title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: The zeros of Λ("x") are the reciprocals formula_151. This follows from the above product notation construction since if formula_152 then one of the multiplied terms will be zero formula_153, making the whole polynomial evaluate to zero.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Let formula_155 be any integer such that formula_156. Multiply both sides by formula_157 and it will still be zero.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: These summations are now equivalent to the syndrome values, which we know and can substitute in! This therefore reduces to


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Recall that "j" was chosen to be any integer between 1 and "v" inclusive, and this equivalence is true for any and all such values. Therefore, we have "v" linear equations, not just one. This system of linear equations can therefore be solved for the coefficients Λ of the error location polynomial:


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: The above assumes the decoder knows the number of errors "ν", but that number has not been determined yet. The PGZ decoder does not determine "ν" directly but rather searches for it by trying successive values. The decoder first assumes the largest value for a trial "ν" and sets up the linear system for that value. If the equations can be solved (i.e., the matrix determinant is nonzero), then that trial value is the number of errors. If the linear system cannot be solved, then the trial "ν" is reduced by one and the next smaller system is examined.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Use the coefficients Λ found in the last step to build the error location polynomial. The roots of the error location polynomial can be found by exhaustive search. The error locators "X" are the reciprocals of those roots. The order of coefficients of the error location polynomial can be reversed, in which case the roots of that reversed polynomial are the error locators formula_167 (not their reciprocals formula_151). Chien search is an efficient implementation of this step.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Once the error locators "X" are known, the error values can be determined. This can be done by direct solution for "Y" in the error equations matrix given above, or using the Forney algorithm.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Calculate "i" by taking the log base formula_63 of "X". This is generally done using a precomputed lookup table.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Finally, e(x) is generated from "i" and "e" and then is subtracted from r(x) to get the originally sent message s(x), with errors corrected.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Consider the Reed–Solomon code defined in with and (this is used in PDF417 barcodes) for a RS(7,3) code. The generator polynomial is


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: The coefficients can be reversed to produce roots with positive exponents, but typically this isn't used:


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: with the log of the roots corresponding to the error locations (right to left, location 0 is the last term in the codeword).


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: The Berlekamp–Massey algorithm is an alternate iterative procedure for finding the error locator polynomial. During each iteration, it calculates a discrepancy based on a current instance of Λ(x) with an assumed number of errors "e":


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: and then adjusts Λ("x") and "e" so that a recalculated Δ would be zero. The article Berlekamp–Massey algorithm has a detailed description of the procedure. In the following example, "C"("x") is used to represent Λ("x").


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Another iterative method for calculating both the error locator polynomial and the error value polynomial is based on Sugiyama's adaptation of the extended Euclidean algorithm .


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: A discrete Fourier transform can be used for decoding. To avoid conflict with syndrome names, let "c"("x") = "s"("x") the encoded codeword. "r"("x") and "e"("x") are the same as above. Define "C"("x"), "E"("x"), and "R"("x") as the discrete Fourier transforms of "c"("x"), "e"("x"), and "r"("x"). Since "r"("x") = "c"("x") + "e"("x"), and since a discrete Fourier transform is a linear operator, "R"("x") = "C"("x") + "E"("x").


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Transform "r"("x") to "R"("x") using discrete Fourier transform. Since the calculation for a discrete Fourier transform is the same as the calculation for syndromes, "t" coefficients of "R"("x") and "E"("x") are the same as the syndromes:


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Use formula_187 through formula_188 as syndromes (they're the same) and generate the error locator polynomial using the methods from any of the above decoders.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Let v = number of errors. Generate E(x) using the known coefficients formula_189 to formula_190, the error locator polynomial, and these formulas


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: Then calculate "C"("x") = "R"("x") − "E"("x") and take the inverse transform (polynomial interpolation) of "C"("x") to produce "c"("x").


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: The Singleton bound states that the minimum distance "d" of a linear block code of size ("n","k") is upper-bounded by "n" − "k" + 1. The distance "d" was usually understood to limit the error-correction capability to ⌊(d-1) / 2⌋. The Reed–Solomon code achieves this bound with equality, and can thus correct up to ⌊(n-k) / 2⌋ errors. However, this error-correction bound is not exact.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: In 1999, Madhu Sudan and Venkatesan Guruswami at MIT published "Improved Decoding of Reed–Solomon and Algebraic-Geometry Codes" introducing an algorithm that allowed for the correction of errors beyond half the minimum distance of the code. It applies to Reed–Solomon codes and more generally to algebraic geometric codes. This algorithm produces a list of codewords (it is a list-decoding algorithm) and is based on interpolation and factorization of polynomials over formula_194 and its extensions.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: The algebraic decoding methods described above are hard-decision methods, which means that for every symbol a hard decision is made about its value. For example, a decoder could associate with each symbol an additional value corresponding to the channel demodulator's confidence in the correctness of the symbol. The advent of LDPC and turbo codes, which employ iterated soft-decision belief propagation decoding methods to achieve error-correction performance close to the theoretical limit, has spurred interest in applying soft-decision decoding to conventional algebraic codes. In 2003, Ralf Koetter and Alexander Vardy presented a polynomial-time soft-decision algebraic list-decoding algorithm for Reed–Solomon codes, which was based upon the work by Sudan and Guruswami.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: The decoders described in this section use the Reed Solomon original view of a codeword as a sequence of polynomial values where the polynomial is based on the message to be encoded. The same set of fixed values are used by the encoder and decoder, and the decoder recovers the encoding polynomial (and optionally an error locating polynomial) from the received message.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: described a theoretical decoder that corrected errors by finding the most popular message polynomial. The decoder only knows the set of values formula_195 to formula_196 and which encoding method was used to generate the codeword's sequence of values. The original message, the polynomial, and any errors are unknown. A decoding procedure could use a method like Lagrange interpolation on various subsets of n codeword values taken k at a time to repeatedly produce potential polynomials, until a sufficient number of matching polynomials are produced to reasonably eliminate any errors in the received codeword. Once a polynomial is determined, then any errors in the codeword can be corrected, by recalculating the corresponding codeword values. Unfortunately, in all but the simplest of cases, there are too many subsets, so the algorithm is impractical. The number of subsets is the binomial coefficient, formula_197, and the number of subsets is infeasible for even modest codes. For a formula_198 code that can correct 3 errors, the naive theoretical decoder would examine 359 billion subsets.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: In 1986, a decoder known as the Berlekamp–Welch algorithm was developed as a decoder that is able to recover the original message polynomial as well as an error "locator" polynomial that produces zeroes for the input values that correspond to errors, with time complexity formula_199, where formula_19 is the number of values in a message. The recovered polynomial is then used to recover (recalculate as needed) the original message.


title: Reed–Solomon error correction

text: In 2002, an improved decoder was developed by Shuhong Gao, based on the extended Euclid algorithm Gao_RS.pdf .


title: Graham Wardle

text: Graham Wardle (born September 6, 1986) is a Canadian actor, filmmaker and photographer best known for his role as Ty Borden on the long running CBC series "Heartland".


title: Graham Wardle

text: Wardle was born in Mission, British Columbia, and was raised along with his five siblings in New Westminster, near Vancouver. Wardle studied at the Motion Picture and Production Program at Capilano University in Vancouver, graduating in 2007.


title: Graham Wardle

text: Wardle began his career in commercials and a variety of television shows. In 2007, Wardle appeared in the film "In the Land of Women" with Meg Ryan and Adam Brody. That year, he was selected to play Ty Borden in the CBC series "Heartland". Wardle was nominated for two LEO Awards for the Heartland episodes "Summer's End" and "The Starting Gate". He has appeared in the horror zombie movie, "Yesterday", the film "Mon Ami", the television show "Supernatural" and the SyFy channel movie "Grave Halloween". In 2020, Wardle left Heartland as it began its 14th season, stating "I felt in my heart it was time to move in a new direction."


title: Graham Wardle

text: In 2012, Wardle produced the short film "The Vessel". In the summer of 2013, Wardle co-founded Lone Maverick, a Movie Production and Entertainment Company.


title: Graham Wardle

text: Wardle currently hosts a podcast, Time Has Come, which "explores the personal journeys of his guests and how they have stepped beyond what is familiar/safe and into the unknown."


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The Mexico–United States barrier (), also known as the border wall, is a series of vertical barriers along the Mexico–United States border intended to reduce illegal immigration to the United States from Mexico. The barrier is not a continuous structure but a series of obstructions variously classified as "fences" or "walls".


