after nearly three years in the role, Spaak resigned in disappointment after the Assembly rejected proposals for a "European political authority". Convinced that the Council of Europe was never going to be in a position to achieve his long-term goal of a unified Europe, he soon tried again in a new and more promising format, based this time on economic integration, becoming one of the founders of the European Union.


title: Council of Europe

text: There was huge enthusiasm for the Council of Europe in its early years, as its pioneers set about drafting what was to become the European Convention on Human Rights, a charter of individual rights which – it was hoped – no member government could ever again violate. They drew, in part, on the tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed only a few months earlier in Paris. But crucially, where the Universal Declaration was essentially aspirational, the European Convention from the beginning featured an enforcement mechanism - an international Court - which was to adjudicate on alleged violations of its articles and hold governments to account, a dramatic leap forward for international justice. Today, this is the European Court of Human Rights, whose rulings are binding on 47 European nations, the most far-reaching system of international justice anywhere in the world.


title: Council of Europe

text: One of the council's first acts was to welcome West Germany into its fold on 2 May 1951, setting a pattern of post-war reconciliation that was to become a hallmark of the council, and beginning a long process of "enlargement" which was to see the organisation grow from its original ten founding member states to the 47 nations that make up the Council of Europe today. Iceland had already joined in 1950, followed in 1956 by Austria, Cyprus in 1961, Switzerland in 1963 and Malta in 1965.


title: Council of Europe

text: In 2018, an archive of all speeches made to the PACE by heads of state or government since the Council of Europe's creation in 1949 appeared online, the fruit of a two-year project entitled "Voices of Europe". At the time of its launch, the archive comprised 263 speeches delivered over a 70-year period by some 216 presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and religious leaders from 45 countries – though it continues to expand, as new speeches are added every few months.


title: Council of Europe

text: Some very early speeches by individuals considered to be "founding figures" of the European institutions, even if they were not heads of state or government at the time, are also included (such as Sir Winston Churchill or Robert Schuman). Addresses by eight monarchs appear in the list (such as King Juan Carlos I of Spain, King Albert II of Belgium and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg) as well as the speeches given by religious figures (such as Pope John Paul II, and Pope Francis) and several leaders from countries in the Middle East and North Africa (such as Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat, Hosni Mubarak, Léopold Sédar Senghor or King Hussein of Jordan).


title: Council of Europe

text: The full text of the speeches is given in both English and French, regardless of the original language used. The archive is searchable by country, by name, and chronologically.


title: Council of Europe

text: Article 1(a) of the Statute states that "The aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress." Membership is open to all European states who seek harmony, cooperation, good governance and human rights, accepting the principle of the rule of law and are able and willing to guarantee democracy, fundamental human rights and freedoms.


title: Council of Europe

text: Whereas the member states of the European Union transfer part of their national legislative and executive powers to the European Commission and the European Parliament, Council of Europe member states maintain their sovereignty but commit themselves through conventions/treaties (international law) and co-operate on the basis of common values and common political decisions. Those conventions and decisions are developed by the member states working together at the Council of Europe. Both organisations function as concentric circles around the common foundations for European co-operation and harmony, with the Council of Europe being the geographically wider circle. The European Union could be seen as the smaller circle with a much higher level of integration through the transfer of powers from the national to the EU level. "The Council of Europe and the European Union: different roles, shared values." Council of Europe conventions/treaties are also open for signature to non-member states, thus facilitating equal co-operation with countries outside Europe.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe's most famous achievement is the European Convention on Human Rights, which was adopted in 1950 following a report by the PACE, and followed on from the United Nations 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' (UDHR). The Convention created the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Court supervises compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights and thus functions as the highest European court. It is to this court that Europeans can bring cases if they believe that a member country has violated their fundamental rights and freedoms.


title: Council of Europe

text: The various activities and achievements of the Council of Europe can be found in detail on its official website. The Council of Europe works in the following areas:


title: Council of Europe

text: The CoE system also includes a number of semi-autonomous structures known as "Partial Agreements", some of which are also open to non-member states:


title: Council of Europe

text: The seat of the Council of Europe is in Strasbourg, France. First meetings were held in Strasbourg's University Palace in 1949, but the Council of Europe soon moved into its own buildings. The Council of Europe's eight main buildings are situated in the "Quartier européen", an area in the northeast of Strasbourg spread over the three districts of Le Wacken, La Robertsau and Quartier de l'Orangerie, where are also located the four buildings of the seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the Arte headquarters and the seat of the International Institute of Human Rights.


title: Council of Europe

text: Building in the area started in 1949 with the predecessor of the Palais de l'Europe, the House of Europe (demolished in 1977), and came to a provisional end in 2007 with the opening of the New General Office Building, later named "Agora", in 2008. The Palais de l'Europe (Palace of Europe) and the Art Nouveau Villa Schutzenberger (seat of the European Audiovisual Observatory) are in the Orangerie district, and the European Court of Human Rights, the EDQM and the Agora Building are in the Robertsau district. The Agora building has been voted "best international business center real estate project of 2007" on 13 March 2008, at the MIPIM 2008. The European Youth Centre is located in the Wacken district.


title: Council of Europe

text: Besides its headquarters in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe is also present in other cities and countries. The Council of Europe Development Bank has its seat in Paris, the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe is established in Lisbon, Portugal, and the Centre for Modern Languages is in Graz, Austria. There are European Youth Centres in Budapest, Hungary, and in Strasbourg. The European Wergeland Centre, a new Resource Centre on education for intercultural dialogue, human rights and democratic citizenship, operated in cooperation with the Norwegian Government, opened in Oslo, Norway, in February 2009.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe has external offices all over the European continent and beyond. There are four ‘Programme Offices’, namely in Ankara, Podgorica, Skopje, Venice. There are also ‘Council of Europe Offices’ in Baku, Belgrade, Chisinau, Kyiv, Paris, Pristina, Sarajevo, Tbilisi, Tirana, and Yerevan. Bucharest has a Council of Europe Office on Cybercrime. There are also Council of Europe Offices in non-European capital cities like Rabat and Tunis.


title: Council of Europe

text: There are two main criteria for membership: geographic (Article 4 of the Council of Europe Statute specifies that membership is open to any "European" State) and political (Article 3 of the Statute states applying for membership must accept democratic values—"Every member of the Council of Europe must accept the principles of the rule of law and the enjoyment by all persons within its jurisdiction of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and collaborate sincerely and effectively in the realisation of the aim of the Council as specified in Chapter I").


