title: Rhinoceros (play)

text: Ionesco chose to stay in Romania to fight against the "rhinocerisation" of the "intelligentsia", despite the fact that one by one his friends all become members of the Legion, or refused to talk to him out of cowardice until the regime of General Ion Antonescu passed a law in 1940 that forbade all Jews (defined in racial terms) from participating in the arts in Romania in any way or form. Quinney argued that Ionesco's "théâtre de l'absurde" plays were a form of "lashing out" against his friends who in his youth had abandoned him for the Legion, and reflected his dual identity as both Romanian and French. Quinney maintained that terror felt by Bérenger at being the last human left in the world reflected Ionesco's own terror as saw his friends caught up in youthful idealism all become Legionaries while the rest were either too cynical or cowardly to resist the Legion. Quinney further argued that the "Rhinoceros" was an allegory of and attack on the Legion of the Archangel Michael has been ignored by literary scholars who have seen Ionesco only as a French playwright and neglected the fact that Ionesco saw himself as both Romanian and French.


title: Rhinoceros (play)

text: In April 1960 the play was performed by the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England under the direction of Orson Welles with Laurence Olivier as Bérenger, Joan Plowright as Daisy, and Michael Bates, Miles Malleson and Peter Sallis in the cast. The production moved to the Strand Theatre (now the Novello Theatre) that June. Following the move Dudard and Daisy were played by Michael Gough and Maggie Smith. In 1961, a production of "Rhinoceros" opened on Broadway, at the Longacre Theater under the direction of Joseph Anthony. Eli Wallach played Bérenger, Anne Jackson appeared as Daisy, Jean Stapleton played Mrs. Bœuf (Mrs. Ochs in this adaptation), and Zero Mostel won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Jean. Wallach was replaced during the run by Alfred Ryder (who also toured with Mostel on the West Coast) and then Ralph Meeker. After Wallach left the show, Mostel took top billing over Ryder and Meeker, all of whom were nonetheless billed above the play's title.


title: Rhinoceros (play)

text: The play was adapted to an urban American setting for a 1973 film (also called "Rhinoceros") directed by Tom O'Horgan and starring Zero Mostel as John (Jean in the play), Gene Wilder as Stanley (Bérenger) and Karen Black as Daisy. The play was also adapted for a 1990 musical, titled "Born Again" at the Chichester Festival Theatre, by Peter Hall, Julian Barry and composer Jason Carr. The setting was relocated to an American shopping mall.


title: Rhinoceros (play)

text: The 2008 comedy horror film "Zombie Strippers" is a loose adaptation of the play, but with zombies instead of rhinoceroses.


title: Rhinoceros (play)

text: The Royal Court Theatre revived the play in 2007 and starred Benedict Cumberbatch as Bérenger and directed by Dominic Cooke. The Bangalore Little Theatre, in collaboration with the Alliance Française de Bangalore, presented Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, a play in the Theatre of the Absurd tradition. This adaptation is written by Dr. Vijay Padaki, a veteran in Theatre. In 2016 "Rhinoceros" was adapted and directed by Wesley Savick. It was performed by Modern Theatre in Boston.


title: Rhinoceros (play)

text: The term Rhinocerization (התקרנפות, hitkarnefut) became colloquial in Israel for getting swayed in a nationalistic fervor, or any other general sentiment. It was originally coined by theatre critic Asher Nahor in his review of the play in 1962, which was played at the Haifa Theatre. However, it seems that popular usage followed only after Amos Oz employed the infinitive verb form (להתקרנף, lehitkarnef) ten years later.


title: Rhinoceros (play)

text: One use of "rhinocerization" was by Israeli historian Jean Ancel to describe how Romanian intellectuals were subsumed by the appeal of the Legion of the Archangel Michael in particular and radical antisemitism in general in his 2002 book "The History of the Holocaust In Romania".


title: Daphne Moon

text: Daphne Crane (née Moon; born September 1961) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom "Frasier", played by Jane Leeves. An English immigrant from Manchester, Daphne is employed by Frasier as a live-in housekeeper and physical therapist for his father, Martin. Her relationship with Frasier's brother Niles is a major plotline of the series, progressing from Niles' secret infatuation to their eventual marriage later in the show.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Daphne was born in September 1961 in Manchester, the only daughter in a family of nine children. She spent much of her childhood playing nurse and housemaid to her brothers. She has a complex love-hate relationship with her domineering mother, Gertrude Moon; her relationship with her father, Harry Moon, is much warmer and closer.


title: Daphne Moon

text: As a young girl, Daphne's early career was as an actress in the hit British sitcom "Mind Your Knickers" (a show about 12-year-olds in a private girls' boarding school). Her career ended at age 16 when she became too tall and busty to play her shorter pre-teen character. During her youth, she gained considerable skill at billiards and darts, claiming to have won many tournaments. She also raised show rats, was a member of the Manchester Light Opera Works, and was a skilled shoplifter.


title: Daphne Moon

text: As an adult, Daphne takes up a career as a physical therapist, working one-on-one with various invalids and shut-ins. At an undisclosed time, she migrates to America to live in Seattle, seeking a new life free of her domineering family. Her first job in America is at a convenience store, and it is implied she once shoplifted there. In the third season finale, "You Can Go Home Again", it is revealed that prior to being interviewed and hired by the Cranes, she had a chance encounter with them at Cafe Nervosa. In the series premiere, "The Good Son", Daphne is hired by Frasier to assist his father, Martin, with his daily activities and exercises; Martin suffers pain and discomfort from a gunshot wound to his hip that forced him to retire from the Seattle Police Department. Although Frasier is initially less than impressed with her, Martin takes a liking to her sense of humor and convinces Frasier to hire her and make her position a live-in one.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Daphne is mostly portrayed as kind and down-to-earth, often perplexed and exasperated by Frasier's snobbery and pretension. In the earlier seasons, Daphne portrays herself as a no-nonsense physical therapist with Martin. Although they fight and bicker over Martin's therapy sessions, she gets along with Martin well and acts as his caregiver and constant companion.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Like most characters on "Frasier", Daphne has many eccentricities. She often tells rambling stories about her family, cheerfully remembering rather grim or traumatic events, to the considerable discomfort of the Crane family. She is also a firm believer in the supernatural, and believes herself to be "a bit psychic". Daphne's apparent psychic abilities are often treated with ambiguity on the show, and her various "visions" are sometimes shown to have come true, sometimes in a roundabout way and sometimes very accurately. As the series progresses, Daphne's psychic abilities are considerably downplayed. In the season 8 episode "The Wizard and Roz", Niles hires a paranormal expert to assess whether or not Daphne truly has any psychic abilities. During the course of her discussion with the expert, Daphne implies that her grandmother told her she had psychic abilities.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Like Martin, Daphne acts as a working class foil to Frasier and Niles's upper-class snobbery, while also vexing Frasier's scientific views with her eccentric behavior. As the show progressed and this aspect of her character was toned down, more focus was put on her relationships with the other characters.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Daphne's most significant developing relationship over the course of the series is with Frasier Crane's younger brother, Niles. Unbeknownst to Daphne, Niles falls in love with her in the third episode, when they first meet. Despite how Niles shows more and more signs of being infatuated with her, she remains completely oblivious to this, though they become increasingly close friends. Niles says nothing to Daphne, at first because he is married, later because she is involved with numerous (frequently unsuccessful) relationships with other men. Even when she is not, Frasier has one excuse or another to prevent Niles from telling her anything.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Niles' feelings are ultimately, and accidentally, revealed by Frasier in season 7. Shocked to discover Niles's true feelings towards her, Daphne finds herself falling in love with Niles in return, placing her in the position Niles had been in for many years: in love with someone unaware of her true feelings. Daphne realizes her feelings after a court-ordered therapy session stemming from an incident where Daphne caused a dangerous traffic jam by throwing a neighbor's laundry off Frasier's balcony; the therapist points out that the entire chain of events leading to the incident was set off by Daphne's decision to wear her "best dress" while giving Niles a cooking lesson.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Heartbroken to discover that he had, on impulse, married his girlfriend Mel, Daphne intends to go ahead with her own marriage to Niles's divorce lawyer Donny Douglas (Saul Rubinek), until Frasier intervenes. In a four-part episode closing Season 7 and opening Season 8, Niles finally confesses his feelings to her, and although she initially tells him both of them are better off staying with their current partners (each having made a serious commitment), Daphne changes her mind by the next morning, abandoning Donny at the altar, to Niles' delight. Niles and Daphne have a precarious courtship during season 8 after Mel forbids Niles from being seen in public with Daphne, and Donny retaliates with a lawsuit for being left at the altar after Frasier confesses to Donny that he was the instigator of the breakup. Tensions arise, with Daphne blaming Niles for all their new relationship problems.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Shortly thereafter, she gains 60 pounds, but Niles is so blinded by love that he does not notice until Daphne falls to the floor and is too heavy to get up without the help of Frasier, Niles, and Martin (who remarks that "it took three Cranes to lift her"). The weight problem was written into the show to allow Leeves to continue working while pregnant. Daphne then leaves for several weeks to attend a "spa for fat people" and returns with her figure restored. Her therapist at the spa tells her that she began over-eating to create distance between herself and Niles because she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to live up to Niles's lofty expectations after he spent the last seven years believing she was perfect ("Daphne Returns"). During the episode "It Takes Two to Tangle" in which she did not appear while at the resort, Niles tells Roz that Daphne had lost 9 pounds, 12 ounces (the weight of Leeves's baby in real life).