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: Between the physical barriers, security is provided by a "virtual fence" of sensors, cameras, and other surveillance equipment used to dispatch United States Border Patrol agents to suspected migrant crossings. In May 2011, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that it had of barriers in place. An additional 52 miles of primary barriers were built during Donald Trump's presidency. The total length of the national border is . On July 28th 2022, the Biden administration announced it would fill four wide gaps in Arizona near Yuma, an area with some of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The border between the United States and Mexico traverses a variety of terrains, including urban areas and deserts. The border from the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso, Texas, follows along the Rio Grande forming a natural barrier. The barrier is located on both urban and uninhabited sections of the border, areas where the most concentrated numbers of illegal crossings and drug trafficking have been observed in the past. These urban areas include San Diego, California, and El Paso, Texas. The fencing includes a steel fence (varying in height between 18 and 27 feet) that divides the border towns of Nogales, Arizona, in the U.S. and Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: 97% of border apprehensions (foreign nationals who are caught being in the U.S. illegally) by the Border Patrol in 2010 occurred at the southwest border. The number of Border Patrol apprehensions declined 61% from 1,189,000 in 2005 to 723,842 in 2008 to 463,000 in 2010. The decrease in apprehensions are the result of numerous factors, including changes in U.S. economic conditions and border enforcement efforts. Border apprehensions in 2010 were at their lowest level since 1972. Total apprehensions for 2017, 2018, and 2019 were 415,517, 521,090, 977,509 respectively. This shows a recent increase in apprehensions. And while the barrier is along the Mexico-United States border, 80% of the apprehended crossers are non-Mexican.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: As a result of the barrier, there has been a significant increase in the number of people trying to cross areas that have no fence, such as the Sonoran Desert and the Baboquivari Mountains in Arizona. Such immigrants must cross fifty miles (80 km) of inhospitable terrain to reach the first road, which is located in the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The Mexico–United States border stretches from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. Border states include the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. U.S. states along the border are California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: Territorial exchanges in the Mexican-American War (1846–48) and the Gadsden Purchase (1853) would largely establish the current U.S.-Mexico border. Until the early 20th century, the border was open open and largely unpatrolled, with only a few "mounted guards" patrolling its length. However, tensions between the United States and Mexico started to rise with the Mexican Revolution (1910) and World War I, which also increased concerns about weapons smuggling, refugees and cross-border espionage. The first international bridge was the Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge built in 1910. The first barrier built by the U.S. (a barbed wire fence to prevent the movement of cattle across the border) was built in Ambos Nogales between 1909 and 1911. The first barrier built by Mexico was likely a six-foot-tall wire fence built in 1918 explicitly for the purpose of directing the flow of people, also in Ambos Nogales. Barriers were extended in the following decades, with barriers becoming a common feature in border towns by the 1920s. In the 1940s, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service built chain-link barriers along the border.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: U.S. President George H. W. Bush approved the initial 14 miles of fencing along the San Diego–Tijuana border. In 1993, President Bill Clinton oversaw initial border fence construction which was completed by the end of the year. Starting in 1994, further barriers were built under Clinton's presidency as part of three larger operations to taper transportation of illegal drugs manufactured in Latin America and immigration: Operation Gatekeeper in California, Operation Hold-the-Line in Texas, and Operation Safeguard in Arizona. Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which authorized further barriers and the reinforcement of the initial border fence. The majority of the border barriers built in the 1990s were made out of leftover helicopter landing mats from the Vietnam War.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The Real ID Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush on May 11, 2005, attached a rider to a supplemental appropriations bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which went into effect in May 2008:Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In 2005, there were 75 miles of fencing along the border. In 2005, the border-located Laredo Community College obtained a 10-foot fence built by the United States Marine Corps. The structure led to a reported decline in border crossings on to the campus. U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter of California proposed a plan on November 3, 2005, calling for the construction of a reinforced fence along the entire United States–Mexico border. This would also have included a border zone on the U.S. side. On December 15, 2005, Congressman Hunter's amendment to the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437) passed in the House, but the bill did not pass the Senate. This plan called for mandatory fencing along 698 miles (1,123 km) of the 1,954-mile (3,145-kilometer)-long border. On May 17, 2006, the U.S. Senate proposed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S. 2611), which would include of triple-layered fencing and a vehicle fence, but the bill died in committee.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The Secure Fence Act of 2006, signed into law on October 26, 2006, by President George W. Bush authorized and partially funded the potential construction of 700 miles (1,125 km) of physical fence/barriers along the Mexican border. The bill passed with supermajorities in both chambers. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff announced that an eight-month test of the virtual fence he favored would precede any construction of a physical barrier.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The government of Mexico and ministers of several Latin American countries condemned the plans. Governor of Texas Rick Perry expressed his opposition, saying that the border should be more open and should support safe and legal migration with the use of technology. The barrier expansion was opposed by a unanimous vote by the Laredo, Texas, City Council. Laredo Mayor Raul G. Salinas said that the bill would devastate Laredo. He stated "These are people that are sustaining our economy by forty percent, and I am gonna close the door on them and put [up] a wall? You don't do that. It's like a slap in the face." He hoped that Congress would revise the bill to better reflect the realities of life on the border.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: Secretary Chertoff exercised his waiver authority on April 1, 2008, to "waive in their entirety" the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act to extend triple fencing through the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve near San Diego.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: By January 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security had spent $40 million on environmental analysis and mitigation measures aimed at blunting any possible adverse impact that the fence might have on the environment. On January 16, 2009, DHS announced it was pledging an additional $50 million for that purpose, and signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior for utilization of the additional funding. In January 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that it had more than of barriers in place.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: On March 16, 2010, DHS announced that there would be a halt to expand the virtual fence beyond two pilot projects in Arizona. Contractor Boeing Corporation had numerous delays and cost overruns. Boeing had initially used police-dispatching software that was unable to process all of the information coming from the border. The $50 million of remaining funding would be used for mobile surveillance devices, sensors, and radios to patrol and protect the border. At the time, DHS had spent $3.4 billion on border fences and had built of fences and barriers as part of the Secure Border Initiative.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In May 2011, President Barack Obama stated that the wall was "basically complete", with of 652 planned miles of barrier constructed. Of this, vehicle barriers comprised and pedestrian fence . Obama stated that:We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we've done. But ... I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time. They'll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That's politics.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The Republican Party's 2012 platform stated that "The double-layered fencing on the border that was enacted by Congress in 2006, but never completed, must finally be built." The Secure Fence Act's costs were estimated at $6 billion, more than the Customs and Border Protection's entire annual discretionary budget of $5.6 billion. The Washington Office on Latin America noted in 2013 that the cost of complying with the Secure Fence Act's mandate was the reason that it had not been completely fulfilled.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: A 2016 report by the Government Accountability Office confirmed that the government had completed the fence by 2015. A 2017 report noted that "In addition to the 654 miles of primary fencing, [Customs and Border Protection] has also deployed additional layers of pedestrian fencing behind the primary border fencing, including 37 miles of secondary fencing and 14 miles of tertiary fencing."


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for the construction of a much larger and fortified border wall, claiming that if elected, he would "build the wall and make Mexico pay for it". Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto maintained that his country would not pay for the wall. On January 25, 2017, the Trump administration signed Executive Order 13767, which formally directed the US government to begin attempting to construct a border wall using existing federal funding, although construction did not begin at this time because a formal budget had not been developed.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: Trump's campaign promise has faced a host of legal and logistical challenges since. In March 2018, the Trump administration secured $1.6 billion from Congress for projects at the border for existing designs of approximately 100 miles of new and replacement walls. From December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, the federal government was partially shut down because of Trump's declared intention to veto any spending bill that did not include $5 billion in funding for a border wall.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: On May 24, 2019, federal Judge Haywood Gilliam in the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction preventing the Trump administration from redirecting funds under the national emergency declaration issued earlier in the year to fund a planned wall along the border with Mexico. The injunction applies specifically to money the administration intended to allocate from other agencies and limits wall construction projects in El Paso and Yuma. On June 28, Gilliam blocked the reallocation of $2.5 billion of funding from the Department of Defense to the construction of segments of the border wall categorized as high priority by the Trump administration (spanning across Arizona, California and New Mexico). The decision was upheld five days later by a majority in the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court but was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on July 26. On September 3, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper authorized the use of $3.6 billion in military construction funding for 175 miles of the barrier. The House and Senate have twice voted to terminate Trump's emergency declaration, but the president vetoed both resolutions. In October, a lawsuit filed in El Paso County produced a ruling that the emergency declaration was unlawful, as it fails to meet the National Emergencies Act's definition of an emergency. On December 10, a federal judge in the case blocked the use of the funding, but on January 8, 2020, a federal appeals court granted a stay of the ruling, freeing $3.6 billion for the wall.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: , the Trump administration's barrier construction had been limited to replacing sections that were in need of repair or outdated, with 60 miles of replacement wall built in the Southwest since 2017. As of September 12, 2019, the Trump administration plans for "Between 450 and 500 miles (724–806 kilometers) of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,218-kilometer) border by the end of 2020" with an estimated total cost of $18.4 billion. Privately owned land adjacent to the border would have to be acquired by the U.S. government to be built upon.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: On June 23, Trump visited Yuma, Arizona, for a campaign rally commemorating the completion of of the wall. U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that almost all of this was replacement fencing. By the end of Trump's term on January 21, 2021, had been built at last report by CBP on January 5th, much of it replacing outdated or dilapidated existing barriers.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: As of February 2019, contractors were preparing to construct $600 million worth of replacement barriers along the south Texas Rio Grande Valley section of the border wall, approved by Congress in March 2018. In mid-April 2019, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach visited Coolidge, Arizona, to observe a demonstration by North Dakota's Fisher Industries of how it would build a border fence. The company maintained that it could erect 218 miles of the barrier for $3.3 billion and be able to complete it in 13 months. Spin cameras positioned atop the fence would use facial-recognition technology, and underground fiber optic cables could detect and differentiate between human activity, vehicles, tunneling, and animals as distant as 40 feet away. The proposed barrier would be constructed with 42 miles (68 km) near Yuma and 91 miles (147 km) near Tucson, Arizona, 69 miles near El Paso, Texas, and 15 miles (25 km) near El Centro, California—reportedly costing $12.5 million per mile. In April 2019, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy said that he traveled with the group of politicians and administration officials over the Easter recess to Coolidge (120 miles north of the Mexico border) because he felt that insufficient barrier and border enhancements had been erected since Trump became president. U.S. senator Kevin Cramer was also there, promoting Fisher Industries, which demonstrated the construction of a 56-foot (18 m) fence in Coolidge.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: A private organization founded by military veteran Brian Kolfage called "We Build the Wall" raised over $20 million beginning in 2018, with President Trump's encouragement and with leadership from Kobach and Steve Bannon. Over the 2019 Memorial Day weekend, the organization constructed a 1/2 to 1-mile "weathered steel" bollard fence near El Paso on private land adjoining the US–Mexico border using $6–8 million of the donated funds. Kolfage's organization says it has plans to construct further barriers on private lands adjoining the border in Texas and California. On December 3, 2019, a Hidalgo County judge ordered the group to temporarily halt all construction because of its plans to build adjacent to the Rio Grande, which a lawyer for the National Butterfly Center argues would create a flooding risk. On January 9, 2020, a federal judge lifted an injunction, allowing a construction firm to move forward with the 3 mile project along the Rio Grande. This ended a month long court battle with both the Federal Government and the National Butterfly Center which both tried to block construction efforts.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: President Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day of office, January 20, 2021, ordering a "pause" in all construction of the wall no later than January 27. The government was given two months to plan how to spend the funds elsewhere and determine how much it would cost to terminate the contracts. There are no plans to tear down parts of the wall that have been built. The deployment of 3,000 National Guard troops along the border will continue. The Biden administration has continued to seize land for construction of the border wall. By December 2021, many contracts had been cancelled, including one requiring the possession of the land of a family represented by the Texas Civil Rights Project.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In June 2021, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced plans to build a border wall in his state, saying that the state would provide $250 million and that direct donations from the public would be solicited. On June 29, the Republican Study Committee organized a group of two dozen Republican House members to visit a gap in the border where Central Americans were crossing into the country. Representative Mary Miller stated that "obviously our president has advertised this and facilitated this invasion". Rep. Jim Banks praised the effectiveness of Trump's wall and said that because of the halted construction, "thousands of migrants [pass] through this area on a regular basis ... because there's an open door that allows them to do that". In reference to wristbands on migrants used by Mexican cartels and smugglers to track them, Rep. Madison Cawthorn stated, "They're basically treating people like Amazon products. ... There is no care that that is a human being, someone who has a soul, someone who has unalienable rights that predate any government."