title: Council of Europe

text: Since "Europe" is not defined in international law, the definition of "Europe" has been a question that has recurred during the CoE's history. Turkey was admitted in 1950, although it is a transcontinental state that lies mostly in Asia, with a smaller portion in Europe. In 1994, the PACE adopted Recommendation 1247, which said that admission to the CoE should be "in principle open only to states whose national territory lies wholly or partly in Europe"; later, however, the Assembly extended eligibility to apply and be admitted to Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe was founded on 5 May 1949 by Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Greece and Turkey joined 3 months later. Iceland West Germany and Saarland Protectorate joined the Council of Europe as associate members in 1950. West Germany became a full member in 1951, and the Saar withdrew its application after it joined West Germany following the 1955 Saar Statute referendum. Joining later were Austria (1956), Cyprus (1961), Switzerland (1963), Malta (1965), and Portugal (1976). Spain joined in 1977, two years after the death of its dictator Francisco Franco and the Spanish transition to democracy. Next to join were Liechtenstein (1978), San Marino (1988) and Finland (1989). After the fall of Communism with the Revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet states in Europe that began democratization joined: Hungary (1990), Poland (1991), Bulgaria (1992), Estonia (1993), Lithuania (1993), Slovenia (1993), the Czech Republic (1993), Slovakia (1993), Romania (1993), Latvia (1995), Moldova (1995), Albania (1995), Ukraine (1995), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (1995) (later renamed North Macedonia), Russia (1996, expelled 2022), Croatia (1996), Georgia (1999), Armenia (2001), Azerbaijan (2001), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2002) and Serbia and Montenegro (later Serbia) (2003). Also joining were the small Western European nations of Andorra (1994) and Monaco (2004). The Council now has 46 member states, with Montenegro (2007) being the latest to join.


title: Council of Europe

text: Although most Council members are predominantly Christian in heritage, there are three Muslim-majority member states: Turkey, Albania, and Azerbaijan.


title: Council of Europe

text: The CoE has granted some countries a status that allows them to participate in CoE activities without being full members. There are three types of nonmember status: "associate member", "special guest" and "observer". Associate member status is no longer used. "Special guest" status was used as a transitional status for post-Soviet countries that wished to join the council after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and is no longer commonly used. "Observer" status is for non-European nations who accept democracy, rule of law, and human rights, and wish to participate in Council initiatives. The United States became an observer state in 1995. Currently, Canada, the Holy See, Japan, Mexico, and the United States are observer states, while Israel is an observer to the PACE.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Statute of the Council of Europe provides for the voluntary suspension, involuntary suspension, and exclusion of members. Article 8 of the Statute provides that any member who has "seriously violated" Article 3 may be suspended from its rights of representation, and that the Committee of Ministers may request that such a member withdraw from the Council under Article 7. (The Statute does not define the "serious violation" phrase. Under Article 8 of the Statute, if a member state fails to withdraw upon request, the Committee may terminate its membership, in consultation with the PACE.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council suspended Greece in 1967, after a military coup d'état, and the Greek junta withdrew from the CoE. Greece was readmitted to the council in 1974.


title: Council of Europe

text: Russia became a member of the Council of Europe in 1996. In 2014, after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported separatists in eastern Ukraine, precipitating a bloody conflict, the Council stripped Russia of its voting rights in the PACE. In response, Russia began to boycott the Assembly in 2016, and beginning in 2017 refused to pay its annual membership dues of 32.6 million euros (US$37.1 million) to the Council placing the institution under financial strain.


title: Council of Europe

text: Russia claimed that its suspension by the council was unfair, and demanded the restoration of voting rights. Russia had threatened to withdraw from the Council unless its voting rights were restored in time for the election of a new secretary general. European Council secretary-general Thorbjørn Jagland organized a special committee to find a compromise with Russia in early 2018, a move that was criticized as giving in to alleged Russian pressure by Council members and academic observers, especially if voting sanctions were lifted. In June 2019, the Council voted (on a 118–62 vote, with 10 abstentions) to restore Russia's voting rights in the council. Opponents of lifting the suspension included Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries, such as Poland and the Baltic states, who argued that readmission amounted to normalizing Russia's malign activity. Supporters of restoring Russia's council rights included France and Germany, which argued that a Russian withdrawal from the council would be harmful because it would deprive Russian citizens of their ability to initiate cases in the European Court of Human Rights.


title: Council of Europe

text: On 3 March 2022, after Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, the council suspended Russia for violations of the council's statute and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The suspension blocked Russia from participation in the council's ministerial council, the PACE, and the Council of the Baltic Sea States, but still left Russia obligated to follow the ECHR. On 15 March 2022, hours before the vote to expel the country, Russia initiated a voluntary withdrawal procedure from the council, delivering its formal desire to withdraw on 31 December 2022, and announced its intent to denounce the ECHR. However, on the same day, the council's Committee of Ministers decided Russia's membership in the council would be immediately terminated, and determined that Russia had been excluded from the Council instead under its exclusion mechanism rather than the withdrawal mechanism. After being excluded from the Council of Europe, Russia's former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev endorsed restoring the death penalty in Russia.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe works mainly through international treaties, usually called conventions in its system. By drafting conventions or international treaties, common legal standards are set for its member states. However, several conventions have also been opened for signature to non-member states. Important examples are the Convention on Cybercrime (signed for example, by Canada, Japan, South Africa and the United States), the Lisbon Recognition Convention on the recognition of study periods and degrees (signed for example, by Australia, Belarus, Canada, the Holy See, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, New Zealand and the United States), the Anti-doping Convention (signed, for example, by Australia, Belarus, Canada and Tunisia) and the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (signed for example, by Burkina Faso, Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal as well as the European Community). Non-member states also participate in several partial agreements, such as the Venice Commission, the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO), the European Pharmacopoeia Commission and the North-South Centre.


title: Council of Europe

text: Invitations to sign and ratify relevant conventions of the Council of Europe on a case-by-case basis are sent to three groups of non-member entities:


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe is not to be confused with the Council of the European Union (the "Council of Ministers") or the European Council. These belong to the European Union, which is separate from the Council of Europe, although they have shared the same European flag and anthem since the 1980s since they both work for European integration. Nor is the Council of Europe to be confused with the European Union itself.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe is an entirely separate body from the European Union. It is not controlled by it.