title: Daphne Moon

text: At some point in Season 10, she becomes a U.S. citizen (her lack of citizenship having set up some humorous situations in earlier seasons). In the first episode of Season 10, Daphne and Niles marry in a small, private ceremony in Reno, Nevada. The rest of Season 10 and early Season 11 show Daphne and Niles adjusting to their new life as a wedded couple. Daphne and Niles have their first child, David, in the final episode of the series, "Goodnight, Seattle". (He is named after the show's co-creator David Angell who died in the September 11 attacks.) A flash-forward scene in an earlier episode reveals that the couple will also have two daughters.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Daphne grew up in a very large dysfunctional family. They are often the subject of her long-winded tales that sometimes leave the Cranes somewhat perplexed. Although they are frequently mentioned, the first time one of her family members appears on the show is in the season 7 episode "Dark Side of the Moon", in which Donny surprises Daphne with a visit from her brother, Simon (Anthony LaPaglia), not knowing that she dislikes him. (Her favorite brother, Stephen, never appears until the final episode, where he is played by Richard E. Grant). In "Something Borrowed, Someone Blue", Daphne's mother makes her first appearance, while her father only makes his debut in season 9.


title: Daphne Moon

text: In the episode "An Affair to Forget", she mentions she had an ancestor who served on HMS "Bounty" who took Fletcher Christian's side in the mutiny. According to her, he made it to Pitcairn Island with a Tahitian wife and had several children.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Five out of Daphne's eight brothers appear on the show; few of them maintain consistency with Daphne's Northern accent. LaPaglia, an Australian actor, faked a Cockney accent playing Simon, while Robbie Coltrane, who is Scottish, played Daphne's brother Michael with a muddled Brummie (Birmingham) accent—which had a distinct Scottish lilt to it—explained away by Niles as being a result of his being dropped as a baby. The effect is completed by his speech's being virtually unintelligible. Richard E Grant played Stephen Moon with an indeterminate accent somewhere between Received Pronunciation and Cockney. Her brother Billy is implied to be gay, such as in the episode "Daphne's Room", in which Daphne says her brothers would "sneak into the bathroom and peek at me in the shower … except for me brother Billy, the ballroom dancer. He never peeked at me, though he did peek at me brother Nigel." When Daphne talks with her mom Gertrude about resuming her sex life with Niles after his heart surgery, Gertrude tells her to "use your feminine wiles – that's how your brother Billy landed Kevin." According to Daphne, Billy rejected the family's traditional fishing background by announcing that he "hated the smell of fish, and was going to teach ballroom dancing." Daphne also has an uncle, Jackie, who lives in San Francisco.


title: Daphne Moon

text: Writing for "The Guardian", Lucy Mangan criticized Daphne's adopted Manchester accent as the show's only "weak link".


title: Daphne Moon

text: Quizzed about the genesis of her unique accent on BBC Breakfast in May 2011, the actress explained: “They [the producers] wanted something a bit working class but they wanted something an American audience could understand. So it’s just a slight working class accent.” Pressed by host Bill Turnbull who politely suggested that many Mancs wouldn’t recognise the accent, she reluctantly agreed: “It’s not really right.”


title: Fanboys (film)

text: Fanboys is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Kyle Newman and starring Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler, Jay Baruchel, Kristen Bell, Danny McBride, and Seth Rogen. It was released in the United States on February 6, 2009, and in Canada on April 3, 2009.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: In 1998, Eric Bottler reunites with his old high school buddies Linus, Hutch, Windows, and Zoe at a Halloween party. Now a car salesman at his father's dealership, Bottler finds that his friends have not matured since high school, though they all still share a love of "Star Wars". The gang anticipates the latest film, "". Linus proposes Bottler and he infiltrate Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut of the film, a childhood plan that Bottler dismisses.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The next day, Hutch and Windows meet Bottler at work and inform him that Linus is dying from cancer. The doctors estimate he has roughly four months to live; "Episode I" comes out in six. To make peace with his former best friend, Bottler decides to go through with their plan. On the way to meet Rogue Leader, Windows' online girlfriend, for information on getting into the Ranch, Hutch takes a detour to pick a fight with a Trekkie, Admiral Seasholtz. When the boys' van breaks down, they stumble upon a gay biker bar. After refusing to pay for their drinks, they are forced to do a striptease. When this goes wrong, they are saved by a man named "The Chief", who fixes their van after they pass out from eating guacamole laced with peyote. He gives a bag of this to Linus as a parting gift.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: In Texas, Windows is horrified to find Rogue Leader is a 10-year-old girl. Her uncle, Harry Knowles, beats up Windows. After explaining their situation, Harry quizzes them to prove they are true fanboys, then gives them information on one of his contacts in Las Vegas. On their way there, they are arrested for fleeing from a police vehicle and for possession of peyote. Zoe arrives to bail them out and insists on accompanying them. Bottler is reluctant to continue when the judge relays an ultimatum from his father, but the others convince him of the importance of their quest. Once in Las Vegas, Hutch and Windows attempt to have sex with women while Bottler and Linus go to meet Harry's contact. They are shocked to find that his contact is William Shatner. As they leave, they are attacked by Seasholtz and his Trekkie friends, who were attending a "Star Trek" convention. Hutch and Windows flee an angry pimp after finding out that they were with escort girls, and Windows learns that Zoe is in love with him.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The group escapes their adversaries, but Linus is injured in the process. When taken to the hospital, a doctor says he must return home for the sake of his health. When the group feels the situation has become hopeless, Bottler inspires them to continue, reminding them how much "Star Wars" means to them. The group leaves the hospital and eventually arrive at Skywalker Ranch. Shortly after breaking into the ranch and marveling at the collection of original props and costumes, they are discovered by security guards and are caught after a brief chase. The Head of Security tells them of their impending doom when he receives a phone call from George Lucas himself. Lucas says he will drop all charges if they can prove to him that they are "fanboys". The five are individually quizzed, including questions about the opposite sex that only Zoe can answer. After the Head of Security confirms they are fanboys, Lucas drops all charges. Being aware of Linus's illness, Lucas allows him to watch the film alone while his friends wait outside. After the film ends, Bottler joins his friends around a campfire and mends his friendship with Linus. Weeks later, Linus dies of his illness.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: Bottler, Windows, and Zoe emerge from their tent while waiting in line for the premiere of "Episode I". Bottler has followed his and Linus's dream by becoming a comic book artist, Hutch has started his own detailing business, and Windows and Zoe are dating. Hutch arrives at the theater with beers he smuggled in, which they use to toast Linus's memory. Before the film starts, Bottler comments


title: Fanboys (film)

text: There are numerous cameos related to "Star Wars" and other science-fiction/cult-hit films including Carrie Fisher, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Jaime King, Danny McBride, Ray Park, Craig Robinson, Joe Lo Truglio, Lou Taylor Pucci, Will Forte and William Shatner. In Park's role, he acts as a Skywalker Ranch security guard who says, "Time for you to get "mauled", boy," as he pulls out two nightsticks in response to Windows threatening him with a toy lightsaber.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: After George Lucas was given an advance screening of the rough cut of the film, he enjoyed it and gave it his "stamp of approval", and even offered the original "Star Wars" sound effects for use in the film. Filmmaker and "Star Wars" fan Kevin Smith also viewed an early version of the film and asked for (and was given) a cameo in the film.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The film was originally to be released on August 17, 2007 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was pushed back once more to January 2008 because director Kyle Newman was given more funding to shoot additional scenes that the original budget did not include. Getting the cast back together would only be possible in September 2007, thus the film's release date had to be moved to 2008.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The film was again pushed back because the reshoots could not take place before November and December 2007. These reshoots were directed by Steven Brill and not by Newman. On January 14, The CineManiac reported that the film was being re-edited to remove the cancer plot from the film and replace much of it with raunchy, vulgar humor. Ain't It Cool News picked up the story and confirmed that the two different versions of the film (with and without the cancer subplot) were screened to different test audiences in Burbank, California in January 2008 to see which one would rate higher. As for a new release date, Newman stated in a Movie Geeks United! interview that the film would hopefully come out in April 2008. Upon hearing about the changes being made to the film, an internet campaign was begun to protest the plot changes and demand that the original version with the cancer storyline be released in theaters.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: Brill retaliated in a derogatory manner, calling fans "losers" in online correspondence which ended up released to the public. In one exchange, Brill called a fan "dumb" and threatened to "hunt him down" in a profanity-laden emailed response to a letter of complaint. In an interview Newman chastised Brill's behavior, saying:


title: Fanboys (film)

text: A rough cut of the full film (that included the cancer storyline) was shown in public for the first time at "Star Wars Celebration Europe" on July 14, 2007.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: On July 9, 2008, Newman confirmed in a TheForce.net interview that the cancer plot would be included in the final cut of the film.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: Newman was given just 36 hours to reassemble his film, and edit back in the key motivational cancer plotline.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The final cut of the film was screened on July 24, 2008 in San Diego at Comic-Con. It was announced there that "Fanboys" would be released to theaters on September 19, 2008, but soon after, the official Weinstein Company website announced that this had changed to November 26, 2008. The final release date was finally pushed to February 6, 2009.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: In a 2018 oral history of the film, members of the cast recalled feeling frustrated over the film's reshoots, as well as the behavior of Weinstein and reshoot director Steve Brill during filming. Cline and Newman noted several of the raunchier scenes written by Adam F. Goldberg at Weinstein's request remained in the final cut, including the scene at the gay bar, which Cline found homophobic even by the standards of when the film was released.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The cast and creatives voiced interest in making a sequel to "Fanboys", but Cline noted its attachment to Weinstein, Spacey, and Knowles (who had all since been accused of sexual assault) made this unlikely. Cline also expressed interest in a directors' cut of the film that reflected his and Newman's original vision.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: "Fanboys" was released on February 6, 2009 in eight US markets. The film expanded into 10 more cities on February 20, 2009, including a special screening in Columbus, Ohio that day, followed by a Q&A session after the film with Kyle Newman, Ernie Cline, Matt Perniciaro and Kevin Mann. According to Cline's pre-show speech, he wanted to hold a special screening with fans in his home state, since he grew up in nearby Ashland, Ohio, and the story was set in a fictional town similar to Ashland.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The film expanded its release to seven more markets on February 27, 2009, to 13 more on March 13, 2009, and an additional 9 on March 20, 2009. On April 3, 2009, it was released in Canadian theaters. The film was also released on May 7, 2009 in Denmark and showed for approximately three weeks, it was released in Germany on July 30, 2009.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: "Fanboys" was not profitable. The film's budget was approximately $3.9 million, but the film made only $960,828.