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: On July 28, 2022, the Biden administration announced it would fill four wide gaps in Arizona near Yuma, an area with some of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In 2021, in collaboration with United States and Mexican ambassadors, as well as businessmen, a binational park was proposed along the Rio Grande between the border towns of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Supported by the No Border Wall Coalition, the park aims to create a shared recreational space instead of a border wall. Earthjustice estimated that the decision to not build a border wall in Laredo saved 71 miles of river from destruction and over $1 billion in taxpayer dollars.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In August 2022, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey ordered the erection of a makeshift wall of shipping containers on the border with Mexico in Cochise County, Arizona. The construction began in the Coronado National Forest without authorization from the U.S. Forest Service, which operates the land. Ecologists at the Center for Biological Diversity argue that the construction, which imperils at-risk species including the ocelot and jaguar, violates the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and have sued to halt its construction. Additionally, Governor-elect Katie Hobbs stated that she would remove the containers after taking office, and the U.S. Justice Department sued the state to remove the containers and "compensate the [U.S.] for any actions it needs to take to undo Arizona's actions".


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: Research at Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University indicates that the wall, like border walls in general, is unlikely to be effective at reducing illegal immigration or movement of contraband. In mid-April 2019, U.S. Senator Martha McSally said that a barrier will not resolve the border crisis. Authors of books on the effectiveness have said that aside from the human crossings, drugs among other things will still be making their way to the United States illegally. However, US Customs and Border Protection has frequently called for more physical barriers on the Mexico–United States border, citing their efficacy. Smugglers in 2021 used demolition tools and power saws on pieces of wall in Arizona.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: On January 27, 2008, a Native American human rights delegation in the United States, which included Margo Tamez (Lipan Apache-Jumano Apache) and Teresa Leal (Opata-Mayo) reported the removal of the official International Boundary obelisks of 1848 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the Las Mariposas, Sonora-Arizona sector of the Mexico–U.S. border. The obelisks were moved southward approximately , onto the property of private landowners in Sonora, as part of the larger project of installing the steel barrier wall.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The proposed route for the border fence would divide the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville into two parts, according to Antonio N. Zavaleta, a vice president of the university. There have been campus protests against the wall by students who feel it will harm their school. In August 2008, UT-Brownsville reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the university to construct a portion of the fence across and adjacent to its property. On August 20, 2008, the university sent out a request for bids for the construction of a high barrier that incorporates technology security for its segment of the border fence project. The southern perimeter of the UT-Brownsville campus will be part of a laboratory for testing new security technology and infrastructure combinations. The border fence segment on the campus was substantially completed by December 2008.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The SpaceX South Texas Launch Site was shown on a map of the Department of Homeland Security with the barrier cutting through the in Boca Chica, Texas.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: On August 1, 2018, the chief of the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector indicated that although Starr County was his first priority for a wall, Hidalgo County's Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge had been selected instead for initial construction, because its land was owned by the government.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: The proposed border wall has been described as a "death sentence" for the American National Butterfly Center, a privately operated outdoor butterfly conservatory that maintains a significant amount of land in Mexico. Filmmaker Krista Schlyer, part of an all-woman team creating a documentary film about the butterflies and the border wall, "Ay Mariposa", estimates that construction would put "70 percent of the preserve habitat" on the Mexican side of the border. In addition to concerns about seizure of private property by the federal government, center employees have also noted the local economic impact. The center's director has stated that "environmental tourism contributes more than $450m to Hidalgo and Starr counties."


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In early December 2018, a challenge to wall construction at the National Butterfly Center was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the "San Antonio Express News", "the high court let stand an appeals ruling that lets the administration bypass 28 federal laws", including the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In 2006, the Mexican government vigorously condemned the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Mexico has also urged the U.S. to alter its plans for expanded fences along their shared border, saying that it would damage the environment and harm wildlife.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto was campaigning in Tijuana at the Playas de Monumental, less than from the U.S.–Mexico border adjacent to Border Field State Park. In one of his speeches he criticized the U.S. government for building the barriers and asked for them to be removed, referencing President Ronald Reagan's "Tear down this wall!" speech from Berlin in 1987.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: Between 1994 and 2007, there were around 5,000 migrant deaths along the Mexico–United States border, according to a document created by the Human Rights National Commission of Mexico, also signed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Between 43 and 61 people died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert from October 2003 to May 2004; three times that of the same period the previous year. In October 2004, the Border Patrol announced that 325 people had died crossing the entire border during the previous 12 months. Between 1998 and 2004, 1,954 persons are officially reported to have died along the Mexico–U.S. border. Since 2004, the bodies of 1,086 migrants have been recovered in the southern Arizona desert.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector reported on October 15, 2008, that its agents were able to save 443 illegal immigrants from certain death after being abandoned by their smugglers. The agents also reducing the number of deaths by 17% from 202 in 2007 to 167 in 2008. Without the efforts of these agents, hundreds more could have died in the deserts of Arizona. According to the same sector, border enhancements like the wall have allowed the Tucson Sector agents to reduce the number of apprehensions at the borders by 16% compared with 2007.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In April 2008, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to waive more than 30 environmental and cultural laws to speed construction of the barrier. Despite claims from then Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff that the department would minimize the construction's impact on the environment, critics in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, asserted that the fence endangered species and fragile ecosystems along the Rio Grande. Environmentalists expressed concern about butterfly migration corridors and the future of species of local wildcats, the ocelot, the jaguarundi, and the jaguar.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: By August 2008, more than 90% of the southern border in Arizona and New Mexico had been surveyed. In addition, 80% of the California–Mexico border has been surveyed. About 100 species of plants and animals, many already endangered, are threatened by the wall, including the jaguar, ocelot, Sonoran pronghorn, Mexican wolf, a pygmy owl, the thick-billed parrot, and the Quino checkerspot butterfly. According to Scott Egan of Rice University, a wall can create a population bottleneck, increase inbreeding, and cut off natural migration routes and range expansion.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In 2008 a resolution "based on sound and accurate scientific knowledge" expressing opposition to the wall and the harmful impact on several rare, threatened, and endangered species, particularly endangered mammals such as the jaguar, ocelot, jaguarondi, and Sonoran pronghorn, was published by The Southwestern Association of Naturalists, an organization of 791 scientists specializing in the zoology, botany, and ecology of southwestern USA and Mexico. A decade later in 2018, well over 2500 scientists from 43 countries published a statement opposing the Border Wall, affirming it will have "significant consequences for biodiversity" and "Already-built sections of the wall are reducing the area, quality, and connectivity of plant and animal habitats and are compromising more than a century of binational investment in conservation."