title: Council of Europe

text: Cooperation between the European Union and the Council of Europe has recently been reinforced, notably on culture and education as well as on the international enforcement of justice and Human Rights.


title: Council of Europe

text: The European Union is expected to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights (the convention). There are also concerns about consistency in case law – the European Court of Justice (the EU's court in Luxembourg) is treating the convention as part of the legal system of all EU member states in order to prevent conflict between its judgements and those of the European Court of Human Rights (the court in Strasbourg interpreting the convention). Protocol No. 14 of the convention is designed to allow the EU to accede to it and the EU Treaty of Lisbon contains a protocol binding the EU to join. The EU would thus be subject to its human rights law and external monitoring as its member states currently are.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe Schools of political studies were established to train future generations of political, economic, social and cultural leaders in countries in transition. With the participation of national and international experts, they run annual series of seminars and conferences on topics such as European integration, democracy, human rights, the rule of law and globalisation. The first School of Political Studies was created in Moscow in 1992. Since then, 20 other schools have been set up along the same lines and now form an Association; a genuine network now covering the whole of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, as well as some countries in the Southern Mediterranean region. The Council of Europe Schools of political studies is part of the Education Department which is part of the Directorate of Democratic Participation within the Directorate General of Democracy ("DGII") of the Council of Europe.


title: Council of Europe

text: The beginning of co-operation between the CoE and the UN started with the agreement signed by the Secretariats of these institutions on 15 December 1951. On 17 October 1989, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved a resolution on granting observer status to the Council of Europe which was proposed by several member states of the CoE. Currently, the Council of Europe holds observer status with the United Nations and is regularly represented in the UN General Assembly. It has organised the regional UN conferences against racism and on women and co-operates with the United Nations at many levels, in particular in the areas of human rights, minorities, migration and counter-terrorism. In November 2016, the UN General Assembly adopted by consensus Resolution (A/Res/71/17) on Cooperation between the United Nations and the Council of Europe whereby it acknowledged the contribution of Council of Europe to the protection and strengthening of human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law, welcomed the ongoing co-operation in a variety of fields.


title: Council of Europe

text: Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can participate in the INGOs Conference of the Council of Europe and become observers to inter-governmental committees of experts. The Council of Europe drafted the European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organisations in 1986, which sets the legal basis for the existence and work of NGOs in Europe. Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to freedom of association, which is also a fundamental norm for NGOs. The rules for consultative status for INGOs appended to the resolution (93)38 "On relation between the Council of Europe and non-governmental organisations", adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 18 October 1993 at the 500th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies.


title: Council of Europe

text: On 19 November 2003, the Committee of Ministers changed the consultative status into a participatory status, "considering that it is indispensable that the rules governing the relations between the Council of Europe and NGOs evolve to reflect the active participation of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) in the Organisation's policy and work programme".


title: Council of Europe

text: On 30 May 2018, the Council of Europe signed a memorandum of understanding with the European football confederation UEFA.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe also signed an agreement with FIFA in which the two agreed to strengthen future cooperation in areas of common interests. The deal which included cooperation between member states in the sport of football and safety and security at football matches was finalized in October 2018.


title: Council of Europe

text: The General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe grants the organisation certain privileges and immunities.


title: Council of Europe

text: The working conditions of staff are governed by the council's staff regulations, which are public. Salaries and emoluments paid by the Council of Europe to its officials are tax-exempt on the basis of Article 18 of the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe.


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe created, and has since 1955 used as its official symbol, the European Flag with 12 golden stars arranged in a circle on a blue background.


title: Council of Europe

text: Its musical anthem since 1972, the "European anthem", is based on the "Ode to Joy" theme from Ludwig van Beethoven's ninth symphony.


title: Council of Europe

text: On 5 May 1964, the 15th anniversary of its founding, the Council of Europe established 5 May as Europe Day.


title: Council of Europe

text: The wide private and public use of the European Flag is encouraged to symbolise a European dimension. To avoid confusion with the European Union which subsequently adopted the same flag in the 1980s, as well as other European institutions, the Council of Europe often uses a modified version with a lower-case "e" surrounding the stars which are referred to as the "Council of Europe Logo".


title: Council of Europe

text: The Council of Europe has been accused of not having any meaningful purpose, being superfluous in its aims to other pan-European bodies, including the European Union and OSCE. In 2013 "The Economist" agreed, saying that the "Council of Europe's credibility is on the line". Both Human Rights Watch and the European Stability Initiative have called on the Council of Europe to undertake concrete actions to show that it is willing and able to return to its "original mission to protect and ensure human rights".


title: Council of Europe

text: In October 2022, a new and different Pan-European meeting of 44 states was held, as the "inaugural summit of the European Political Community", a new forum largely organized by French President Emmanuel Macron. The Council of Europe, sidelined, reportedly was "perplexed" with this development, with a spokesperson stating "In the field of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, such a pan-European community already exists: it is the Council of Europe." A feature of the new forum is that Russia and Belarus are deliberately excluded, but that does not immediately explain the need for a different entity, Russia is no longer a member of the Council of Europe and Belarus only participates partially, as a non-member.


title: Council of Europe

text: After Azerbaijan joined the CoE in 2001, both the Council and its Parliamentary Assembly were criticized for having a weak response to election rigging and human rights violations in Azerbaijan. The Human Rights Watch criticized the Council of Europe in 2014 for allowing Azerbaijan to assume the six-month rotating chairmanship of the council's Committee of Ministers, writing that the Azeri government's repression of human rights defenders, dissidents, and journalists "shows sheer contempt for its commitments to the Council of Europe". An internal inquiry was set up in 2017 amid allegations of bribery by Azerbajian government officials and criticism of "caviar diplomacy at the Council. A 219-page report was issued in 2018 after a ten-month investigation. It concluded that several members of the Parliamentary Assembly broke CoE ethical rules and were "strongly suspected" of corruption; it strongly criticized former Parliamentary Assembly president Pedro Agramunt and suggested that he had engaged in "corruptive activities" before his resignation under pressure in 2017. The inquiry also named Italian member Luca Volontè as a suspect in "activities of a corruptive nature". Volontè was investigated by Italian police and accused by Italian prosecutors in 2017 of receiving over 2.39 million euros in bribes in exchange for working for Azerbaijan in the parliamentary assembly, and that in 2013 he played a key role in orchestrating the defeat of a highly critical report on the abuse of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. In 2021, Volontè was convicted of accepting bribes from Azerbaijani officials to water down critiques of the nation's human rights record, and he was sentenced by a court in Milan to four years in prison.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter teams in 1901, the franchise spent its first year as a major league club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers before moving to St. Louis, Missouri, to become the St. Louis Browns in 1902. After 52 years in St. Louis, the franchise was purchased in November 1953 by a syndicate of Baltimore business and civic interests led by attorney and civic activist Clarence Miles and Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. The team's current owner is American trial lawyer Peter Angelos.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles adopted their team name in honor of the official state bird of Maryland; it had been used previously by several baseball clubs in the city, including another AL charter member franchise also named the "Baltimore Orioles", which moved to New York in 1903 to eventually become the Yankees. Nicknames for the team include the "O's" and the "Birds".