title: Fanboys (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 32% based on 97 reviews and an average rating of 4.8/10. The site's consensus reads, "This undercooked, sporadically funny road movie is a sop to "Star Wars" fanatics, but the uninitiated will find little to enjoy." On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 45 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Fanboys (film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film out of 4 stars, calling it "an amiable but disjointed film that identifies too closely with its heroes. Poking a little more fun at them would have been a great idea." James Berardinelli gave it out of 4 stars, saying it was "mostly a middling road picture that doesn't do a lot more than any average, forgettable entry into the tired genre." Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz of "At the Movies" recommended to "Skip It". Lyons said, "It was a great premise; it just unfortunately did not come together", and Mankiewicz commented that "it devolves into nothing more than a silly road trip movie."


title: Fanboys (film)

text: The DVD was released on May 19, 2009, the day of the 10th anniversary of "The Phantom Menace". The DVD and Blu-ray were also released in Canada on June 2, 2009.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, London. The club's involvement in international competitions dates back to the 1950s. As champions of England, the club was invited to participate in the inaugural European Champions' Cup in 1955, but were denied entry by The Football Association. Three years later, Chelsea made their European debut against Copenhagen XI in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, on 30 September 1958.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Chelsea won their first European title in 1971, defeating Real Madrid to win the European Cup Winners' Cup. In 1998, they won the same trophy again, followed by the UEFA Super Cup later that year. In 2012, Chelsea won the UEFA Champions League, becoming the fifth English team, and the first and only team from London to date, to win the competition. In 2013, Chelsea won the UEFA Europa League and became the fourth club to win all three main UEFA club competitions. Due to a change in competition dates, with the final of the Champions League being played a week after the Europa League final, Chelsea held both the Champions and Europa League trophies simultaneously, the only side to ever do so. Chelsea once again lifted the Europa League trophy in 2019. In 2021, Chelsea won their second Champions League title, giving them the distinction of being the only club to have won all three major European competitions twice. They are presently England's second-most successful club in UEFA competitions, with eight trophies in total.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: John Terry holds the club record for appearances in European competitions with 124, while striker Didier Drogba is the club's leading European goalscorer with 36 goals. Chelsea's biggest European win is 13–0, which came against Jeunesse Hautcharage in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1971. Their 21–0 aggregate win over the same opposition is a joint-record in European football.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Chelsea were invited to take part in the inaugural European Cup, now UEFA Champions League, in 1955 after they claimed their first league title the previous season. However, Chelsea were pressured into withdrawing from the tournament by The Football Association. They had thus missed the chance to become the first English club to participate in what is now the most prestigious club competition in European football. It was not until 44 years later that they would make their debut in the Champions League.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: The 1999–2000 season saw the club progress through the group stage and the second group stage to reach the quarter-finals where they faced Barcelona of Spain. Chelsea won the first leg 3–1 at Stamford Bridge with Gianfranco Zola scoring the opener and Tore André Flo a brace. However, they were beaten 5–1 in Spain two weeks later and knocked out of the competition 6–4 on aggregate, thus ended their first Champions League journey.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Chelsea qualified for the 2003–04 Champions League by finishing fourth in the 2002–03 FA Premier League. Their place in the Champions League was secured on the final day of the season, beating fifth-place Liverpool 2–1 at home. The game was dubbed 'the £20m match' as Chelsea were only ahead of Liverpool on goal difference before kickoff; a win for either side would see them qualify for the following season's Champions League at the expense of the other. Jesper Grønkjær scored the winner in the 26th minute. The goal would later seem by many as the most important in the club's history and said to be worth £1 billion, as many believe had Liverpool won on that day the subsequent takeover by a Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich would never have happened.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Chelsea reached the semi-finals after defeating derby rivals Arsenal 2–1 at Highbury. Having not beaten Arsenal since November 1998, they went into the second leg with a 1–1 home draw. José Antonio Reyes' goal before the half time gave the Gunners the lead, however Chelsea managed to come back and won in the second half through Frank Lampard's goal within six minutes of the restart and Wayne Bridge's winning goal in the 87th minute. The first leg of the semi-final however turned out to be a disaster for Chelsea as they were defeated 3–1 by ten-man Monaco at Stade Louis II stadium. Two weeks later at Stamford Bridge, they were leading 2–0 shortly before the halftime. Had they kept this score to the final whistle, they would go through on away goals. However, Monaco eventually came back in the second half and the game ended in a 2-2 draw. As a consequence, Claudio Ranieri was sacked at the end of the season.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Chelsea came very close to winning the Champions League several times during the 2000s. The closest they came was in the 2008 final, held at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. This was the first ever all-English Champions League/European Cup final, with Chelsea facing Manchester United. The game was tightly contested, with the final score after extra time 1–1. In the penalty shoot-out, Chelsea were one kick away from winning the Champions League (Petr Čech having saved Cristiano Ronaldo's penalty). However, Chelsea's captain John Terry slipped on his run up for the final penalty and his shot hit the post. Edwin van der Sar then saved Nicolas Anelka's spot kick and Manchester United were crowned European Champions for the third time in their history.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: The following season, Chelsea were on course to make their second final in two years. Following a 0–0 draw at the Camp Nou, Chelsea were beating Barcelona 1–0 at the Stamford Bridge, but Barcelona managed to score an equaliser in the 94th minute of the game. With the score at 1–1, Barcelona progressed to the 2009 Champions League Final on away goals. Numerous Chelsea players protested after the final whistle, most notable José Bosingwa and Didier Drogba. Drogba shouted into television cameras that the game was "a fucking disgrace." Both players were handed bans by UEFA for their actions.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Chelsea would not feature in a Champions League final again until the 2012 final that was being held at the Munich's Allianz Arena. After eliminating Napoli, Benfica and Barcelona, Chelsea faced German side Bayern Munich, who would be playing the final at their home ground. Bayern controlled the game for the most part, and took the lead in the 83rd minute through Thomas Müller. Didier Drogba equalised five minutes later with a header from a corner from Juan Mata. In extra time, Bayern missed several opportunities (including a penalty from former Chelsea player Arjen Robben) and the game was to be decided with a penalty shoot-out. Chelsea eventually triumphed 4–3, despite Juan Mata missing their first penalty. Two Bayern Munich players, Ivica Olić and Bastian Schweinsteiger, failed to convert their penalties. Drogba scored the final penalty of the shootout to secure the Blues' first ever Champions League title. As title holders, Chelsea secured a place in next season's Champions League after missing out of qualification, as a result of finishing sixth in Premier League.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: Nine years after their Champions League triumph, Chelsea were able to secure a place in the 2021 final, which was held at Estádio do Dragão in Porto against fellow English side Manchester City. This was the third time that two English sides would face in the final (after 2008 – which Chelsea also involved – and 2019). Despite the odds being in Manchester City's favour and City dominating the possession throughout the game, Chelsea prevailed and were crowned Champions of Europe for the second time in the club's history after Kai Havertz scored the only goal of the match in the 42nd minute, after Mason Mount's pass to him through on goal leading to Havertz taking the ball round Manchester City's goalkeeper Ederson, and passing it into the net.


title: Chelsea F.C. in international football

text: "All statistics are correct as of 2 November 2022. Including matches in UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup / UEFA Europa League, European Cup Winners' Cup / UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, UEFA Super Cup, Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, and each competition's associated qualifying rounds."


title: Barry Trotz

text: Barry Trotz (born July 15, 1962) is a Canadian professional ice hockey coach who most recently was head coach of the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League (NHL). He is also the former head coach of the Nashville Predators and the Washington Capitals. As an NHL coach, he is third all-time in wins, only behind Scotty Bowman and Joel Quenneville. He is often referred to by fans and players as "Trotzy" or the "Eggman".


title: Barry Trotz

text: He was previously the coach of the American Hockey League (AHL)'s Baltimore Skipjacks and Portland Pirates, with whom he won an AHL championship in 1994. That same year, he won the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award, which is awarded to the outstanding coach in the AHL as voted upon by the AHL Broadcasters and Writers. On February 20, 2013, Lindy Ruff was fired by the Buffalo Sabres, making Trotz the longest-tenured head coach in the NHL. He was also the second-longest tenured coach in the four major North American professional leagues, behind only Gregg Popovich of the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs. On April 14, 2014, the Predators announced Trotz would not return for his 16th season as head coach. On May 26, 2014, Trotz was announced as the new head coach of the Capitals. On June 7, 2018, Trotz won his first Stanley Cup as the head coach, with the Capitals defeating the Vegas Golden Knights in five games, for the franchise's first Stanley Cup championship. On June 21, 2018, Trotz was announced as the new head coach of the Islanders.


title: Barry Trotz

text: Before becoming a coach, Trotz played as a defenceman for the Western Hockey League (WHL)'s Regina Pats from 1979 to 1982, winning the WHL Championship in 1980. During that time, Trotz played in 191 games, scoring 15 goals, adding 60 assists and accumulating 324 penalty minutes. Trotz played his final year of junior hockey in his home town of Dauphin, Manitoba, where the Kings won the Manitoba Junior Hockey League title as well as the Anavet Cup.


title: Barry Trotz

text: Trotz said he realized his playing was not good enough for an NHL career, and started having doubts about his future. He wound up getting a spot attending training camp for the American Hockey League (AHL)'s Hershey Bears in 1982 thanks to Jack Button, director of player recruitment at the Bears' NHL parent club, the Washington Capitals. Button said to Trotz he was invited because Button believed Trotz "might be a good minor league leader or a coach someday". Trotz began his coaching career as an assistant coach at the University of Manitoba in 1984. The following season, he became the general manager and head coach for the Dauphin Kings. In 1987, he returned to the University of Manitoba as head coach, while also serving as a part-time scout for the Washington Capitals.


title: Barry Trotz

text: Trotz became the head coach for the Capitals' minor league affiliate, the Baltimore Skipjacks, in 1992. On March 26, 1993, the franchise moved to Portland, Maine, and was renamed the Portland Pirates. Trotz led the Pirates to two Calder Cup Finals, winning the Calder Cup in the Pirates' inaugural season of 1994.