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: An initial wall for which U.S. funding has been requested on the nearly mile border would pass through the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge in California, the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, and Mexico's Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that the U.S. is bound by global treaty to protect. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to build the wall using the Real ID Act to avoid the process of making environmental impact statements, a strategy devised by Chertoff during the Bush administration. Reuters said, "The Real ID Act also allows the secretary of Homeland Security to exempt CBP from adhering to the Endangered Species Act", which would otherwise prohibit construction in a wildlife refuge.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: A Rasmussen Reports poll from August 19, 2015, found that 51% supported building a wall on the border, while 37% opposed.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: In a January 2017 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 39% of Americans identified construction of a U.S.–Mexico border wall as an "important goal for U.S. immigration policy". The survey found that while Americans were divided by party on many different immigration policies, "the widest [partisan split] by far is over building a southern border wall. Two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (67%) say construction of a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border is an important goal for immigration policy, compared with just 16 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners."


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: A survey conducted by the National Border Patrol Council found that 89% of border patrol agents said a "wall system in strategic locations is necessary to securing the border". 7% of agents disagreed.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: A poll conducted by CBS in June 21–22 2018 found that 51% supported the border wall, while 48% opposed.


title: Mexico–United States barrier

text: A poll conducted by the Senate Opportunity Fund in March of 2021 found that 53% supported finishing construction of the border wall, while 38% opposed.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: Tokata Iron Eyes (born 2003/2004) is a Native American activist and member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Iron Eyes was a youth leader of "ReZpect our Water", a campaign against the proposed route of the Dakota Access Pipeline and also served on the board of a sustainable energy group called Indigenized Energy.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: Iron Eyes began her activism at age nine, when she testified against a uranium mine in the Black Hills. At age 12, she spoke in a viral video advocating for action against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which later sparked the social media campaign, "Rezpect Our Water." In September 2019, Iron Eyes met youth climate activist Greta Thunberg at George Washington University. Iron Eyes invited Thunberg to Iron Eyes' homelands, and the two held multiple rallies together in North Dakota and South Dakota in October 2019, including at the Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Iron Eyes was a student; at the Youth Climate Activism Panel in Rapid City, South Dakota; and at Standing Rock High School in Fort Yates, North Dakota.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: Tokata Iron Eyes is the child of Chase Iron Eyes, an activist, attorney, and politician, and Sara Jumping Eagle, a pediatrician and environmental activist. Tokata Iron Eyes is also a singer and songwriter, and attended Bard College at Simon's Rock.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: According to a statement made by their father in June, 2022, Iron Eyes is nonbinary. Iron Eyes has continued to use the name Tokatawin on the Instagram account, but for a time in the summer of 2022 she was also, at times, using the name "Gibson"; for a while in June the pronoun on the Instagram account was "she"; on June 22, 2022, the pronouns were changed to "she/they". As of November, 2022, the additional name on the Instagram account has been changed back to "tokata".


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: In June 2022, Iron Eyes' parents filed legal documents asking a judge to issue an order of protection against actor Ezra Miller on her behalf, due to Miller allegedly using "violence, intimidation, threat of violence, fear, paranoia, delusions, and drugs" including marijuana and LSD to hold sway over her. Although Iron Eyes is 18, due to tribal regulations Iron Eyes' parents are still considered her legal guardians.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: Iron Eyes' parents claim that an inappropriate relationship began between the pair in 2016, during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, when Miller was 23 and Iron Eyes was 12. They further claim, and photos document, that the year after the two met, Iron Eyes flew to London to visit Miller on the set of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"; in 2021 she dropped out of school, allegedly to follow Miller. Iron Eyes' parents also alleged in the legal documents that Miller caused bruises on Tokata and that Miller had given Iron Eyes a large amount of LSD in 2020. A response came via Tokata's Instagram account, denying the parents' allegations, declaring herself to be both mentally stable and in contact with a mental health professional.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: Her parents' countered by claiming their child does not control her social media. Iron Eyes stated in the video response that it's her own choice not to have a phone. , law enforcement has been unable to locate Miller to serve them with the order. Miller then posted messages on their Instagram account mocking the court's attempts to find them, but has since deleted them.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: In August, Miller's former music collaborator Oliver Ignatius stated that he had witnessed Miller verbally abuse Iron Eyes over her wearing makeup. She defended Miller by referring to the incident as "a catty comment" and a part of "queer dialogue"; she called the allegation of abuse "homophobic".


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: According to a September 2022 "Vanity Fair" article, the tribal court dismissed the request for a permanent protective order, and the parents say they withdrew their request for custody, believing the odds were stacked against them; the same article reports that Miller claims to be Jesus, the devil, and the next Messiah while Iron Eyes believes herself to be a Native American spider goddess. They believe their relationship will bring about a Native American revolution followed by the apocalypse.


title: Tokata Iron Eyes

text: In January 2020, Iron Eyes was featured on Disney+ in an episode of "Marvel's Hero Project" as "Thrilling Tokata". In May 2020, she was named one of the Ms. Foundation's 2020 Women of Vision, and she received the Peggy C. Charren Free to Be You and Me Award.


title: M46 Patton

text: The M46 Patton is an American medium tank designed to replace the M26 Pershing and M4 Sherman. It was one of the U.S Army's principal medium tanks of the early Cold War, with models in service from 1949 until the mid-1950s. It was not widely used by U.S. Cold War allies, being exported only to Belgium, and only in small numbers to train crews on the upcoming M47 Patton.


title: M46 Patton

text: The M46 was the first tank to be named after General George S. Patton Jr., commander of the U.S. Third Army during World War II and one of the earliest American advocates for the use of tanks in battle.


title: M46 Patton

text: After World War II, most U.S. Army armored units were equipped with a mix of M4 Sherman and M26 Pershing tanks. Designed initially as a heavy tank, the M26 Pershing tank was reclassified as a medium tank after the war. The M26 was a significant improvement over the M4 Sherman in firepower and protection. Its mobility, however, was deemed unsatisfactory for a medium tank, as it used the same engine as the much lighter M4A3 and was plagued with an unreliable transmission.


title: M46 Patton

text: Work began in January 1948 on replacing the original power plant with the Continental AV1790-3 engine and Allison CD-850-1 cross-drive transmission. This design was initially called the M26E2, but modifications continued to accumulate; eventually, the Bureau of Ordnance decided that the tank needed its own unique designation, the M46. The upgraded M26 received a new power plant and a main gun with a bore evacuator.


title: M46 Patton

text: Upon completion of the first model of the Detroit Tank Arsenal production line in November 1948, the M46 was christened after the late General George S. Patton Jr. By December the Army had ordered several hundred. In July 1950 Detroit Arsenal was producing Pershings and M46s at a rate of over a dozen a day. In August 1950 President Harry S. Truman authorized funding for increased M46 production as part an expansion of heavy tank development program.


title: M46 Patton

text: The only American combat use of the M46 Patton was during the Korean War. On 8 August 1950, the first M46 Patton tanks, belonging to the 6th Tank Battalion, landed in South Korea. The M46 proved to be capable against North Korean T-34 medium tanks. By the end of 1950, 200 M46 Pattons had been fielded, forming about 15% of US tank strength in Korea; the balance of 1,326 tanks shipped to Korea during 1950 were 679 M4A3 Shermans (including the M4A3E8 variant), 309 M26 Pershings, and 138 M24 Chaffee light tanks. Subsequent shipments of M46 and M46A1 Pattons allowed all remaining M26 Pershings to be withdrawn during 1951, and most Sherman equipped units were also reequipped.


title: M46 Patton

text: M46 series operators include: 1st Tank Battalion and regimental Antitank Platoons of the 1st Marine Division by 1952, 72nd Armor Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division by January 1952, 64th Tank Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division, 73rd Tank Battalion of the 7th Infantry Division by January 1951, 6th Tank Battalion of the 24th Infantry Division, 140th Tank Battalion (took over the tanks of the 6th Tank Battalion) and regimental tank companies of the 40th Infantry Division by October 1951, and the 245th Tank Battalion of the 45th Infantry Division by 1952. Several other regimental tank companies gained M46/M46A1s by the end of the war, including the 7th and 65th Infantry Regiments of the 3rd Infantry Division.


title: M46 Patton

text: A surviving example of the M46 Patton tank can be seen on display at the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul.


title: M46 Patton

text: In the 1950s, small numbers of M46s were leased for training purposes at no cost to some European countries, including Belgium, France and Italy, in preparation for the introduction of the M47. American instruction teams used the vehicles to train European tank crews and maintenance personnel.


title: Belle Starr

text: Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr (February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889), better known as Belle Starr, was an American outlaw who gained national notoriety after her violent death.


title: Belle Starr

text: She associated with the James–Younger Gang and other outlaws. She was convicted of horse theft in 1883. She was fatally shot in 1889 in a case that is still officially unsolved. Her story was popularized by Richard K. Fox — editor and publisher of the "National Police Gazette" — and she later became a popular character in television and films.