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles experienced their greatest success from 1966 to 1983, when they made six World Series appearances, winning three of them (1966, 1970, 1983). This era of the club featured several future Hall of Famers who would later be inducted representing the Orioles, such as third baseman Brooks Robinson, outfielder Frank Robinson, starting pitcher Jim Palmer, first baseman Eddie Murray, shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., and manager Earl Weaver. The Orioles have won a total of nine division championships (1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1979, 1983, 1997, 2014), seven pennants (1944 while in St. Louis, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979, 1983), and three wild card berths (1996, 2012, 2016). The franchise was the last charter member of the American League to win a pennant, and the last charter member to win a World Series.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: After suffering a stretch of 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1998 to 2011, the team qualified for the postseason three times under manager Buck Showalter and general manager Dan Duquette, including a division title and advancement to the American League Championship Series for the first time in 17 years in 2014. However, the 2018 team finished with a 47–115 record, prompting the team to move on from Showalter and Duquette following the season's conclusion. The Orioles' current manager is Brandon Hyde, while Mike Elias serves as general manager and executive vice president.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles are well known for their influential ballpark, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which opened in 1992 in downtown Baltimore.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: From 1901 through the end of 2021, the franchise's overall win–loss record is 8,845–9,873 (). Since moving to Baltimore in 1954, the Orioles have an overall win–loss record of 5,466–5,398 () through the end of 2022.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The modern Orioles franchise can trace its roots back to the original Milwaukee Brewers of the minor Western League, beginning in 1877, when the league reorganized. The Brewers were there when the Western League renamed itself the American League in 1900.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: At the end of the 1900 season, the American League removed itself from baseball's National Agreement (the formal understanding between the NL and the minor leagues). Two months later, the AL declared itself a competing major league. As a result of several franchise shifts, the Brewers were one of only two Western League teams that didn't fold, move or get kicked out of the league (the other being the Detroit Tigers). In its first game in the American League, the team lost to the Detroit Tigers 14–13 after surrendering a nine-run lead in the 9th inning. To this day, it is a major league record for the biggest deficit overcome that late in the game. In the first American League season in 1901, they finished last (eighth place) with a record of 48–89. During its lone Major League season, the team played at Lloyd Street Grounds, between 16th and 18th Streets in Milwaukee.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: After one year in Milwaukee, the club relocated to St Louis, and for a while enjoyed some success, especially in the 1920s behind Hall of Fame first baseman George Sisler. However, the team's fortunes declined from then on, as playing success and gate receipts instead went increasingly to the Browns' own tenants at Sportsman's Park, the National League Cardinals, who became perennial NL contenders in the 1920s due to organizational innovations by team president Branch Rickey, a former player and manager for the Browns.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Through World War II, the Browns won only one pennant, in the 1944 season stocked with wartime replacement players, and lost to the Cardinals in the third and last World Series played entirely in one ballpark, (until 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In 1953, with the Browns unable to afford even basic stadium upkeep and facing potential condemnation of the park by safety inspectors, owner Bill Veeck sold Sportsman's Park to the Cardinals and attempted to move the club back to Milwaukee, but this was vetoed by the other American League owners.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Instead, Veeck sold his franchise to a partnership of Baltimore businessmen. Because Veeck was unpopular with fellow American League owners, his leaving baseball was a condition for the AL owners to approve the move.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Miles-Krieger (Gunther Brewing Company)-Hoffberger group renamed their new team the Baltimore Orioles soon after taking control of the franchise. The nickname has a rich history in Baltimore, having been used by a National League club in the 1890s, an (1901–02), and an International League club (AAA) from 1903 to 1953. The IL Orioles' most famous player was a local Baltimore product, hard-hitting left-handed pitcher Babe Ruth. When Oriole Park burned down in 1944, the team moved to a temporary home, Municipal Stadium, where they won the Junior World Series. Their large postseason crowds caught the attention of the major leagues, eventually leading to a new MLB franchise in Baltimore.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The new AL Orioles took about six years to become competitive even after jettisoning most of the holdovers from St. Louis. Under the guidance of Paul Richards, who served as both field manager and general manager from 1955 to 1958 (the first man since John McGraw to hold both positions simultaneously), the Orioles began a slow climb to respectability. While they posted a .500 record only once in their first five years (76–76 in ), they were a success at the gate. In their first season, for instance, they drew more than 1.06 million fans – more than five times what they had ever drawn in their tenures in Milwaukee and St. Louis. This came amid slight turnover in the ownership group. Miles served as team president for two years, then stepped down in favor of developer James Keelty. In turn, Keelty gave way in to financier Joe Iglehart.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: By the early 1960s, stars such as Brooks Robinson, John "Boog" Powell, and Dave McNally were being developed by a strong farm system. The Orioles first made themselves heard in , when they finished 89–65, good enough for second in the American League. While they were still eight games behind the Yankees, it was the first time they had been a factor in a pennant race that late in the season since 1944. It was also the first season of a 26-year stretch where the team would have only two losing seasons. Shortstop Ron Hansen was named AL Rookie of the Year, and first-year pitcher Chuck Estrada tied for the league lead in wins with 18, finishing second to Hansen in the Rookie of the Year balloting.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: After the 1965 season, Hoffberger acquired controlling interest in the Orioles from Iglehart and installed himself as president. He had been serving as a silent partner over the past decade despite being the largest shareholder. Frank Cashen, advertising chief of Hoffberger's brewery, became executive vice-president.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles farm system had begun to produce a number of high-quality players and coaches who formed the core of winning teams; from 1966 to 1983, the Orioles won three World Series titles (1966, 1970, and 1983), six American League pennants (1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979, and 1983), and five of the first six American League East titles. The first of those titles, in 1966, made the Orioles the last of the eight teams that made up the American League from 1903 to 1960 to win a World Series.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: During this time, the Orioles were known for playing baseball the Oriole Way, an organizational ethic best described by longtime farm hand and coach Cal Ripken, Sr.'s phrase ""perfect practice makes perfect!"" The Oriole Way was a belief that hard work, professionalism, and a strong understanding of fundamentals were the keys to success at the major league level. It was based on the belief that if every coach, at every level, taught the game the same way, the organization could produce "replacement parts" that could be substituted seamlessly into the big league club with little or no adjustment. This led to a run of success from 1966 to 1983 which saw the Orioles become the envy of the league, and the winningest team in baseball.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: During this stretch, three different Orioles were named Most Valuable Player (Frank Robinson in 1966, Boog Powell in 1970, and Cal Ripken Jr. in 1983), four Oriole pitchers combined for six Cy Young Awards (Mike Cuellar in 1969, Jim Palmer in 1973, 1975, and 1976, Mike Flanagan in 1979, and Steve Stone in 1980), and three players were named Rookie of the Year (Al Bumbry in 1973, Eddie Murray in 1977, and Cal Ripken Jr. in 1982).