title: Barry Trotz

text: When longtime Capitals general manager David Poile was hired by the newly established Nashville Predators, he decided to bring Trotz along to become the team's first head coach. He was named the head coach of the Predators on August 6, 1997. Even before the team began play, Trotz was involved in the Predators expansion process, doing player scouting and helping design the team facilities at the Nashville Arena.


title: Barry Trotz

text: In the debut of both Trotz and the Predators at the 1998–99 NHL season, the team won 28 games, the third highest for an expansion team to date. He holds the record for most games coached by the first coach of an NHL expansion franchise, previously held by Terry Crisp for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Coincidentally, Crisp now works as a radio and TV broadcaster for the Predators. In a November 4, 2008, game against the Vancouver Canucks, Trotz became just the tenth head coach in NHL history to coach 750 games with a single team, and the 31st to reach that mark overall.


title: Barry Trotz

text: The 2006–07 season was Trotz's most successful season, leading the Predators to the second-most points in the Western Conference and third overall at 110. However, they trailed their division rival the Detroit Red Wings, therefore denying them the first division championship in club history. The Predators would fare no better in the playoffs, losing 4–1 to the San Jose Sharks in the opening round just as they did the year before. Trotz finished fourth in the Jack Adams Award voting at season's end, but was voted by his peers "Sporting News" NHL Coach of the Year. He is well respected around the NHL for keeping his team focused. He led the Predators to four consecutive playoff appearances from 2003 to 2008, and reached the playoffs again in 2009–10. Shortly after being eliminated by the Chicago Blackhawks in six games, on April 28, 2010, Trotz was named a finalist for the Jack Adams Award for NHL coach of the year alongside Joe Sacco of the Colorado Avalanche and Dave Tippett of the Phoenix Coyotes.


title: Barry Trotz

text: On April 14, 2014, the Predators announced Trotz would not return for his 16th season as head coach. The Predators hired Peter Laviolette as Trotz's replacement on May 6, 2014. Trotz's 1,196 regular season games coached puts him 14th on the all-time coaching list, and his tenure with the Predators was the longest unbroken coaching stretch in league history.


title: Barry Trotz

text: Despite the Predators inviting Trotz to work in their hockey operations department, he wanted to keep coaching. Eventually the Washington Capitals, the same team that gave Trotz his first opportunities in professional hockey, hired him on May 26, 2014.


title: Barry Trotz

text: On February 28, 2017, Trotz recorded his 700th win with a 4–1 victory over the New York Rangers, and became the sixth NHL coach to reach 700 wins.


title: Barry Trotz

text: On June 7, 2018, Trotz and the Capitals defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in five games in the Stanley Cup Finals, and won his first Stanley Cup for the first time as head coach after 19 seasons, the longest such wait in NHL history. On June 18, 2018, Trotz resigned from the Capitals as their head coach due to a contract dispute.


title: Barry Trotz

text: On June 21, 2018, the New York Islanders hired Trotz as head coach. On March 5, 2019, Trotz earned his 800th career win when the Islanders defeated the Ottawa Senators 5–4 after a shootout In the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Islanders swept the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round and then were swept by the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round. On June 19, 2019, Trotz won the Jack Adams Award for a second time.


title: Barry Trotz

text: On August 20, 2020, the Islanders defeated Trotz's former team, the Washington Capitals, who he previously coached to a Stanley Cup championship in 2018, 4–1 in the first round of the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs.


title: Barry Trotz

text: After a win over the New York Rangers on February 8, 2021, Trotz earned his 850th career win as NHL head coach and passed Ken Hitchcock for third place on the all-time coach wins list.


title: Barry Trotz

text: On May 9, 2022, Trotz was relieved from his duties as the Islanders head coach as the Islanders missed the playoffs for the first time since 2018.


title: Barry Trotz

text: Trotz was assistant coach for Canada at the IIHF World Championships three times: 2002, 2003 (when they won the gold medal) and 2009.


title: Barry Trotz

text: Trotz resides in Garden City, New York, with his wife and four children. The family previously resided in Brentwood, Tennessee and Clarendon, Virginia.


title: Barry Trotz

text: An active member of the Nashville community, Trotz won the Community Spirit Award in 2005 for various charitable works, including donating $500 to My Friends' House (a United Way agency) for each Nashville victory through several seasons; serving as an active board member for the Williamson County YMCA and the United Way; working closely with Best Buddies of Tennessee, a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.


title: Barry Trotz

text: Trotz was named to the Portland Pirates Hall of Fame in 2005, and to the University of Manitoba Hall of Fame in 2001.


title: Clay animation

text: Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.


title: Clay animation

text: Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films and video games, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames per second.


title: Clay animation

text: Each object or character is sculpted from clay or other such similarly pliable material as plasticine, usually around a wire skeleton, called an armature, and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of film. Upon playback, the viewer perceives the series of slightly changing, rapidly succeeding images as motion.


title: Clay animation

text: A consistent shooting environment is needed to maintain the illusion of continuity: objects must be consistently placed and lit.


title: Clay animation

text: Producing a stop-motion animation using clay is extremely laborious. Normal film runs at 24 frames per second (frame/s). With the standard practice of "doubles" or "twos" (double-framing, exposing two frames for each shot), 12 changes are usually made for one second of film movement. Shooting a 30-minute movie would therefore require making approximately 21,600 stops to change the figures for the frames; a full-length (90-minute) movie, 64,800—and possibly many more if some parts were shot with "singles" or "ones" (one frame exposed for each shot).


title: Clay animation

text: The object must not be altered by accident, slight smudges, dirt, hair, or dust. Feature-length productions have generally switched from clay to rubber silicone and resin cast components: Will Vinton has dubbed one foam-rubber process "Foamation". Nevertheless, clay remains a viable animation material where a particular aesthetic is desired.


title: Clay animation

text: "Freeform" clay animation is an informal term referring to the process in which the shape of the clay changes radically as the animation progresses, such as in the work of Eli Noyes and Ivan Stang's animated films. Clay can also take the form of "character" clay animation, where the clay maintains a recognizable character throughout a shot, as in Art Clokey's and Will Vinton's films.


title: Clay animation

text: One variation of clay animation is strata-cut animation, in which a long bread-like loaf of clay, internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery, is sliced into thin sheets, with the camera taking a frame of the end of the loaf for each cut, eventually revealing the movement of the internal images within. Pioneered in both clay and blocks of wax by German animator Oskar Fischinger during the 1920s and 1930s, the technique was revived and highly refined in the mid-1990s by David Daniels, an associate of Will Vinton, in his 16-minute short film "Buzz Box".


title: Clay animation

text: Another clay-animation technique, one that blurs the distinction between stop motion and traditional flat animation, is called clay painting (also a variation of the direct manipulation animation process), wherein clay is placed on a flat surface and moved like wet oil paints (as on a traditional artist's canvas) to produce any style of images, but with a clay look to them.


title: Clay animation

text: A sub variation clay animation can be informally called "clay melting". Any kind of heat source can be applied on or near (or below) clay to cause it to melt while an animation camera on a time-lapse setting slowly films the process. For example, consider Vinton's early short clay-animated film "Closed Mondays" (co produced by animator Bob Gardiner) at the end of the computer sequence. A similar technique was used in the climax scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to "melt" the faces of the antagonists.


title: Clay animation

text: The term "hot set" is used amongst animators during production. It refers to a set where an animator is filming. The clay characters are set in a perfect position where they can continue shooting where they left off. If an animator calls his set a "hot set," then no one is allowed to touch the set or else the shoot would be ruined. Certain scenes must be shot rather quickly. If a scene is left unfinished and the weather is perhaps humid, then the set and characters have an obvious difference. The clay puppets may be deformed from the humidity or the air pressure could have caused the set to shift slightly. These small differences can create an obvious flaw to the scene. To avoid these disasters, scenes normally have to be shot in one day or less.


title: Clay animation

text: William Harbutt developed plasticine in 1897. To promote his educational "Plastic Method" he made a handbook that included several photographs that displayed various stages of creative projects. The images suggest phases of motion or change, but the book did probably not have a direct influence on clay animation films. Still, the plasticine product would become the favourite product for clay animators, as it did not dry and harden (unlike normal clay) and was much more malleable than its harder and greasier Italian predecessor plastilene.


title: Clay animation

text: Edwin S. Porter's "Fun in a bakery shop" (1902) shows a single shot of a baker quickly transforming a patch of dough into different faces. It reflects the vaudeville type of "lightning sketches" that J. Stuart Blackton filmed in "The Enchanted Drawing" (1902) with the addition of stop tricks, and with early cinematic animation in "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" (1906). A similar form of "lightning sculpting" had been performed live on stage around the turn of the century.


title: Clay animation

text: Segundo de Chomón's "Sculpteur Moderne" was released on 31 January 1908 and features heaps of clay molding themselves into detailed sculptures that are capable of minor movements. The final sculpture depicts an old woman and walks around before it's picked up, squashed and molded back into a sitting old lady. On 15 February 1908, Porter released the trick film "A Sculptor's Welsh Rabbit Dream" that featured clay molding itself into three complete busts. No copy of the film has yet been located. It was soon followed by the similar extant film "The Sculptor's Nightmare" (6 May 1908), directed by Wallace McCutcheon Sr. and photographed by Billy Bitzer with cameo appearances of D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett. The busts are also animated to blink, speak, drink and turn left and right for a short sequence.


title: Clay animation

text: J. Stuart Blackton's "Chew Chew Land; or, The Adventures of Dolly and Jim" (1910) features primitive clay animation in chewing-gum inspired dream scenes.


title: Clay animation

text: Willie Hopkins produced over fifty clay-animated segments entitled "Miracles in Mud" for the weekly "Universal Screen Magazine" from 1916 to 1918. He also made artistic modeled titles for the movie "Everywoman" (1919).