title: Belle Starr

text: Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley on her father's farm near Carthage, Missouri, on February 5, 1848. Most of her family members called her May. Her father, John Shirley, prospered raising wheat, corn, hogs and horses, though he was considered to be the "black sheep" of a well-to-do Virginia family which had moved west to Indiana, where he married and divorced twice. Her mother, Elizabeth "Eliza" Hatfield Shirley, was John Shirley's third wife and a distant relative to the Hatfields of the famous family feud. In the 1860s, Belle's father sold the farm and moved the family to Carthage, where he bought a livery stable and blacksmith shop on the town square.


title: Belle Starr

text: May Shirley received a classical education and learned piano, while graduating from Missouri's Carthage Female Academy, a private institution that her father had helped to found.


title: Belle Starr

text: May's brother, John A. M. "Bud" Shirley, six years older than she, was active in Jasper County among the irregular forces known as bushwhackers, guerilla bands organized to resist the federal troops who had been sent to compel Missouri to join the war against the Confederacy. May was reputed to have supported her brother in these efforts, perhaps as a spy, but exactly how and to what extent is obscured by the much-embroidered and disputed Belle Starr legend. Bud Shirley was killed by federal troops in late June 1864. Soon after,sick at heart over Bud’s death and his business ruined by the theft and destruction, [John Shirley] disposed of his property, loaded his family and household goods into two Conestoga wagons, and set out for Texas ... Shirley’s destination was Scyene, a small settlement ten miles southeast of Dallas. Myra [May], a dutiful daughter, drove one of the wagons.According to the book "Belle Starr" by Burton Rascoe (Random House, 1941), the "Shirleys were regarded as 'rather common,' because they had no slaves." While in school, Myra was "irregular in attendence" and was regarded as "rather wild" by teacher Mrs. Poole.


title: Belle Starr

text: Following the war, members of the Reed family also moved to Texas and, according to Collin County marriage records, James C. Reed and Mira ["sic"] M. Shirley were married there on November 1, 1866. Two years later, she gave birth to her first child, Rosie Lee (nicknamed Pearl). Belle always harbored a strong sense of style, which fed into her later legend. A crack shot, she used to ride sidesaddle while dressed in a black velvet riding habit and a plumed hat, carrying two pistols, with cartridge belts across her hips. Reed turned to crime and was wanted for murder in Arkansas, which caused the family to move to California, where their second child, James Edwin (Eddie), was born in 1871.


title: Belle Starr

text: Later returning to Texas, Reed was involved with several criminal gangs. While Reed initially tried his hand at farming, he would grow restless and associated with the Starr clan, a Cherokee Indian family notorious for whiskey, cattle, and horse thievery in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), as well as the James and Younger gangs. In April 1874, despite a lack of any evidence, a warrant was issued for her arrest for a stagecoach robbery by her husband and others. Reed was killed in August of that year in Paris, Texas, where he had settled down with his family.


title: Belle Starr

text: Belle was allegedly briefly married for three weeks to Charles Younger, uncle of Cole Younger in 1878, but this is not substantiated by any evidence. There are numerous claims that Belle's daughter Pearl Reed was actually Pearl Younger, but in Cole Younger's autobiography (quoted in Glen Shirley's "Belle Starr and her times"), he discounted that as rubbish and stated what he knew truly of Belle.


title: Belle Starr

text: In 1880, she married a Cherokee man named Sam Starr and settled with the Starr family in the Indian Territory. There, she learned ways of organizing, planning and fencing for the rustlers, horse thieves and bootleggers, as well as harboring them from the law. Belle's illegal enterprises proved lucrative enough for her to employ bribery to free her colleagues from the law whenever they were caught.


title: Belle Starr

text: In 1883, Belle and Sam were arrested by Bass Reeves, charged with horse theft and tried before "The Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker in Fort Smith, Arkansas; the prosecutor was United States Attorney W.H.H. Clayton. She was found guilty and served nine months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. Belle proved to be a model prisoner and, during her time in jail, she won the respect of the prison matron. In contrast, Sam was incorrigible and assigned to hard labor. In a contradictory account after her arrest by the Marshall, "Belle proved to be a loud and unruly prisoner."


title: Belle Starr

text: In 1886, she eluded conviction on another theft charge, but, on December 17, Sam Starr was involved in a gunfight with his cousin Law Officer Frank West. Both men were killed, and Belle's life as an outlaw queen—and what had been the happiest relationship of her life—abruptly ended with her husband's death.


title: Belle Starr

text: For the last 2+ years of her life, gossips and scandal sheets linked her to a series of men with colorful names, including Jack Spaniard, Jim French and Blue Duck, after which, she married a relative of Sam Starr, Jim July, who later became Jim July Starr, who was some 15 years younger than she was.


title: Belle Starr

text: On February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, Belle was killed. She was riding home from a neighbor's house when she was ambushed. After she fell off her horse, she was shot again to make sure she was dead. Her death resulted from shotgun wounds to the back and neck and in the shoulder and face. Legend says she was shot with her own double-barrel shotgun.


title: Belle Starr

text: According to Frank "Pistol Pete" Eaton, her death was due to different circumstances. She had been attending a dance. Frank Eaton had been the last person to dance with Belle Starr when Edgar J. Watson, one of her sharecroppers and clearly intoxicated, had asked to dance with her. When Belle Starr declined, he later followed her. When she stopped to give her horse a drink at a creek on the way home, he shot and killed her. According to Frank Eaton, Watson was tried, convicted, and executed by hanging for the murder.


title: Belle Starr

text: However, another story says that there were no witnesses and that no one ever was convicted of the murder. Suspects with apparent motive included her new husband and both of her children as well as Edgar Watson, because he was afraid she was going to turn him in to the authorities as an escaped murderer from Florida with a price on his head. Watson, who was killed in 1910, was tried for her murder, but was acquitted, and the ambush has entered Western lore as "unsolved".


title: Belle Starr

text: One source suggests her son, whom she had allegedly beaten for mistreating her beloved horse, may have been her killer.


title: Belle Starr

text: Although an obscure figure outside Texas throughout most of her life, Belle's story was picked up by the dime novel and "National Police Gazette" publisher Richard K. Fox, who made her name famous with his fictional novel "Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James", published in 1889 (the year of her murder). This novel still is cited as a historical reference despite its artistic license and lack of historical accuracy. It was the first of many popular stories that used her name.


title: Belle Starr

text: Eddie Reed, Belle's son, was convicted of horse theft and receiving stolen property in July 1889. Judge Parker sent him to prison in Columbus, Ohio. Rosie Reed, Belle's daughter, also known as Pearl Starr, became a prostitute to raise funds for Eddie's release. She eventually obtained a presidential pardon in 1893. Eddie became a deputy in Fort Smith and killed two outlaw brothers named Crittenden in 1895, and was himself killed in a saloon in Claremore, Oklahoma on December 14, 1896.


title: Belle Starr

text: Pearl operated several bordellos in Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas, from the 1890s to World War I.


title: Narada Michael Walden

text: Narada Michael Walden ( ; Michael Walden; born April 23, 1952) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He acquired the nickname Narada from Sri Chinmoy.


title: Narada Michael Walden

text: He began his career as a drummer, working primarily in the jazz fusion realm, appearing with John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter and Weather Report, and Allan Holdsworth. After being mentored by Quincy Jones, he transitioned into a role as a songwriter and producer, working in the 1980s and 1990s with numerous R & B acts such as Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, as well as other singers across a number of genres. In 2020, he became the drummer for Journey, replacing Steve Smith. In 2021, he became one of two drummers in the band alongside the returning Deen Castronovo prior to leaving in 2022. He appears on the band's album "Freedom" (2022), having co-produced and played on the album before his departure.


title: Narada Michael Walden

text: Walden was born in Plainwell, Michigan. He attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, from 1970 to 1972.


title: Narada Michael Walden

text: Walden played with rock bands in Miami, Florida, after he graduated from college. He was a member of the 'second incarnation' of the Mahavishnu Orchestra from 1974 to 1976, playing drums and providing vocals. Atlantic released his first album, "Garden of Love Light", in 1977 with a single that reached the R&B chart. This was followed by "I Cry I Smile" and "The Awakening". The latter album reached No. 15 on the R&B chart. His singles continued to be popular in R&B during the 1980s. These included a duet with Patti Austin and an appearance on the soundtrack for the movie "Bright Lights, Big City".


title: Narada Michael Walden

text: He built his studio in 1985 and produced music for The Temptations, Stacy Lattisaw, Aretha Franklin, Angela Bofill, Lisa Fischer, Sister Sledge, Herbie Hancock, Patti Austin, Whitney Houston, Clarence Clemons, George Benson, Sheena Easton, Kenny G, Lionel Richie, Al Jarreau, and Mariah Carey.


title: Narada Michael Walden

text: Walden has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards, winning three: Best R&B Song for "Freeway of Love" (1985); Producer of the Year, Non-Classical (1987); and Album of the Year for "The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album" (1993).