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: It was also during this time that the Orioles severed their last remaining financial link to their era in St. Louis. In 1979, Hoffberger sold the Orioles to his longtime friend, Washington attorney Edward Bennett Williams. As part of the deal, Williams bought the publicly traded shares Donald Barnes had issued in 1936 while the team was still in St. Louis, making the franchise privately held once again and severing one of the few remaining links with the Orioles' past in St. Louis.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: During this rise to prominence, "Weaver Ball" came into vogue. Named for fiery manager Earl Weaver, it was defined by the Oriole trifecta of ""Pitching, Defense, and the Three-Run Home Run."" When an Oriole GM was told by a reporter that Weaver, as the skipper of a very talented team, was a "push-button manager", he replied, ""Earl built the machine and installed all the buttons!""


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: As Frank and Brooks Robinson grew older, newer stars emerged, including multiple Cy Young Award winner Jim Palmer and switch-hitting first baseman Eddie Murray. With the decline and eventual departure of two other professional sports teams in the area, the NFL's Baltimore Colts and baseball's Washington Senators, the Orioles' excellence paid off at the gate, as the team cultivated a large and rabid fan base at Memorial Stadium.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: After winning the 1983 World Series, the Orioles spent the next five years in steady decline, finishing 1986 in last place for the first time since the franchise moved to Baltimore. The team hit bottom in 1988 when it started the season 0–21, en route to 107 losses and the worst record in the majors that year. The "Why Not?" Orioles surprised the baseball world the following year by spending most of the summer in first place until September when the Toronto Blue Jays overtook them and seized the AL East title on the final weekend of the regular season. The next two years were spent below the .500 mark, highlighted only by Cal Ripken Jr. winning his second AL MVP Award in 1991. The Orioles said goodbye to Memorial Stadium, the team's home for 38 years, at the end of the 1991 campaign.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Opening to much fanfare in 1992, Oriole Park at Camden Yards was an instant success, spawning other retro-designed major league ballparks within the next two decades. The stadium became the site of the 1993 All-Star Game. The Orioles returned to contention in those first two seasons at Camden Yards, only to finish in third place both times.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In 1993, with then-owner Eli Jacobs forced to divest himself of the franchise, Baltimore-based attorney Peter Angelos, along with the ownership syndicate he headed, was awarded the Orioles in bankruptcy court in New York City, returning the team to local ownership for the first time since 1979. The Orioles, who spent all of 1994 chasing the New York Yankees, occupied second place in the new five-team AL East when the players strike, which began on August 11, forced the eventual cancellation of the season.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The labor impasse would continue into the spring of 1995. Almost all the major league clubs held spring training using replacement players, with the intention of beginning the season with them. The Orioles, whose owner was a labor union lawyer, were the lone dissenters against creating an ersatz team, choosing instead to sit out spring training and possibly the entire season. Had they fielded a substitute team, Cal Ripken Jr.'s consecutive games streak would have been jeopardized. The replacements questions became moot when the strike was finally settled. The Ripken countdown resumed once the season began. Ripken finally broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak of 2,130 games in a nationally televised game against the California Angels on September 6. This was later voted the all-time baseball moment of the 20th century by fans from around the country in 1999. Ripken finished his streak with 2,632 straight games, finally sitting on September 20, 1998, the Orioles final home game of the season against the Yankees at Camden Yards.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Before the 1996 season, Angelos hired Pat Gillick as general manager. Given the green light to spend heavily on established talent, Gillick signed several premium players like B. J. Surhoff, Randy Myers, David Wells and Roberto Alomar. Under new manager Davey Johnson and on the strength of a then-major league record 257 home runs in a single season, the Orioles returned to the playoffs after a 12-year absence by clinching the AL wild card berth. Alomar set off a firestorm in September when he spat into home plate umpire John Hirschbeck's face during an argument in Toronto. He was later suspended for the first five games of the 1997 season, even though most wanted him banned from the postseason. After dethroning the defending American League champion Cleveland Indians 3–1 in the Division Series, the Orioles fell to the Yankees 4–1 in an ALCS notable for right field umpire Rich Garcia's failure to call fan interference in the first game of the series, when 12-year-old Yankee fan Jeffrey Maier reached over the outfield wall to catch an in-play ball, which was scored as a home run for Derek Jeter, tying the game at 4–4 in the eighth inning. Absent Maier's interference, it appeared as if the ball might have been off the wall or caught by right fielder Tony Tarasco. The Yankees went on to win the game in extra innings on an ensuing walk-off home run by Bernie Williams.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles went "wire-to-wire" (first place from start to finish) in winning the AL East title in 1997. After eliminating the Seattle Mariners 3–1 in the Division Series, the team lost again in the ALCS, this time to the underdog Indians 4–2, with each Oriole loss by only a run. Johnson resigned as manager after the season, largely due to a spat with Angelos concerning Alomar's fine for missing a team function being donated to Johnson's wife's charity. Pitching coach Ray Miller replaced Johnson.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: With Miller at the helm, the Orioles found themselves not only out of the playoffs, but also with a losing season. When Gillick's contract expired in 1998, it was not renewed. Angelos brought in Frank Wren to take over as GM. The Orioles added volatile slugger Albert Belle, but the team's woes continued in the 1999 season, with stars like Rafael Palmeiro, Roberto Alomar, and Eric Davis leaving in free agency. After a second straight losing season, Angelos fired both Miller and Wren. He named Syd Thrift the new GM and brought in former Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove. In a rare event on March 28, 1999, the Orioles staged an exhibition series against the Cuban national team in Havana. The Orioles won the game 3–2 in 11 innings. They were the first Major League team to play in Cuba since 1959, when the Los Angeles Dodgers faced the Orioles in an exhibition. The Cuban team visited Baltimore in May 1999 (winning 10–6).