title: Clay animation

text: New York artist Helena Smith Dayton, possibly the first female animator, had much success with her "Caricatypes" clay statuettes before she began experimenting with clay animation. Some of her first resulting short films were screened on 25 March 1917. She released an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" circa half a year later. Although the films and her technique received much attention from the press, it seems she did not continue making films after she returned to New York from managing a YMCA in Paris around 1918. None of her films have yet surfaced, but the extant magazine articles have provided several stills and circa 20 poorly printed frames from two film strips.


title: Clay animation

text: By the 1920s, drawn animation using either cels or the slash system was firmly established in the U.S. as the dominant mode of animation production. Increasingly, three-dimensional forms such as clay were driven into relative obscurity as the cel method became the preferred method for the studio cartoon. Cel animation can be more easily divided into small tasks performed by many workers, like an assembly line.


title: Clay animation

text: In 1921, clay animation appeared in a short sequence in the "Out of the Inkwell" episode "Modeling", a film from the newly formed Fleischer Brothers studio. "Modeling" included animated clay in eight shots, a novel integration of the technique into an existing cartoon series and one of the rare uses of clay animation in a theatrical short from the 1920s.


title: Clay animation

text: The oldest known extant clay animation film (with clay animation as its main production method) is "Long Live the Bull" (1926) by Joseph Sunn.


title: Clay animation

text: Art Clokey's short student film "Gumbasia" (1955) featured all kinds of clay objects changing shape and moving to a jazz tune. He also created the iconic character Gumby that would feature in segments in "Howdy Doody" in 1955 and 1956, and afterwards got his own television series (1957-1969, 1987-1989) and a theatrical film (1995). Clokey also produced "Davey and Goliath" (1960–2004) for the United Lutheran Church in America.


title: Clay animation

text: Clay animation has been popularized on television in children's shows such as "Mio Mao" (1970-1976, 2002-2007 - Italy), "The Red and the Blue" (1976 - Italy) and "Pingu" (1990-2000 - Switzerland, 2003-2006 - U.K.)


title: Clay animation

text: In 1972, at Marc Chinoy's Cineplast Films Studio in Munich, Germany, André Roche created a set of clay-animated German-language-instruction films (for non-German-speaking children) called "Kli-Kla-Klawitter" for the Second German TV-Channel; and another one for a traffic education series, "Herr Daniel paßt auf" ("Mr. Daniel Pays Attention").


title: Clay animation

text: Aardman Animations was founded in 1972. In its early years, the studio mainly produced segments for television shows, with for instance the popular character Morph (appearing since 1977).


title: Clay animation

text: Clay animation has been used in Academy Award-winning short films such as "Closed Mondays" (Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner, 1974) and "The Sand Castle" (1977).


title: Clay animation

text: Pioneering the clay painting technique was one-time Will Vinton Studios animator Joan Gratz, first in her Oscar-nominated film "The Creation" (1980), and then in her Oscar-winning "Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase", filmed in 1992. Another Vinton animator, Craig Bartlett, developed a technique in which he not only used clay painting but sometimes built up clay images that rose off the plane of the flat support platform toward the camera lens to give a more 3-D stop-motion look to his Hey Arnold! films.


title: Clay animation

text: Nick Park joined Aardman in 1985. Early in his career, he and Aardman helped make the award-winning animated video for Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" in 1986. Park would become the most successful claymation director, receiving a total of six Academy Award nominations and winning four with "Creature Comforts" (1989) (the first Wallace and Gromit film "A Grand Day Out" was also nominated), "The Wrong Trousers" (1993), "A Close Shave" (1995) and "" (2005). "Wallace and Gromit" spin-off "Shaun the Sheep" has also proved hugely successful with long-running television series (since 2007), theatrical movies and its own spin-off "Timmy Time" (since 2009).


title: Clay animation

text: Alexander Tatarsky managed to get work at Multtelefilm division of Studio Ekran with the help of Eduard Uspensky who wrote the screenplay for Tatarsky's first director's effort — "Plasticine Crow" (1981), which also happened to be Soviet first claymation film. After the enormous success Tatarsky was offered to create new opening and closing sequences for the popular children's TV show "Good Night, Little Ones!" also made of plasticine; they were later included into the Guinness Book of Records by the number of broadcasts. It was followed by two other claymation shorts: "New Year's Eve Song by Ded Moroz" (1982) and "Last Year's Snow Was Falling" (1983).


title: Clay animation

text: Garri Bardin directed several claymation comedy films, including "Break!", a parody on a boxing match for which Bardin received a Golden Dove award at the 1986 Dok Leipzig.


title: Clay animation

text: Television commercials have utilized clay animation, spawning for instance "The California Raisins" (1986-1998, Vinton Studios) and the Chevron Cars ads (Aardman).


title: Clay animation

text: "The PJs" (1999–2001) was a sitcom featuring the voice of Eddie Murphy, produced by Murphy in collaboration with Ron Howard, the Will Vinton Studios and others.


title: Clay animation

text: Many independent young filmmakers have published clay animations online, on such sites as Newgrounds.


title: Clay animation

text: More adult-oriented clay animation shows have been broadcast on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup, including "Robot Chicken" (which uses clay animation and action figures as stop-motion puppets in conjunction) and "Moral Orel." Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite later developed their own adult show, "Glenn Martin, DDS" (2009-2011).


title: Clay animation

text: Several computer games have been produced using clay animation, including "The Neverhood", "ClayFighter", "Platypus", Clay Moon (iPhone app), and "Primal Rage". Probably the most spectacular use of model animation for a computer game was for the Virgin Interactive Entertainment Mythos game "Magic and Mayhem" (1998), for which stop-motion animator and special-effects expert Alan Friswell constructed over 25 monsters and mythological characters utilising both modelling clay and latex rubber, over wire and ball-and-socket skeletons, much like the designs of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen.


title: St. Johns River

text: The St. Johns River () is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At long, it flows north and winds through or borders twelve counties. The drop in elevation from headwaters to mouth is less than ; like most Florida waterways, the St. Johns has a very slow flow speed of , and is often described as "lazy".


title: St. Johns River

text: Numerous lakes are formed by the river or flow into it, but as a river its widest point is nearly across. The narrowest point is in the headwaters, an unnavigable marsh in Indian River County. The St. Johns drainage basin of includes some of Florida's major wetlands. It is separated into three major basins and two associated watersheds for Lake George and the Ocklawaha River, all managed by the St. Johns River Water Management District.


title: St. Johns River

text: Although Florida was the location of the first permanent European settlement in what would become the United States, much of Florida remained an undeveloped frontier into the 20th century. With the growth of population, the St. Johns, like many Florida rivers, was altered to make way for agricultural and residential centers, suffering severe pollution and redirection that has diminished its ecosystem. The St. Johns, named one of 14 American Heritage Rivers in 1998, was number 6 on a list of America's Ten Most Endangered Rivers in 2008. Restoration efforts are underway for the basins around the St. Johns as Florida's population continues to increase.


title: St. Johns River

text: Historically, a variety of people have lived on or near the St. Johns, including Paleo-indians, Archaic people, Timucua, Mocama, French, Spanish, and British colonists, Seminoles, slaves and freemen, Florida crackers, land developers, tourists and retirees. It has been the subject of William Bartram's journals, Harriet Beecher Stowe's letters home, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' books. In the year 2000, 3.5 million people lived within the various watersheds that feed into the St. Johns River.


title: St. Johns River

text: Starting in Brevard County and meeting the Atlantic Ocean at Duval County, the St. Johns is Florida's primary commercial and recreational waterway. It flows north from its headwaters, originating in the direction of the Lake Wales Ridge, which is only slightly elevated at above sea level. Because of this low elevation drop, the river has a long backwater. It ebbs and flows with tides that pass through the barrier islands and up the channel. Uniquely, it shares the same regional terrain as the parallel Kissimmee River, although the Kissimmee flows south.


title: St. Johns River

text: The St. Johns River is separated into three basins and two associated watersheds managed by the St. Johns River Water Management District. Because the river flows in a northerly direction, the upper basin is located in the headwaters of the river at its southernmost point. Indian River County is where the river begins as a network of marshes, at a point west of Vero Beach aptly named the St. Johns Marsh in central Florida. The St. Johns River is a blackwater stream, meaning that it is fed primarily by swamps and marshes lying beneath it; water seeps through the sandy soil and collects in a slight valley. The upper basin measures approximately ; the St. Johns transforms into a navigable waterway in Brevard County. The river touches on the borders of Osceola and Orange Counties, and flows through the southeast tip of Seminole County, transitioning into its middle basin a dozen miles (19 km) or so north of Titusville.


title: St. Johns River

text: The upper basin of the St. Johns was significantly lowered in the 1920s with the establishment of the Melbourne Tillman drainage project. This drained the St. Johns' headwaters eastward to the Indian River through canals dug across the Ten-Mile Ridge near Palm Bay. As of 2015, these past diversions are being partially reversed through the first phase of the Canal 1 Rediversion project.


title: St. Johns River

text: The river is at its narrowest and most unpredictable in this basin. Channel flows are not apparent and are usually unmarked. The most efficient way to travel on this part of the river is by airboat. Approximately 3,500 lakes lie within the overall St. Johns watershed; all are shallow, with maximum depths between . The river flows into many of the lakes, which further confuses navigation. Eight larger lakes and five smaller ones lie in the upper basin; one of the first is named Lake Hell 'n Blazes (sometimes polished to read as Lake Helen or Hellen Blazes), referencing oaths yelled by boatmen and fishermen in the early 19th century, frustrated when trying to navigate through floating islands of macrophytes, or muck and weeds, as the islands changed location with the creeping flow. Lakes Washington, Winder, and Poinsett are located further along this stretch of the river. The northernmost points of the upper basin contain the Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area, created in 1977 to assist with filtration of waters flowing into the larger St. Johns.