title: Narada Michael Walden

text: In 2013, Walden married former Catholic school teacher, Katie Mersereau, at Marin Civic Center, St Rafael, California, United States. The couple have two daughters, Kelly and Kayla and a son, Michael. The pair worked together on Walden's album Evolution, released in 2015, with Katie credited as providing backing vocals on four tracks and writing one song, under her married name, Katie Mersereau-Walden.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle United Football Club ( , ) is a professional association football club based in Carlisle, Cumbria, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They have played their home games at Brunton Park since 1909. The club's traditional kit is blue with white and red detail, whilst the badge takes elements from the city's coat of arms by including two wyverns. They are nicknamed the "Blues", due to their kit, as well as the "Cumbrians". The club is the closest English professional football club to the Anglo-Scottish border.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Formed in 1904, the club entered the Lancashire Combination the following year and were crowned Division Two champions in 1906–07. They entered the North Eastern League in 1910 and went on to win the league title in 1921–22, before being elected into the Football League in 1928. They spent the next 30 years in the Third Division North, at which point they were assigned a place in the newly formed Fourth Division, from where they won promotion in 1961–62. Relegated the following season, they then won two consecutive promotions, finishing the 1964–65 season as champions of the Third Division under the stewardship of Alan Ashman. They secured promotion out of the Second Division in 1973–74, but stayed only one season in the First Division and were relegated back to the Third Division at the end of the 1976–77 campaign. Promoted again under Bob Stokoe in 1981–82, they suffered successive relegations to return to the fourth tier by 1987.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle won promotion as champions of the fourth tier in 1994–95, but were relegated the next season, before winning promotion again in 1996–97, only to be relegated again the following year. Their 76-year stay in the Football League came to an end with relegation in 2003–04, though player-manager Paul Simpson secured an immediate return after leading United to victory in the 2005 Conference National play-off Final. They then won the League Two title in 2005–06, and remained in League One until their relegation at the end of the 2013–14 season. The club has reached the final of the Football League Trophy six times, more than any other team, winning it in 1997 and 2011, and finishing as runners-up in 1995, 2003, 2006 and 2010.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Shaddongate United F.C. are first reported in 1896 as the winners of the Carlisle Association Charity Shield and are recorded as playing at Willow Holme in the Shaddongate area of the city, now an industrial estate, and wearing blue and gold stripes. At the time Carlisle Red Rose and Carlisle AFC were the pre-eminent clubs in Carlisle but the new club quickly gained a following and by the time Carlisle AFC folded in 1899 they were considered a force to be reckoned with. By 1903 they had overtaken Red Rose and were further cemented as the city's biggest club when Red Rose's entire team were banned for four months by the Cumberland Football Association for taking part in a Scottish amateur tournament in contravention of league rules.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: A myth has persisted that Shaddongate and Red Rose had merged to form Carlisle United and this likely led the club to adopt 1904 as their official date of foundation, though Red Rose continued until 1906 at which point they folded. Only in 2017 did more information about the early part of their history come to light.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: On 17 May 1904 at Shaddongate United's annual general meeting the club's members voted to change the team's name to Carlisle United at a heated meeting in Caldewgate, and it wasn't without its detractors. In fact, a breakaway group decided that Shaddongate United should live on and they continued to play under that name. However, they didn't have much of a local impact and their exploits have also been lost in the fullness of time.. The initial idea having been proposed by Newcastle United officials who felt it would aid them when applying to regional football leagues if they represented the entire city. At the time they played at Milhome Bank and later at Devonshire Park, finally settling at their current home Brunton Park in 1909. The first ever recorded fixture that United played was on 1 September 1904 when they entertained Victoria Wanderers, another Carlisle based side, in a friendly. Wanderers would go on to win the game, played at Millholme Bank, 2-1 and, unfortunately, the scorer of that historic goal has been lost to history with his name never having been recorded.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The first ever Saturday match for Carlisle United was on 3 September 1904, and it ended in victory with a 3-1 win over Hexham. 7 days later it was Maxwelltown, just across the border, who played host in a thrilling 3-3 draw that saw both sides take and lose the lead. A final nail in the coffin for Shaddongate came when the new Carlisle United entered the Cumberland Senior League. The division had just the 6 teams (including fierce rivals Carlisle Red Rose) and it was to be the Roses who would inflict a first league defeat on United when they beat them 2-0 at Boundary Road. Revenge would be gained a month later when United went to the Roses ground at Maryport Cottages and beat them 2-1 in another nip and tuck match.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: It was in this 1904/05 season that Carlisle United entered the FA Cup for the first time. They were drawn to play against Workington who were, at that time, the top side in Cumbria. In fact, so good were thay that they comfortably held their own in the Lancashire Combination League. The Cup game ended in a 2-2 draw with the West Cumbrians running out as 3-1 winners in the replay. In the Cumberland Cup United started by knocking out Frizington White Star, followed by Workington and then Keswick in the Semi-Final. The Final, played on the Warwick Road ground, brought United and Red Rose together again, and it was the newer of the two sides who would come out on top. The 2-0 win not only handed them the Cumberland Cup, but also confirmed them as the first side to ever achieve the League and Cup double.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The remainder of the season for United was a series of friendly matches against the likes of Accrington, Darlington and Newcastle United. On Good Friday 1905 club officials pulled off a real coup when they managed to persuade Glasgow Rangers to come to the City for a game. The match was played at Warwick Road in front of a healthy crowd of 3000, but the Gers won 2-1. Having won both the Cumberland Senior League and the Cumberland Cup in their inaugural season and been very impressed with what they had seen and heard of the Lancashire Combination League, United went in search of approval for admittance on 3 May 1905. After a two week wait the request was rubber stamped and, along with Burnley, Bolton and Lancaster, United stepped up to a higher level of football, successfully applying to be admitted to the Second Division of the Lancashire Combination but were only admitted after agreeing to pay all visiting teams’ travel expenses for two years, due to Carlisle not being located in Lancashire. It was though a bold step for the Carlisle club who had to agree to pay the train fares for the visiting team for two seasons as well as providing them with a tea. The success of 1904-05 had resulted in the club's bank balance increasing from £24 to £90 despite the outlay of £52 on player's wages, an early sign of professionalism in the ranks. Yet this balance and more was needed to develop a new and better ground at Devonshire Park, situated off Lismore Place and Catholic Lane. A new stand seating 800 was erected and banking erected all around the playing area. The aim, as it was reported to the club's AGM, was to improve the game in the Border City. The Lancashire Combination had begun life back in 1891 with the Second Division being established in 1903. Though almost entirely composed of clubs in Lancashire, Workington had been admitted in 1904 so United were guaranteed at least one local derby fixture.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The new season's preparations also included moves to strengthen the playing staff. Several players were recruited from other local sides, not least Carlisle Red Rose who had severe financial difficulties. Other players came from further afield including Tom Smith who arrived as both player and trainer from Preston North End, had also played for Tottenham with whom he had won an FA Cup winners medal in 1901. The Lancashire Combination era began on 2 September 1905 at home to St Helens Town. Despite two goals from Smith, the visitors won 3-2. The next game at home to Blackpool Reserves was lost 5-1 and despite a first win at Burnley, Carlisle then crashed 8-1 at Clitheroe in what proved to be almost the worst defeat of the season. Soon afterwards a new goalkeeper, James Scott, was signed from Barnsley and immediately results began to improve. Carlisle were able to sustain a mid table position for most of the season. A rare lapse came on 2 January 1906 when the trip to Brynn Central ended in an 8-0 rout, the biggest defeat of the campaign. The most convincing victory had come a week earlier on Christmas Day 1905 when Hyde St George's were thrashed 10-2. Not surprisingly Hyde were to finish bottom of the table although it was reported rather unsurprisingly that they were 'somewhat short of their strongest side' when they arrived in Carlisle. Despite this fact, a total crowd of 11,310 watched the two home games on Christmas Day and Boxing Day while a further 1,000 were said to have been admitted without paying after forcing entry into the ground.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle finished the season in thirteenth place among the nineteen teams in the Combination. The campaign ended with four successive home matches, the last of these being the local derby with Workington. Though Carlisle were safely placed in mid table, Workington were near the top and in with a real chance of promotion to Division One. The teams had met a month earlier in Carlisle's last away match of the season which saw the Reds win 3-1. The return match at Devonshire Park attracted a gate in excess of 10,000 with receipts of no less than £208 thanks to increased admission prices. The match ended 1-1 and Workington eventually missed promotion by a single point. Financial troubles had caused Carlisle Red Rose to resign from the Cumberland Senior League the previous summer. Fortunately they were later readmitted, playing their home games at the Milholme Bank ground that had just been vacated by United. The two sides were then drawn together in the FA Cup First Preliminary Round. Carlisle United won 3-0 at Devonshire Park before losing at Barrow in the next round. It was not until the end of the season that the City's two leading sides met again. By that time Red Rose had won the Cumberland Cup Final, beating Frizington White Star who had just pipped them for the Cumberland League title. On 30 April 1906 United and Red Rose met in a friendly match in aid of the Red Rose club. The result was a 1-1 draw.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: After the league reorganised four years later the board at United decided it did not suit the club's best interests to be there any longer and the club entered the North Eastern League in place of their reserve team who had previously played in the league and been a founding member. When the Carlisle United first team left to join the Football League the reserve team resumed its place in the competition. Carlisle United were crowned champions of the North Eastern League in 1922.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The 1927–28 season was Carlisle's last in the North Eastern League. An excellent home record helped them to second in the table finishing a full 10 points behind Champions Sunderland Reserves. The close season meant the usual round of applications to join (and be re-elected to) the Football League. Carlisle went up against Chester, Durham City (applying for re-election), Nelson and York City. On 4 June 1928 a delegation of representatives from Carlisle United took their seats at the Football League meeting in London to hear the results of the vote. Carlisle received the second-most votes with 33, and replaced Durham City, who had received just 11 votes, as members of the Football League.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle United won their first League fixture Football League Third Division North in August 1923 with the side of Prout, Coulthard, Cook, Harrison, Ross, Pigg, Agar, Hutchison, McConnell, Ward and Watson beating Accrington Stanley 3–2. Their next game a week later was played against Hartlepool United and still stands to this day as their record victory at 8 goals to nil, though it was later equalled on Christmas Day 1952 when Scunthorpe were beaten by the same score. Carlisle finished in eighth place in their inaugural campaign which proved to be the best in the pre-war era. In 1934/35 the Club finished bottom of the table and had to seek re-election for the only time.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: When the Second World War began in 1939, Carlisle United withdrew from national and regional competitions and only played local football. When the war was over the club returned to the Football League and appointed Ivor Broadis as player-manager, making him the youngest league club manager in history. He then had the distinction of becoming the first manager to transfer himself when he moved to Sunderland, he continued to live and train in Carlisle. Broadis returned to Carlisle United in 1955 an ex-England international.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In 1949, the club became the first to appoint Bill Shankly as manager. Shankly, a former player at Carlisle, later went on to manage local rivals Workington (helping them finish above Carlisle for the first time) before being appointed as manager of Liverpool in 1959; over the next 15 years he would guide that club to numerous trophy successes. It is at Carlisle where he met local player Geoff Twentyman, who he would later sign as head scout at Liverpool, and lifelong friend Ivor Broadis. Broadis, who was playing for Sunderland but living and training with Carlisle, once arrived late for training and Shankly asserted that he would play by United's training rules even if he didn't play there. According to Shankly, he said to Broadis: "What do you think you're doing? Who do you think you are? If you do the training we do you can train with us and we'll play five-a-side and you'll run your guts out as an example to everybody else".