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The first decade of the 21st century saw the Orioles struggle due to the combination of lackluster play on the team's part, a string of ineffective management, and the ascent of New York and Boston to the top of the game – each rival having a clear advantage in financial flexibility due to their larger media market size. Further complicating the situation for the Orioles was the relocation of the National League's Montreal Expos franchise to nearby Washington, D.C. in 2004. Orioles owner Peter Angelos demanded compensation from Major League Baseball, as the new Washington Nationals threatened to carve into the Orioles fan base and television dollars. However, there was some hope that having competition in the larger Baltimore-Washington metro market would spur the Orioles to field a better product to compete for fans with the Nationals.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: A new President of Baseball of Operations named Andy MacPhail was brought in about halfway through the 2007 season. MacPhail spent the remainder of the 2007 season assessing the talent level of the Orioles, and determined that significant steps needed to be made if the Orioles were ever to be a contender again in the American League East. He completed two blockbuster trades during the next off-season, each sending a premium player away in return for five prospects (or younger less expensive players). Tejada, who had hit .296 with 18 HR and 81 RBI in 2007, went to the Houston Astros in exchange for outfielder Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton, and Dennis Sarfate, and third baseman Mike Costanzo. Also, the newly designated ace of the Orioles rotation Érik Bédard, who went 13–5 with a 3.16 ERA in 2007 with 221 strikeouts, was sent to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for top outfield prospect Adam Jones, left-handed pitcher George Sherrill, and three minor league pitchers Chris Tillman, Kam Mickolio, and Tony Butler. The Bedard trade in particular would go down as one of the most lop-sided and successful trades in the history of the franchise.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: While MacPhail would find success in most of his trades made for the Orioles over the long-term, the veteran stop acquisitions that he would make would not often pan out, and as a result, the team would never finish higher than 4th place in the AL East, or with more than 69 wins, while MacPhail was in charge. Although some of his free agent signings would have positive contributions (such as reliever Koji Uehara), most gave mediocre returns, at best. In particular, the Orioles never managed to cobble together a successful pitching staff during this time. Their most consistent starting pitcher from 2008 to 2011 was the late bloomer Jeremy Guthrie who was named the Opening Day starter in 3 of the 4 seasons and had a cumulative 4.12 ERA during this stretch.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Following Davey Johnson's dismissal after the 1997 playoff season, Orioles ownership struggled to find a manager that they liked, and this time period was no exception. Dave Trembley was brought on as an interim manager in June 2007, and had the interim tag removed later that year. Trembley was at the helm again in 2008 and 2009 but was never able to lead the team out of the cellar in the AL East. After starting the 2010 season a dismal 15–39, Dave Trembley was fired and third base coach Juan Samuel was named the interim manager. The Orioles were seeking a more permanent solution at manager as the 2010 season continued to unfold, and two-time AL Manager of the Year Buck Showalter was eventually hired in July 2010. The Orioles went 34–23 after Buck took over, foreshadowing that a brighter future might be on the horizon, and giving Orioles fans renewed hope and optimism for the team's future.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles made some aggressive moves to improve the team in 2011 in the hopes of securing their first playoff berth since 1997. Andy MacPhail completed trades to bring in established veterans like Mark Reynolds and J. J. Hardy from the Diamondbacks and Twins, respectively. Veteran free agents Derrek Lee and Vladimir Guerrero were also brought in to help improve the offense. At the 2011 trade deadline, fan favorite Koji Uehara was sent to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Chris Davis and Tommy Hunter, a move that would not pay immediate dividends, but would be crucial to the team's later success. While these moves had varying impacts, the Orioles did score 95 more runs in 2011 than they had the previous year. The team still finished last in the AL East due to the utter failures of the team's pitching staff. Brian Matusz compiled one of the highest single-season ERAs in MLB history (10.69 over 12 starts) and every pitcher who started a game for the Orioles in 2011 ended the season with an ERA of 4.50 or higher except for Jeremy Guthrie. The Orioles finished 30th out of 30 MLB teams that year with a 4.89 team ERA. Andy MacPhail's contract was not renewed in October 2011 and a search for a new GM began. After a public interview process where several candidates declined to take the position, ex-GM Dan Duquette was brought in to serve as the Executive Vice-President of Baseball Operations.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Duquette wasted no time in overhauling the Orioles roster, especially the MLB-worst pitching staff. He traded fan favorite Jeremy Guthrie to the Colorado Rockies in exchange for Jason Hammel. He brought in new free agent starting pitcher Wei-Yin Chen from the Nippon Professional Baseball league, and Miguel González was signed as a minor league free agent. Nate McLouth was signed to a minor league deal in June 2012 and would prove to make a significant impact down the stretch. This year also marked the debut of the much hyped prospect Manny Machado.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles won 93 games in 2012 (after winning 69 in the previous year) thanks in large part to a 29–9 record in one-run games, and a 16–2 record in extra inning games. The difference between this Orioles bullpen and bullpens past was like night and day, led by Jim Johnson and his 51 saves. He finished with a 2.49 ERA that season with Darren O'Day, Luis Ayala, Pedro Strop, and Troy Patton all finishing as well with ERAs under 3.00. Experts were amazed as the team continued to outperform expectations, but regression never came that year. They battled with the New York Yankees for first place in the AL East up until September, and would earn their first playoff berth in 15 years by winning the second wildcard spot in the American League.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In the 'sudden death' wildcard game against the Texas Rangers, Joe Saunders (acquired in August of that year in exchange for Matt Lindstrom) defeated Yu Darvish to help the Orioles advance to the divisional round, where they faced a familiar opponent, the Yankees. The Orioles forced the series to go five games (losing games 1 and 3 of the series, while winning 2 and 4), but CC Sabathia outpitched the Orioles Jason Hammel in Game 5 and the Orioles were eliminated from the playoffs.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: While the Orioles would ultimately miss the playoffs in 2013, they finished with a record of 85–77, tying the Yankees for third place in the AL East. By posting winning records in 2012 and 2013, the Orioles achieved the feat of back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since 1996 and 1997.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: On September 16, 2014, the Orioles clinched the division for the first time since 1997 with a win against the Toronto Blue Jays as well as making it back to the postseason for the second time in three years. The Orioles finished the 2014 season with a 96–66 record and went on to sweep the Detroit Tigers in the ALDS. The O's were then in turn swept by the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Out of an abundance of caution, the Baltimore Orioles announced the postponement of the April 27 and 28 games in 2015 against the Chicago White Sox following violent riots in West Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. Following the announcement of the second postponement, the Orioles also announced that the third game in the series scheduled for Wednesday, April 29 was to be closed to the public and would be televised only, apparently the first time in 145 years of Major League Baseball that a game had no spectators and breaking the previous 131-year-old record for lowest paid attendance to an official game (the previous record being 6.) The Orioles beat the White Sox, 8–2. The Orioles said the make-up games would be played Thursday, May 28, as a double-header. In addition, the weekend games against the Tampa Bay Rays was moved to the Rays' home stadium in St. Petersburg where Baltimore played as the home team.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Despite the 2016 season being another above .500 season for the Orioles; they would fail to win their division, but were able to secure a Wild card spot. However, they would lose against the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL Wild Card game. Baltimore has not made the postseason since then. In 2017, the Orioles started with a modest 22–10 record. Despite early season success, the Orioles suffered their first losing season since 2011. The Orioles would suffer one of Major League Baseball's worst seasons in 2018, en route to going 47–115. 2018 proved to be general manager Duquette and Showalter's final season in Baltimore, as their contracts were not renewed after the season.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles began their rebuild by trading away fan favorites Manny Machado, Zach Britton, Jonathan Schoop, Brad Brach, Kevin Gausman, and Darren O'Day in July 2018. In 2019, the Orioles finished 54–108, which was the second Orioles team to surpass the 1988 Orioles team's losses. In 2020, the Orioles experienced an upside in their ongoing rebuild, as they finished 25–35 in a season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, their best finish since 2017. In 2021, the Orioles experienced two different losing streaks of at least 14, en route to a 52–110 finish. 2021 was their third 110-loss season in team history. Their first was 1939 when they were known as the St. Louis Browns, the second was in 2018 as the Baltimore Orioles.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: On June 9, 2022, Louis Angelos sued his brother, Orioles chairman and CEO John P. Angelos, and mother Georgia Angelos in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Louis Angelos claims that their father intended for the brothers and their mother to share control of the team. The lawsuit states the elder Angelos collapsed in 2017 due to heart problems and established a trust with his wife and sons as co-trustees. Louis Angelos is seeking to have his brother and mother removed as co-trustees of the trust that controls the Orioles and removed as co-agents of Peter Angelos' power of attorney.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The suit claims Georgia Angelos wants to sell the team and an advisor attempted to negotiate a sale in 2020 but John Angelos vetoed a potential deal. The suit claims Angelos unilaterally fired long-time employees loyal to his father, including former center fielder Brady Anderson, the longtime special assistant to the executive vice president for baseball operations. The suit claims John Angelos transferred tens of millions of dollars worth of property out of his father's law firm and into a limited liability company controlled by his personal attorney.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In the event of any sale, Major League Baseball has reportedly encouraged Cal Ripken to be part of any incoming ownership group that may take control of the team.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles' home uniform is white with the word "Orioles" written across the chest. The road uniform is gray with the word "Baltimore" written across the chest. This style, with noticeable changes in the script, striping and materials, has been worn for much of the team's history, but with a few exceptions:


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: A long campaign of several decades was waged by numerous fans and sportswriters to return the name of the city to the "away" jerseys which was used since the 1950s and had been formerly dropped during the 1970s era of Edward Bennett Williams when the ownership was continuing to market the team also to fans in the nation's capital region after the moving of the former Washington Senators in 1971. After several decades, approximately 20% of the team's attendance came from the metro Washington area.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: An alternate uniform is black with the word "Orioles" written across the chest. They first wore black uniforms in the 1993 season and continue to do so since; the current style with the letters lacking additional trim was first used in 2000. The Orioles wear their black alternate jerseys for Friday night games with the alternate "O's" cap (first introduced in 2005), whether at home or on the road; the regular batting helmet is still used with this uniform. In 2017, the Orioles began to use their batting practice caps for select games with the black uniforms. The aforementioned caps resemble their regular road caps save for the black bill. Occasionally, the Orioles would also wear the black alternates on other days of the week, often pairing them with the home or road "cartoon bird" caps.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles also wore orange alternate uniforms at various points in their history. The orange alternates were first used in the 1971 season and were paired with orange pants, but these lasted only two seasons. The second orange uniform, which was a pullover style, was worn from 1975 to 1987, but were not worn at all in the 1983, 1985 and 1986 seasons. A third orange uniform was used from 1988 to 1992, returning to the button-down style. In 2012, the Orioles brought back the orange uniforms as a second alternate uniform; the team currently wears them on Saturdays at home or on the road, though they've also worn them on other days of the week either due to pitcher's preference or a previously postponed contest.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles' cap design have alternated between the team's iconic "cartoon bird" logo and the full-bodied bird logo. Initially, the caps had the full-bodied bird logo between 1954 and 1965, alternating between an all-black cap and an orange-brimmed black cap. They also wore a black cap with an orange block-letter "B" for part of the 1963 season. The "cartoon bird" was first used in 1966, and with minor tweaks, was prominently featured on the team's caps until 1988. Initially, the Orioles kept the orange-brimmed black cap with the "cartoon bird", but switched to a white-paneled black cap with orange brim in 1975. Also that same year, they wore orange-paneled black caps to pair with the orange alternates, but these lasted only two seasons.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In 1989, the full-bodied bird logo returned along with the all-black cap, with a few tweaks along the way. Initially the cap was used regardless of home or road games, but in 2002 the caps were worn only on the road until 2008. An orange-brimmed variety was also introduced in 1995. Initially exclusive to the team's black uniforms, this style became the home cap in 2002 and became the team's regular cap (home or away) from 2009 to 2011.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In 2012, the Orioles brought back a modernized version of the "cartoon bird" along with the white-paneled and orange-brimmed black cap for home games and the orange-brimmed black cap for road games.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In 2013, ESPN ran a "Battle of the Uniforms" contest between all 30 Major League clubs. Despite using a ranking system that had the Orioles as a #13 seed, the Birds beat the #1 seed Cardinals in the championship round.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In Baltimore, Orioles radio broadcasts can be heard on WBAL-AM and WIYY, both owned by Hearst Television. Geoff Arnold, Melanie Newman, Brett Hollander, Scott Garceau and Kevin Brown alternate as play-by-play announcers. WBAL feeds the games to a network of 36 stations, covering Washington, D.C. and all or portions of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: This is WBAL's fourth stint as the Orioles flagship. WBAL has carried Orioles games for most of the team's time in Baltimore. Prior to WBAL and WIYY, Orioles games were broadcast locally on WJZ-FM from 2015 to 2021. WJZ had earlier carried broadcasts from 2007 to 2010.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Six former Orioles franchise radio announcers have received the Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting: Chuck Thompson (who was also the voice of the old NFL Baltimore Colts); Jon Miller (now with the San Francisco Giants); Ernie Harwell, Herb Carneal; Bob Murphy and Harry Caray (as a St. Louis Browns announcer in the 1940s).