title: St. Johns River

text: Wetlands in the upper and middle basin are fed by rainwater, trapped by the structure of the surrounding land. It is an oxygen- and nutrient-poor environment; what grows usually does so in peat which is created by centuries of decaying plant material. Water levels fluctuate with the subtropical wet and dry seasons. Rain in central and north Florida occurs seasonally during summer and winter, but farther south rain in winter is rare. All plants in these basins must tolerate water fluctuation, both flooding and drought. Sweetbay ("Magnolia virginiana"), cypress ("Taxodium"), and swamp tupelo ("Nyssa biflora") trees often find great success in this region on raised land called hammocks. Trees that live in water for long periods usually have buttressed trunks, tangled, braided roots, or protrusions like cypress knees to obtain oxygen when under water, but the majority of plant life is aquatic. Wetland staples include the American white waterlily ("Nymphaea odorata"), pitcher plants, and Virginia iris ("Iris virginica"). In the southernmost points of the river, "Cladium", or sawgrass, grows in vast swaths of wet prairie that at one time extended into the Everglades. These wetland flora are remarkably successful in filtering pollutants that otherwise find their way into the river.


title: St. Johns River

text: For the river passes through a basin fed primarily by springs and stormwater runoff. This basin, spreading throughout Orange, Lake, Volusia, and Seminole Counties, is home to the greater Orlando metropolitan area, where two million people live and major tourist attractions are located. The topography of the middle basin varies between clearly distinguishable banks along the river and broad, shallow lakes. Two of the largest lakes in the middle basin are created by the river: Lake Harney and Lake Monroe. The shallow Lake Harney is fed by the long narrow Puzzle Lake; immediately north is the Econlockhatchee River, which joins to increase the volume of the St. Johns to where navigation becomes easier for larger boats. The river veers west, touching on Lake Jesup before it empties into Lake Monroe, passing the city of Sanford. It is at this point that the St. Johns' navigable waterway, dredged and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with channel markers maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard, begins. Lake Monroe, a large lake at with an average depth of , drains a surrounding watershed of . Sanford has adapted to the lake by building some of its downtown area on the waterfront; citizens use boat transportation and Sanford's public dock to commute into town.


title: St. Johns River

text: Optimally an deep channel about wide after leaving Lake Monroe, the St. Johns meets its most significant tributary in the middle basin, the spring-fed Wekiva River, discharging approximately a day into the St. Johns. Near this confluence are the towns of DeBary and Deltona. Forests surrounding the Wekiva River are home to the largest black bear ("Ursus americanus floridanus") population in Florida; several troops of Rhesus monkeys ("Macaca mulatta") have adapted to live near the river as well. The monkeys' introduction to Florida is unclear; they were reportedly brought either to serve in backdrop scenes of Tarzan movies filmed around the Silver River in the 1930s, or to lend an air of authenticity to "jungle cruises" provided by an enterprising boat operator around the same time.


title: St. Johns River

text: Of most vital importance to marshes are invertebrate animals, the foundation of food webs. Amphibious invertebrates such as apple snails ("Pomacea paludosa"), crayfish, and grass shrimp consume plant material, hastening its decomposition and acting as a food source for fish and birds. Insect larvae use water for breeding, feeding upon smaller copepods and amphipods that live in microscopic algae and periphyton formations. Mosquitos, born in water, are in turn the favorite food of 112 species of dragonflies and 44 species of damselflies in Florida. These animals are water hardy and adaptable to dry conditions when water levels fluctuate from one season to the next or through drought and flood cycles.


title: St. Johns River

text: Of vertebrates, numerous species of frog, salamander, snake, turtle, and alligator ("Alligator mississippiensis") proliferate in marsh waters. Most of these animals are active at night. Frog choruses are overwhelming; during alligator mating season the grunts of bulls join in. The marshes around the St. Johns River upper basin teem with birds. A recent study counted 60,000 birds in one month, nesting or feeding in the upper basin. Wading and water birds like the white ibis ("Eudocimus albus"), wood stork ("Mycteria americana"), and purple gallinule ("Porphyrio martinicus") depend on the water for raising their young: they prey upon small fish and tadpoles in shallow water and puddles in the dry season. In successful seasons, their colonies can number in the thousands, creating a cacophony of calls and fertilizing trees with their droppings.


title: St. Johns River

text: The river turns north again as it rolls through a basin spreading across Putnam, Lake, and Marion Counties, and the western part of Volusia County. Slightly north of the Wekiva River is Blue Spring, the largest spring on the St. Johns, producing over a day. Florida springs stay at an even temperature of throughout the year. Because of this, Blue Spring is the winter home for West Indian manatees ("Trichechus manatus latirostris"), and they are protected within Blue Spring State Park. Manatees are large, slow-moving herbivorous aquatic mammals whose primary threats are human development and collisions with swiftly moving watercraft. Many parts of the St. Johns and its tributaries are no-wake zones to protect manatees from being critically or fatally injured by boat propellers. Human interaction with manatees in Blue Spring State Park is forbidden.


title: St. Johns River

text: Bordering to the north of Blue Spring State Park is Hontoon Island State Park, accessible only by boat. In 1955 an extremely rare Timucua totem representing an owl was found buried and preserved in the St. Johns muck off of Hontoon Island. The figure may signify that its creators were part of the owl clan. Representing different clans of the Timucua, two more totems—in all, the only totems in North America to have been found outside of the Pacific Northwest—shaped like a pelican and otter were found in 1978 after being snagged by a barge at the bottom of the river. River otters ("Lutra canadensis") can be found through the length of the St. Johns and its tributaries, living in burrows or in the roots of trees bordering waterways. They eat crayfish, turtles, and small fish, and are active usually at night, playful but shy of human contact.


title: St. Johns River

text: The St. Johns creeps into the southern tip of Lake George, the second largest lake in Florida at , wide and long. The watershed surrounding Lake George expands through , lying within Ocala National Forest and Lake George State Forest, that protect an ecosystem dominated by pine and scrub more than and in size, respectively. Flatwoods forests dominate the Lake George watershed, with slash pines ("Pinus elliottii"), saw palmetto ("Serenoa repens"), and over 100 species of groundcover or herbal plants that grow in poor, sandy soil. Flatwoods pine forests stay relatively dry, but can withstand short periods of flooding. Larger land animals such as wild turkeys ("Meleagris gallopavo"), sandhill cranes ("Grus canadensis"), and the largest population of southern bald eagles ("Haliaeetus leucocephalus leucocephalus") in the contiguous U.S, find it easier to live in the flatwoods. Typical mammals that live in these ecosystems, such as raccoons ("Procyon lotor"), opossums ("Didelphis virginiana"), bobcats ("Lynx rufus"), and white tailed-deer ("Odocoileus virginianus"), are ones that prefer dry, flat areas with good ground cover and available nesting sites.


title: St. Johns River

text: The Ocklawaha River flows north and joins the St. Johns as the largest tributary, and one of significant historical importance. The Ocklawaha (also printed as Oklawaha) drainage basin expands through Orange, Lake, Marion, and Alachua Counties, comprising a total of . Ocala, Gainesville, and the northern suburbs of the Orlando metropolitan area are included in this basin. There are two headwaters for the Ocklawaha: a chain of lakes, the largest of which is Lake Apopka in Lake County, and the Green Swamp near Haines City in Polk County, drained by the Palatlakaha River. The Silver River, fed by one of Florida's most productive springs expelling daily, is located about midway along the Ocklawaha.


title: St. Johns River

text: Confederate Captain John William Pearson named his militia after the Ocklawaha River called the Ocklawaha Rangers in the American Civil War. Prior to the civil war, Pearson ran a successful health resort in Orange Springs. After the civil war Pearson's Orange Springs resort declined in popularity due to the increasing attention to nearby Silver Springs—the source of the Silver River—at the turn of the 20th century, popularizing the Ocklawaha. Georgia-born poet Sidney Lanier called it "the sweetest waterlane in the world" in a travel guide he published in 1876. The river gave Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings access to the St. Johns from her homestead at Orange Lake. The region served as a major fishing attraction until a decline in water quality occurred in the 1940s, and since then further degradation of the river and its sources have occurred. In particular, Lake Apopka earned the designation of Florida's most polluted lake following a chemical spill in 1980 that dumped DDE in it. It has experienced chronic algal blooms caused by citrus farm fertilizer and wastewater runoff from nearby farms.


title: St. Johns River

text: The proliferation of largemouth bass ("Micropterus salmoides"), black crappie ("Pomoxis nigromaculatus"), and bluegill ("Lepomis macrochirus") in central Florida is a major attraction for fishermen from all over the country. The St. Johns is home to 183 species of fish, 55 of which appear in the main stem of the river. One, the southern tessellated darter ("Etheostoma olmstedi") is found only in the Ocklawaha. Some are marine species that either migrate upriver to spawn or have found spring-fed habitats that are high in salinity, such as a colony of Atlantic stingrays ("Dasyatis sabina") that live in Lake Washington in the upper basin. Ocean worms, snails, and white-fingered mud crabs ("Rhithropanopeus harrisii") have also been found far upriver where tidal influences are rare. In contrast, American eels ("Anguilla rostrata") live in the St. Johns and Ocklawaha and spawn in the Sargasso Sea in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. After a year living in the ocean, many of them find their way back to the St. Johns to live, then, prompted by the phases of the moon, make the return journey to spawn and die.


title: St. Johns River

text: From the intersection of the Ocklawaha River, to the Atlantic Ocean, the St. Johns lies within the lower basin, draining a total area of in Putnam, St. Johns, Clay, and Duval Counties. Twelve tributaries empty into the river in the lower basin. The St. Johns River widens considerably on the north end of Lake George; between Lake George and Palatka the river ranges between wide. Between Palatka and Jacksonville, that widens further to between . This portion of the river is the most navigable and shipping is its primary use. The Army Corps of Engineers maintains shipping channels at least deep and wide. North of Jacksonville, the channels are expanded to deep and between wide.


title: St. Johns River

text: The towns and cities along the lower basin of the river are some of the oldest in Florida, and their histories have centered on the river. Both Palatka and Green Cove Springs have been popular tourist destinations in the past. Several smaller locations along the river sprang up around ferry landings, but when rail lines and then Interstate highways were constructed closer to the Atlantic Coast, many of the towns experienced significant economic decline, and ferry landings were forgotten.