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle were members of the Third Division North until 1958 when it combined with the Third Division South to become the Fourth Division. They remained there until 1962 when they won their first promotion, they were relegated the following season but immediately bounced back to begin the most prosperous period in the club's history.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Upon gaining promotion to the Third Division in 1964 United immediately won the Third Division Championship the following year. In the period which followed Carlisle enjoyed their greatest success outside of cup competitions. Over twelve years the club cemented themselves as a solid Second Division (Then 2nd Tier in English football) side. Within that period Carlisle finished 7 out of 11 seasons in the top half of the table including 3rd in 66/67, 4th in 70/71 and a 3rd in 73/74 which saw them promoted to the top tier of English football. The end of the 71/72 season also saw Carlisle play their only European competition in the club's history, the Anglo-Italian Cup, and in June 1972 they beat A.S. Roma 3–2 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Playing in the First Division for the 1974–75 season, Carlisle won their first three fixtures to go top of the English football pyramid, partly due to the likes of Chris Balderstone, scoring the penalty which put them at the top, and Bobby Parker who both went on to make at least 375 league appearances for Carlisle. The success was short lived however, they finished the season in bottom place and were relegated. Highlight victories include doing a double over Everton, and home victories over eventual champions Derby County, and former title holders Ipswich Town, Arsenal, Burnley, Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Bill Shankly, an FA Cup and League Championship winning manager by that time, branded Carlisle's climb to the top as "the greatest feat in the history of the game."