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Other former Baltimore announcers include Josh Lewin (currently with New York Mets), Bill O'Donnell, Tom Marr, Scott Garceau (returned in 2020 season), Mel Proctor, Michael Reghi, former major league catcher Buck Martinez (now Toronto Blue Jays play-by-play), and former Oriole players including Brooks Robinson, pitcher Mike Flanagan and outfielder John Lowenstein. In 1991, the Orioles experimented with longtime TV writer/producer Ken Levine as a play-by-play broadcaster. Levine was best noted for his work on TV shows such as "Cheers" and "M*A*S*H", but lasted only one season in the Orioles broadcast booth.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: MASN, co-owned by the Orioles and the Washington Nationals, is the team's exclusive television broadcaster. MASN airs almost the entire slate of regular season games. Some exceptions include Saturday games on either Fox (via its Baltimore affiliate, WBFF) or Fox Sports 1, or "Sunday Night Baseball" on ESPN. Many MASN telecasts in conflict with Nationals' game telecasts air on an alternate MASN2 feed.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Veteran sportscaster Gary Thorne served as lead television announcer from 2007 to 2019, with Jim Hunter as his backup along with Hall of Fame member and former Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer and former Oriole infielder Mike Bordick as color analysts, who almost always work separately. In 2020, Thorne and Palmer were removed from the television booth due to COVID-19 concerns, and replaced with Scott Garceau. In 2021, MASN let go Thorne, Hunter, analysts Mike Bordick and Rick Dempsey, and studio host Tom Davis, and added Ben McDonald as a secondary analyst. Starting in 2022, Kevin Brown becomes the primary TV play-by-play announcer, with Garceau, Arnold or Newman the backups.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The Orioles severed their ties with Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic (now NBC Sports Washington) at the end of the 2006 season in favor of MASN, a joint venture with the Washington Nationals. It had been the Orioles' cable partner since 1984, when it was known as Home Team Sports. The Orioles and the Washington Nationals have been in a dispute since the early 2010s, MASN is owned by both teams with the Orioles holding an 80% stake. The dispute which is ongoing as of October 2020 contends that the Nationals deserves a greater fee from MASN due to the team's recent success and market growth. When fees paid to each team were first negotiated, both teams were paid the same fees.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: WJZ-TV was the Orioles' broadcast TV home, completing its latest stint from 1994 through 2017. Since MASN acquired rights in 2007, its coverage was simulcast on WJZ-TV under the branding "MASN on WJZ 13". MASN elected not to syndicate any Orioles or Washington Nationals games to broadcast television for the 2018 season, marking the first time since the Orioles' arrival that their games are not on local broadcast television.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Previously, WJZ-TV carried the team from their arrival in Baltimore in 1954 through 1978. In the first four seasons, WJZ-TV shared coverage with Baltimore's other two stations, WMAR-TV and WBAL-TV. The games moved to WMAR from 1979 through 1993 before returning to WJZ-TV. From 1994 to 2009, some Orioles games aired on WNUV.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: Since its introduction at games by the "Roar from 34", led by Wild Bill Hagy and others, in the late 1970s, it has been a tradition at Orioles games for fans to yell out the "Oh" in the line "Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave" in "The Star-Spangled Banner". "The Star-Spangled Banner" has special meaning to Baltimore historically, as it was written during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812 by Francis Scott Key, a Baltimorean.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: The tradition is often carried out at other sporting events, both professional and amateur, and even sometimes at non-sporting events where the anthem is played, throughout the Baltimore/Washington area and beyond. Fans in Norfolk, Virginia, chanted "O!" even before the Tides became an Orioles affiliate. The practice caught some attention in the spring of 2005, when fans performed the "O!" cry at Washington Nationals games at RFK Stadium. The "O!" chant is also common at sporting events for the various Maryland Terrapins teams at the University of Maryland, College Park. At Cal Ripken Jr.'s induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the crowd, composed mostly of Orioles fans, carried out the "O!" tradition during Tony Gwynn's daughter's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Additionally, a faint but audible "O!" could be heard on the television broadcast of Barack Obama's pre-inaugural visit to Baltimore as the national anthem played before his entrance. A resounding "O!" bellowed from the nearly 30,000 Ravens fans who attended the November 21, 2010, away game at the Carolina Panthers' Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. A similar loud "O!" was heard from fans attending Super Bowl XLVII between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. The "O!" chant was also heard during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when Baltimore native Michael Phelps received his gold medal for the 4×200 m freestyle on August 9, 2016.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: In recent years, when the Orioles host the Toronto Blue Jays, fans have begun to shout out the multiple instances of the word "O" in "O Canada". Washington Capitals fans will do the same when they play one of the NHL's Canadian teams.


title: Baltimore Orioles

text: It has been an Orioles tradition since 1975 to play John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" during the seventh-inning stretch.