title: St. Johns River

text: The final of the river's course runs through Jacksonville with a population of more than a million. Much of the economic base of Jacksonville depends on the river: of goods are shipped in and out of Jacksonville annually. Exports include paper, phosphate, fertilizers, and citrus, while major imports include oil, coffee, limestone, cars, and lumber. The Port of Jacksonville produces $1.38 billion in the local economy and supports 10,000 jobs. The U.S. Navy has two bases in the Jacksonville area: Naval Station Mayport, at the mouth of the river, serves as the second largest Atlantic Fleet operation and home port in the country. Naval Air Station Jacksonville is one of the service's largest air installations, home to two air wings and over 150 fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, and the host for one of only two full-fledged Naval Hospitals remaining in Florida.


title: St. Johns River

text: Using an unofficial nickname of "The River City", Jacksonville has a culture centered on the St. Johns. An annual footrace named the Gate River Run accepts 18,000 participants who travel a course along and over the river twice. The largest kingfishing tournament in the U.S. is held on a St. Johns tributary, where sport fishers concentrate on king mackerel ("Scomberomorus cavalla"), cobia ("Rachycentron canadum"), dolphin ("Coryphaena hippurus") and Wahoo ("Acanthocybium solandri"). The home stadium for the Jacksonville Jaguars faces the river, as does most of the commercial center of downtown. Seven bridges span the St. Johns at Jacksonville; all of them allow tall ships to pass, although some restrict passing times when train or automobile traffic is heavy.


title: St. Johns River

text: Tides cause seawater to enter the mouth of the St. Johns River and can affect the river's level into the middle basin. As a result, much of the river in Jacksonville is part seawater, making it an estuarine ecosystem. The animals and plants in these systems can tolerate both fresh and salt water, and the fluctuations in saline content and temperatures associated with tidal surges and heavy rainfall discharge. Marine animals such as dolphins and sharks can be spotted at times in the St. Johns at Jacksonville as can manatees. Fish such as mullet ("Mullidae"), flounder ("Paralichthys lethostigma"), shad ("Alosa sapidissima"), and blue crabs ("Callinectes sapidus") migrate from the ocean to freshwater springs upriver to spawn.


title: St. Johns River

text: Although freshwater invertebrates inhabiting and comprising algae and periphyton make the foundation of food webs in the middle and lower basin, zooplankton and phytoplankton take that role in the estuarine habitat. Mollusks gather at the St. Johns estuary in large numbers, feeding on the bottom of the river and ocean floors. The abundance and importance of oysters ("Crassostrea virginica") is apparent in the many middens left by the Timucua in mounds many feet high. Oysters and other mollusks serve as the primary food source of shorebirds. The large trees that line the river from its source to south of Jacksonville begin to transition into salt marshes east of the city. Mayport is home to approximately 20 shrimping vessels that use the mouth of the St. Johns to access the Atlantic Ocean.


title: St. Johns River

text: Lying within a coastal plain, the St. Johns River passes through an area that was at one time barrier islands, coastal dunes, and estuary marshes. The Florida Peninsula was created primarily by forces and minerals from the ocean. It lies so low that minor fluctuations in sea levels can have a dramatic effect on its geomorphology. Florida was once part of the supercontinent Gondwana. Lying underneath the visible rock formations is a basement of igneous granite and volcanic composition under a sedimentary layer formed during the Paleozoic era 542 to 251 million years ago. During the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years ago), the basement and its sedimentary overlay were further covered by calcium carbonate and formations left by the evaporation of water called evaporites. What covers the peninsula is the result of simultaneous processes of deposits of sands, shells, and coral, and erosion from water and weather. As ocean water has retreated and progressed, the peninsula has been covered with sea water at least seven times. Waves compressed sands, calcium carbonate, and shells into limestone; at the ocean's edge, beach ridges were created by this depositional forming. North-south axis rivers, such as the St. Johns, were created by past beach ridges which were often divided by swales. As ocean water retreated, lagoons formed in the swales, which were further eroded by acidic water. Barrier islands, furthermore, formed along the Atlantic Coast, surrounding the lagoon with land and forming a freshwater river.


title: St. Johns River

text: From its origins to approximately the area of Sanford, the St. Johns flows north. It takes a sharp turn west near Sanford for a few miles—which is referred to as the "St. Johns River offset", but shortly changes direction to flow north again. Geologists hypothesize that the west-flowing offset may have formed earlier than the north flowing portions, possibly during the late Tertiary or early Pleistocene era 66 to 12 million years ago. Some fracturing and faulting may also be responsible for the offset. Although seismic activity in Florida is mostly insignificant, several minor earthquakes have occurred near the St. Johns River, caused by the trough created by Pangaean rifting.


title: St. Johns River

text: All of Florida's abundant fresh water is the result of precipitation that returns to the atmosphere in a process called evapotranspiration that involves evaporation and transpiration of moisture from plants. As rains fall, most of the water is directed to lakes, streams, and rivers. However, a significant amount of fresh water is held underground but close to the surface in aquifers. A surficial aquifer consisting mostly of clay, shells, and sand is over a confining layer of denser materials. Wells are drilled in the surficial aquifer, which supplies better quality water in areas where the deepest aquifer has a high mineral content. Occasionally the confining layer is fractured to allow breaches of water to percolate down to recharge the layer below. The Floridan Aquifer, underneath the confining layer, underlies the entire state and portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina. It is particularly accessible in the northern part of Florida, serving as the fresh water source of metropolitan areas from St. Petersburg north to Jacksonville and Tallahassee.


title: St. Johns River

text: Acidic rainwater erodes the limestone and can form caverns. When the overlay of these caverns is particularly thin—less than —sinkholes can form. Where the limestone or sand/clay overlay dissolves over the aquifer and the pressure of the water pushes out, springs form. The upper and middle basins of the St. Johns River are located in a portion of the peninsula where the aquifer system is thinly confined, meaning springs and sinkholes are abundant. Springs are measured in magnitude of how much water is discharged, which is dependent upon season and rainfall. The greatest discharge is from first magnitude springs that emit at least of water per second. There are four first magnitude springs that feed the St. Johns River: Silver Springs in Marion County, emitting between /second; Silver Glen Spring straddling Marion and Lake Counties, emitting between /second; Alexander Springs in Lake County, emitting between /second; and Blue Spring in Volusia County, emitting between /second.


title: St. Johns River

text: The St. Johns River lies within a humid subtropical zone. In summer months, the temperature ranges from , and between in the winter, although drops may occur in winter months to below freezing approximately a dozen times. Water temperatures in the river correlate to the air temperatures. The average range of water temperatures is between , rising in the summer months. Where the river widens between Palatka and Jacksonville, wind becomes a significant factor in navigation, and both whitecap waves and calm surface waters are common.


title: St. Johns River

text: Rain occurs more frequently in late summer and early fall. Tropical storms and nor'easters are common occurrences along the Atlantic coast of Florida; the St. Johns River lies between inland, so any storm striking the counties of Indian River north to Duval produces rain that is drained by the St. Johns River. Tropical Storm Fay in 2008 deposited of rain in a 5-day period, most of it located near Melbourne. The St. Johns near Geneva in Seminole County rose in four days, setting a record. The river near Sanford rose in 36 hours. Fay caused severe flooding in the middle basin due not only to the deluge but the flat slopes of the river. Typically, however, the St. Johns basin receives between of rain annually, half of it in summer months. The rate of evapotranspiration corresponds to rainfall, ranging between a year, most of it occurring in the summer.


title: St. Johns River

text: The entire river lies within the nearly flat Pamlico terrace, giving it an overall gradient of per mile (km); it is one of the flattest major rivers on the continent. Its proximity to the ocean in the lower basin affects its rise and fall with tides and salinity. Tides regularly affect water levels as far south as Lake George; when combined with extreme winds, the river's tidal effects can extend to Lake Monroe away and have on occasion reached Lake Harney. Tides typically raise the river level about at Jacksonville, decreasing some to at Orange Park where the river widens, and increasing back to at Palatka as it narrows. As a result of tidal effects, discharge measurements in the lower basin are often inaccurate. However, the estimated rate of discharge between the Ocklawaha River and the center of Jacksonville ranges from per second. The nontidal discharge at the mouth at Mayport averages per second, but with tides it exceeds per second, and following heavy rains combined with tides can top per second. Farther upriver, the discharge rate ranges from per second near Lake Poinsett to per second near DeLand. The confluence of numerous springs, the Econlockhatchee River, and the Wekiva River causes the average discharge to increase by per second between Lake Harney and DeLand, representing the greatest annual average increase of streamflow along the St. Johns.


title: St. Johns River

text: As distance between the mouth of the St. Johns and the middle and upper basins increases, the salinity in the river gradually decreases. Marine water measures at 35 parts per thousand (ppt) or more while fresh water measures below 2 ppt. What ranges in between is characterized as brackish water. Near the center of Jacksonville, average measures have been collected at 11.40 ppt. Farther south at the Buckman Bridge, joining the south side of Jacksonville to Orange Park, it decreases to 2.9 ppt and falls again to 0.81 ppt at the Shands Bridge near Green Cove Springs.


title: St. Johns River

text: Dissolved oxygen in fresh water is measured to indicate the health of plant and animal life. It enters water through the atmosphere and from aquatic plant photosynthesis, and is affected by water pressure and temperature. Rapid decomposition of organic materials will decrease the amount of dissolved oxygen in the river, as will nutrients added to the water artificially by wastewater treatment runoff or drainage from fertilized agricultural fields. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Florida recommend no less than 5 mg of oxygen per liter. Several locations on the St. Johns or its tributaries reported at or below these minimums in the 1990s, including the mouth of the Wekiva River, the St. Johns at the town of Christmas, and in the early 2000s at Blue Spring and Blackwater Creek. Sustained low levels of dissolved oxygen may create algal blooms, which may also cause a further decrease in dissolved oxygen.


title: St. Johns River

text: Like all blackwater streams in Florida, the color of most of the St. Johns is black, owing to the tannins in leaf litter and decaying aquatic plants. Spring fed streams, on the other hand, are remarkably clear and visibility is very high, even when the river bottom is dozens of feet below.