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: After Carlisle’s brief taste of life in the First Division, the Club found themselves struggling in Division Two, and another relegation followed in 76/77 returning to the Third Division first time in 13 years.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Their top-flight journey three years earlier had faded into memory and, though a handful of their First Division squad remained, these were not such glorious times for the Cumbrians. It was Bobby Moncur’s first full season in charge in 1977/78, the Newcastle legend having succeeded reluctant boss Dick Young the previous autumn. Carlisle never managed to hit any sort of winning stride and found their campaign studded with draws. The FA Cup had brought some respite from the mundane, Carlisle encountered Manchester United after a decent spell of winter form. A 1-1 draw at Brunton Park is also remembered for the controversial decision not to award the Blues a second-half penalty, and eventually they bowed out with a 4-2 defeat in the Old Trafford replay. By the spring they had also seen the departure of their most dangerous player: striker Billy Rafferty, who was sold to Wolves. United had replaced him with Portsmouth’s David Kemp. Carlisle would settle the season with a 13th-placed finish.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: After another campaign in the Third Division finishing sixth place in the 1978/79 season. Carlisle went into the start of the 1979/80 season struggling for consistency but looked to climb up the divisions with 22-year-old York City striker Gordon Staniforth arriving for £120,000 in October, making him the club’s most expensive purchase at the time. Staniforth would join Paul Bannon and the emerging Peter Beardsley with a fresh attacking impetus. By the time Sheffield United visited in November in front of a 6,347 crowd they had found a degree of better form, winning 1-0. If these were new beginnings for Staniforth, though, they also proved the start of the end for Moncur. Three months after the Sheffield United win, the boss departed Brunton Park to take the top job at Hearts. That left Martin Harvey in caretaker and subsequently permanent charge as Carlisle finished sixth, the same as the previous season.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The 1980/81 season had started badly, it had been the first calendar year in which United had employed three different managers, Bob Moncur having left for Hearts in February, Martin Harvey steering the ship to September, then Bob Stokoe moving back in for a second spell. Carlisle hit by some key departures including Mike McCartney, Steve Ludlam and the earlier exit of Phil Bonnyman. Carlisle hosted Burnley on Boxing Day in a 3-2 victory after a Gordon Staniforth hat-trick, ending a six-game winless run. Carlisle would avoid the drop into Division Four by just a single point finishing 19th place. Returning manager Bob Stokoe would trigger another revival at the Club a year later.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In 1982 Carlisle were again promoted to the Second Division under Stokoe, this time in Second place in the table after a 1-0 victory at Chester in their last game of the season. A four year sojourn in Division Two then followed, including the “nearly” season of 1983/84, when they just missed out on promotion to the top flight once again; after spending the majority of the season in a top three placing with a team including Malcolm Poskett and Tommy Craig they mounted a promotion challenge but finished 7th after a late slump.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle ended their most prosperous period as rapidly as it had started. Back to back relegations saw them drop into the Fourth Division in 1987 for the first time since 1964. Even back in the Fourth Division, fortunes did not initially start to improve. Attendance slumped to the lowest in the Club’s history and only 1,287 saw the League game against Chester in May 1987 and the introduction of automatic promotion/relegation to the Vauxhall Conference posed a new threat. Carlisle's first season in there saw them finish second from bottom but 19 points ahead of relegated Newport County meant no danger of relegation.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle's league form was improved after three awful seasons and they finished 12th in Division Four in 1988/89. They reached the FA Cup third round, where their run was ended by defending league champions and eventual FA Cup winners, Liverpool. Seventeen-year-old defender Steve Harkness was sold to Liverpool at the end of the season. His place in the team was filled by Middlesbrough's Paul Proudlock.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle's good progress continued into the new decade, but their play-off hopes were ended on the final day of the season by a 5-2 demolition at the hands of Maidstone United. This was a disappointing end to an encouraging season during which the Cumbrians had topped the 1989/90 Fourth Division on Christmas Day and for a while in January as well before a late slump in form cost them dearly. In the end they missed out on the play-offs due to inferior goal difference.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: A promising start to the 1990/91 season suggested that the Cumbrians were finally on their way out of the Fourth Division, but a disastrous second half of the campaign saw them slump to 20th in the final table and cost manager Clive Middlemass his job in March. He was succeeded by Aidan McCaffrey, who was left needing a substantial overhaul to get Carlisle's fortunes back on track.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In 1992, Carlisle endured one of the worst seasons in their history as they finished bottom of the Fourth Division, but were lucky because the demise of Aldershot mid-season resulted in no relegation to the Conference taking place that year. A brief respite in Carlisle's decline then came when the club was taken over by Michael Knighton in the summer of 1992, the man who had made headlines in 1989 with his failed takeover bid for Manchester United became Chairman and Chief Executive of Carlisle United. Knighton purchased the entire Shareholding from the former Board of Directors, some 75.6% of the Club. The next three years saw a dramatic rise in the Club’s fortunes. From 1992 to 1996, some £4.5 million of investment had been provided to improve the Brunton Park Stadium. A new East Stand (6,000 All Seater) was opened by Nat Lofthouse in August 1996, as the first phase of the planned 28,000 All Seater Stadium. On October 1993 a Club record Transfer Fee was paid in the first three years of Knighton’s reign, acquiring a much-needed prolific goalscorer with the purchase of David Reeves for £121,000 from Notts County. The Club also broke its unbeaten run of games without defeat, by setting a new record of 19 games.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Before the 1993/94 season began, Michael Knighton announced his intention to deliver Premiership football to Carlisle by 2003. He re-organised the management team to appoint Mick Wadsworth as Director of Coaching, while David McCreery was given the role of head coach and 38-year-old goalkeeper Mervyn Day was named as assistant coach. This season was Carlisle's best in years, they won 10 of their final 14 league games to secure the final play-off place in the recently rebranded Division Three, a year after narrowly avoiding relegations but failed to gain promotion, though their promotion dream was ended by losing to Wycombe Wanderers in the semi-finals.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The 1994/95 Season was one of the Club’s most memorable, with the club attaining only their second Championship in the club’s history by taking the Third Division Championship with a record number of points for the Club, with Carlisle gaining some 91 points for the League Championship. David Reeves scored 25 league goals to help Carlisle achieve long-awaited success ending their eight-year ordeal in the league's basement division. This Season also witnessed the Club’s first appearance at Wembly in the Auto Windscreens Shield Final against Birmingham City, with a record crowd, for this competition, of 76,663. A nail biting finish went into extra time and history was made again when the “Golden Goal” principle was used for the first time at Wembley to decide the winner, when Birmingham scored to gain a 1-0 victory.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In 1995/96 with new found Division 2 status Carlisle were favourites to win the Division 2 Championship. However, profound disappointment materialised during that Season, which culminated in a controversial relegation back to Division 3. The re-arranged Brighton vs York fixture was completed after the formal season had finished. York knowing in advance that they only needed to win or score 3 goals to survive the drop themselves; York won, 3-1 at the Goldstone Ground, sending United back to Division 3. Knighton threatened to sue the League, unless the Football League adopted a more acceptable Code of Practice, to avoid such occurrences in the future.  Mervyn Day became Director of Coaching following the departure of Mick Wadsworth, who left the Club in January 1996 for First Division Norwich City, only to remain for a few months at Norwich before he left by “mutual consent”; Wadsworth found himself back in the Third Division as Manager of Scarborough F.C.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The opening campaign of the 1996/97 Season suggested that the Club could well be in the running to bounce back to Second Division status at the first attempt. As predicted and anticipated at the end of 1996/97, the Club gained promotion at the first attempt and returned to Division 2 and gained an automatic promotion spot, Carlisle would finish 3rd behind Wigan Athletic and Fulham, Wigan going through as Champions. . However, although the team had started the campaign as the “fancied” favourites for the Championship, Carlisle were slightly disappointed in finishing in Third place, considering the calibre of the squad, but the fact that the end of season run-in only produced four wins from the last twelve games saw the team limp over the promotion line rather than finish with a flourish. Carlisle, also made their second visit in three years to Wembley, by reaching the Final against Colchester. A fairly tense, equal affair saw the game burst into life in extra time. The Match ended with a thrilling penalty shoot out, Carlisle found themselves trailing 3-1 on penalties until Cumbrian, Tony Caig, pulled off two truly brilliant penalty saves to leave the Club Captain, Steve Hayward, with the last penalty kick to score and carry the day. He scored to see the Club win 4-3 on penalties and make History for the club by lifting a Winners Trophy at the famous “Home of Football”, for the first time.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: With promotion gained at the first attempt and returned to Second Division status for the 1997/98 season . The disappointing form from last season would continue, picking up just one win out of the first six games, and when one took the previous twelve games from last Season into account it showed a poor performance of picking up just five wins in eighteen matches. Mervyn Day was relieved of his duties, and the coaching team comprising Michael Knighton, David Wilkes and John Halpin took charge of First Team affairs. Paul Devlin was recruited as Community Officer in the place of John Halpin. The main objective for the new coaching staff for Season 1997/98 was to maintain Division Two status. Unfortunately this was not to be, and the Club finished 23rd on the table. Knighton sold the club soon afterwards, and Carlisle entered another period of strife and struggle.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In the 1998–99 season Carlisle found themselves in their second successive relegation battle. With Peter Beardsley still unable to make up his mind whether he wished to join Carlisle as team coach, it was left with the Wilkes and Halpin partnership to steer the club forward. After a mixed start the Team really began to play quite well throughout the end of September and October. In December Michael Knighton appointed former Middlesbrough captain, Nigel Pearson as Team Manager. Nigel Pearson came on strong recommendation to Carlisle with glowing references from the likes of Howard Wilkinson and Ron Atkinson, two of his former Managers. However, it is fair to describe that his period in charge as nothing short of disastrous, picking up just five wins from the 19th December 1999. Pearson obtained five wins out of some twenty-seven matches in charge.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: No one could have predicted the climax to the end of yet another disappointing Season. The final game of the season created one of football’s golden folklore moments, “the great escape” game of 8th May 1999. Carlisle United needed to gain three points from the final game of the season at home to Plymouth Argyle to retain their League survival or be relegated from the Football League for the first time since 1928. Scarborough (Carlisle's relegation rival) merely needed to draw against Peterborough. News had already flashed through to Brunton Park that Scarborough had achieved all they needed to do, drawing against high flying Peterborough at the McAlpine Stadium 1-1 each. The score line remained 1-1 at Brunton Park on 90 minutes and the crowd at Scarborough were already celebrating before the fourth official stated four minutes of extra time would be played at Brunton Park. In the 95th minute of stoppage, goalkeeper Jimmy Glass, who had signed in an emergency loan deal from Swindon Town after the transfer deadline, sprinted from his goal line, arrived late in the box for a corner kick, Scott Dobie’s flashing header was parried by the Plymouth goalkeeper straight to the feet of Glass, who with the last kick in the game wasted no time in smashing the ball home in one of the most dramatic ends to a Season ever witnessed. All pandemonium broke loose, a high spirited mass pitch invasion took place, the referee was swamped in a good natured fashion, and at least three or four minutes lapsed before the referee was able to return the ball to the centre spot. The moment the referee blew the whistle to re-start the game, he also signalled the end of the Match, in a glorious survival and retention of Football League status for Carlisle. It was in many ways a fitting finish. There had been much criticism over the departure of local Goalkeeping hero Tony Caig, and the incoming goalkeeper saving the Club, to become a national star overnight and a folk hero amongst the greatest of Carlisle folk heroes of all time.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In June 1999, Michael Knighton resigned as Chairman and put his shareholding in CUFC Holdings Ltd up for sale. The forthcoming 1999-00 season produced yet another poor performance on the field of play. Despite one million pounds spent on players' wages and the club retaining one of the largest playing squads in the bottom two divisions, the club narrowly escaped relegation to the conference on goal difference. Carlisle lost their final game of the season 1-0 to Brighton but were kept up by Chester City's defeat at the hands of Peterborough United. Chester City lost their league status, relegated to be replaced by Conference Champions Kidderminster. Carlisle’s Team Coach, Neil Cooper had already left by early January and both replacement, Paul Baker and manager Martin Wilkinson followed suit by the end of the season.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Ian Atkins, the former Northampton Town and Chester City manager was appointed to manage team affairs for the 2000/01 campaign. Atkins was one of the most successful managers in the lower leagues, and there was much hope that he could be the man to achieve promotion. But things didn't work out and they finished 22nd, just one place higher than in the previous two campaigns. In July, Atkins quit at the end of the season to take the Assistant Managers job at Cardiff and was succeeded by Roddy Collins who inspired Bohemians of Ireland to their historic UEFA Cup wins over Aberdeen and 1.FC Kaiserslautern.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In the 2001-02 season, the Blues just manage to avoid relegation at the expense of Barnet, safety was achieved in only the second to last game of the season. Carl Heggs scored the vital goal that secured the point needed in the away game at Lincoln City. The highlight of the season was the third round F.A Cup tie at home to Arsenal, the Blues made the Gunners work hard for a 1-0 victory and were unlucky not to grab a replay. Improved results on the pitch were overshadowed once again by off the field events which included a failed takeover attempt by Irish Businessman John Courtenay and in April Roddy Collins became the second manager to be dismissed that season by United following a series of outbursts which slammed the Directors of the club and overseeing Carlisle United’s worst start to a season in 46 years.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: For the fourth time in five seasons, Carlisle narrowly avoided relegation in the 2002-03 season. This time 22nd place was just one place above the drop zone, as this was the first season in which two clubs were relegated to the Conference instead of just one.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: After frequently in the struggle to avoid relegation to the Conference Carlisle were finally relegated in 2003-04 after 76 years in the Football League. Relegation had seemed inevitable since well before Christmas, with 18 of Carlisle's first 21 Division Three games ending in defeat. A revival followed from the next 25 fixtures under new player-manager Paul Simpson, 40 points from a possible 75 . Carlisle actually managed to finish second from bottom in the table after York City's failure to win any of their final 20 league games, with Carlisle's relegation being confirmed when they failed to win their penultimate game of the season.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: Carlisle were promoted out of the non-league conference at the first time of asking in 2005, winning the play-off final at the Britannia Stadium, Stoke. Carlisle's excellent form under manager Paul Simpson continued into the following season as they returned to the Football League with a bang, clinching the League Two title. Simpson then departed for Preston North End, and was succeeded by Neil McDonald.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: The following few seasons saw Carlisle achieve their highest league finishes for 22 years and the highest average crowds for 30 years. This coincided with several seasons at the top half of League One including a playoff finish in 2008.


title: Carlisle United F.C.

text: In 2006/07 Carlisle became the first visiting team to win a League One match at the Keepmoat Stadium, the new home of Doncaster Rovers after a 2-1 win on February 3. The win was part of a sequence of games in which the club mired in mid-table staged a late run for a play-off place, they finally finished the season 8th, their highest league place for 20 years with the added bonus of returning their highest average league crowds for 30 years.