title: St. Johns River

text: Humans arrived on the Florida Peninsula about 12,000 years ago when the ocean was about lower than today, and the peninsula was double its current size. These earliest people are called Paleo-Indians. They were primarily hunter–gatherers who followed large game, such as mastodons, horses, camels, and bison. Much of the land was far from water—most fresh water was contained in glaciers and polar ice caps. As a result, Florida was an arid landscape with few trees, dominated by grasslands and scrub vegetation.


title: St. Johns River

text: Around 9,000 years ago, the climate warmed, melting much of the polar ice caps and many glaciers, creating a wetter environment and submerging half the peninsular shelf. As Paleo-Indians now did not have to travel as far to find water, their camps became more permanent, turning into villages. With evidence of a wide variety of tools constructed around this time, archeologists note the transition into Archaic people. The Archaic people made tools from bone, animal teeth, and antlers. They wove fibers from plants such as cabbage palms and saw palmettos. A few burial sites have been excavated—including the Windover Archaeological Site in Brevard County near Titusville—that provide evidence of burial rituals. Archaic peoples interred their dead in shallow peat marshes, which preserved much of the human tissue. Further climate change between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago led to the Middle Archaic period; evidence suggests that human habitation near the St. Johns River first occurred during this era. Populations of indigenous people increased significantly at this time, and numerous settlements near the St. Johns have been recorded from this era; the banks of the St. Johns and its arteries are dotted with middens filled with thousands of shells, primarily those of "Viviparus georgianus"—a freshwater snail—and oysters.


title: St. Johns River

text: The advent of regional types of pottery and stone tools made of flint or limestone marked further advancements around 500 BCE. The Archaic people transitioned into settled groups around Florida. From the central part of the state north, along the Atlantic Coast lived people in the St. Johns culture, named for the most significant nearby natural formation. Around 750 CE, the St. Johns culture learned to cultivate corn, adding to their diet of fish, game, and gourds. Archeologists and anthropologists date this agricultural advancement to coincide with a spread of archeological sites, suggesting that a population increase followed. When European explorers arrived in north Florida, they met the Timucua, numbering about 14,000, the largest group of indigenous people in the region. The later Seminole people called the river "Welaka" or "Ylacco". These forms may derive from the Creek "wi-láko", "big water", a compound usually applied to large rivers that run through lakes; the St. Johns forms and borders numerous lakes. Alternately, the Seminole name may derive from "walaka" (from "wi-alaka", "water" and "coming"), perhaps a reference to the river's slow discharge and the tidal effects on it. The name is sometimes rendered as "Chain of Lakes" in English.


title: St. Johns River

text: Though the first European contact in Florida came in 1513 when Juan Ponce de León arrived near Cape Canaveral, not until 1562 did Europeans settle the north Atlantic coast of the peninsula. Early Spanish explorers named the river "Rio de Corientes" (River of Currents). The St. Johns River became the first place colonized in the region and its first battleground: when French explorer Jean Ribault erected a monument south of the river's mouth to make the French presence known, it alarmed the Spanish who had been exploring the southern and western coast of the peninsula for decades. Ribault was detained after he returned to Europe.


title: St. Johns River

text: In 1564, René Goulaine de Laudonnière arrived to build Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns River; they called the river "Rivière de Mai" because they settled it on May 1. An artist named Jacques LeMoyne documented what he saw among the Timucuan people in 1564, portraying them as physically powerful and not lacking for provisions. Fort Caroline did not last long, though relations with the local Timucua and Mocamas were friendly. The colony was unable to support itself; some of the French deserted. Those who remained were killed in 1565 by the Spanish, led by Pedro Menéndez, when they marched north from St. Augustine and captured Fort Caroline. The river was renamed San Mateo by the Spanish in honor of the Apostle Matthew, whose feast was the following day. Capturing Fort Caroline allowed the Spanish to maintain control of the river.


title: St. Johns River

text: The French and Spanish continued to spar over who would control the natural resources and native peoples of the territory. The Timucua, who had initially befriended the French, were not encouraged to make the Spanish allies because of colonial governor Pedro Menéndez de Avilés' abhorrence of French Protestantism and his view that the Timucuan beliefs were "Satanic". By 1573, the Timucua were in outright rebellion, testing the governor's patience and forcing Spanish settlers to abandon farms and garrisons in more interior parts of Florida; the Spanish could not persuade the Timucua to keep from attacking them.


title: St. Johns River

text: Over a hundred years later, missionaries had more success, setting up posts along the river. Spanish Franciscan missionaries gave the river its current name based on "San Juan del Puerto" (St. John of the Harbor), the mission established at the river's mouth following the demise of the French fort. The name first appeared on a Spanish map created between 1680 and 1700.


title: St. Johns River

text: The Timucua, as other groups of indigenous people in Florida, began to lose cohesion and numbers by the 18th century. A tribe located in modern-day Georgia and Alabama called the Creeks assisted with this; in 1702, they joined with the Yamasee and attacked some of the Timucua, forcing them to seek protection from the Spanish who forced them into slavery. The Creeks began assimilating other people and spread farther south until they were known by 1765 as Seminoles by the British, a term adapted from "cimarrones" that meant "runaways" or "wild ones". The Seminoles employed a variety of languages from the peoples the Creeks had assimilated: Hitchiti, Muskogee, as well as Timucua. Between 1716 and 1767, the Seminoles gradually moved into Florida and began to break ties with the Creeks to become a cohesive tribe of their own. The St. Johns provided a natural boundary to separate European colonies on the east bank and indigenous lands west of the river.


title: St. Johns River

text: After Florida came under the Kingdom of Great Britain's jurisdiction in 1763, Quaker father and son naturalists John and William Bartram explored the length of the river while visiting the southeastern United States from 1765 to 1766. They published journals describing their experiences and the plants and animals they observed. They were charged by King George III to find the source of the river they called the Picolata or San Juan, and measured its widths and depths, taking soil samples as they traveled southward. William returned to Florida from 1773 to 1777 and wrote another journal about his travels, while he collected plants and befriended the Seminoles who called him "Puc Puggy" (flower hunter). William's visit took him as far south as Blue Spring, where he remarked on the crystal clear views offered by the spring water: "The water is perfectly diaphanous, and here are continually a prodigious number and variety of fish; they appear as plain as though lying on a table before your eyes, although many feet deep in the water." Bartram's journals attracted the attention of such prominent Americans as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. The success of these journals inspired other naturalists such as André Michaux to further explore the St. Johns, as he did in 1788, sailing from Palatka south to Lake Monroe, and gave names to some of the plants described by the Bartrams' journals. Michaux was followed by William Baldwin between 1811 and 1817. Subsequent explorers, including John James Audubon, have carried William's "Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida" with them as a guide.


title: St. Johns River

text: In 1795, Florida was transferred back to Spain which lured Americans with cheap land. A former loyalist to Britain who left South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, a planter and slave trader named Zephaniah Kingsley seized the opportunity and built a plantation named Laurel Grove near what is now Doctors Lake, close to the west bank of the St. Johns River, south of where Orange Park is today. Three years later, Kingsley took a trip to Cuba and purchased a 13-year-old Wolof girl named Anna Madgigine Jai. She became his common-law wife, and managed Laurel Grove while Kingsley traveled and conducted business. The plantation grew citrus and sea island cotton ("Gossypium barbadense"). In 1814, they moved to a larger plantation on Fort George Island, where they lived for 25 years, and owned several other plantations and homesteads in what is today Jacksonville and another on Drayton Island at the north end of Lake George. Kingsley later married three other freed women in a polygamous relationship; Spanish-controlled Florida allowed interracial marriages, and white landowners such as James Erwin, George Clarke, Francisco Sánchez, John Fraser, and Francis Richard Jr.—early settlers along the river—all were married to or in extramarital relationships with African women.


title: St. Johns River

text: The first years following Florida's annexation to the United States in 1821 were marked with violent conflicts between white settlers and Seminoles, whose bands often included runaway African slaves. The clashes between American and Seminole forces during the establishment of the Florida territory are reflected in the towns and landmarks along the St. Johns named for those who were directly involved. Even before Florida was under U.S. jurisdiction, Major General Andrew Jackson was responsible for removing the Alachua Seminoles west of the Suwannee River, either killing them or forcing them farther south towards Lake County, in 1818. Jackson's efforts became the First Seminole War, and were rewarded by the naming of a cattle crossing across a wide portion of the St. Johns near the Georgia border—previously named Cowford—to Jacksonville. The result of Jackson's offensive was the transfer of Florida to the U.S. Following the Seminole Wars, a gradual increase in commerce and population occurred on the St. Johns, made possible by steamship travel. Steamboats heralded a heyday for the river, and before the advent of local railroads, they were the only way to reach interior portions of the state. They also afforded the citizens of Jacksonville a pastime to watch competing races. By the 1860s, weekly trips between Jacksonville, Charleston, and Savannah were made to transport tourists, lumber, cotton, and citrus. The soil along the St. Johns was considered especially successful for producing sweeter oranges.


title: St. Johns River

text: Florida's involvement in the U.S. Civil War was limited compared to other Confederate states because it had a fraction of the populations of states that had been developed. Florida provided materials to the Confederacy by way of steamboats on the St. Johns, although the river and the Atlantic coasts were blockaded by the U.S. Navy. One action in Florida's role in the Civil War was the sinking of the , a Union paddle steamer used for patrolling the St. Johns to keep materials from reaching the Confederate Army. In 1864, near Palatka, Confederate forces under the command of Capt. John Jackson Dickison captured, burned, and sank the USS "Columbine", making her perhaps the only ship commandeered by the Confederacy. The same year and farther downriver, Confederates again sank a Union boat, the "Maple Leaf", which struck a floating keg filled with explosives and settled into the muck near Julington Creek, south of Jacksonville. Part of the shipwreck was recovered in 1994, when it was discovered that many Civil War-era artifacts, including daguerreotypes and wooden matches, had been preserved in the river muck.