document_title: Three-point field goal

question_text: when did three point line start in college

text: Three-point field goal

text: History[edit]

text: The three-point line was first tested at the collegiate level in a 1945 NCAA game between Columbia and Fordham but it was not kept as a rule. At the direction of Abe Saperstein, the American Basketball League became the first basketball league to institute the rule in 1961. Its three-point line was a radius of 25 feet (7.62 m) from the baskets, except along the sides.[2] The Eastern Professional Basketball League followed in its 1963–64 season.

text: The three-point shot later became popularized by the American Basketball Association after its introduction in the 1967–68 season. ABA commissioner George Mikan stated the three-pointer "would give the smaller player a chance to score and open up the defense to make the game more enjoyable for the fans."[3] During the 1970s, the ABA used the three-point shot, along with the slam dunk, as a marketing tool to compete with the National Basketball Association (NBA).

text: In the 1979–80 season, after having tested it in the previous pre-season, the NBA adopted the three-point line despite the view of many that it was a gimmick.[4] Chris Ford of the Boston Celtics is widely credited with making the first three-point shot in NBA history on October 12, 1979. Kevin Grevey of the Washington Bullets also made one on the same day.

text: The sport's international governing body, FIBA, introduced the three-point line in 1984, at a distance of 6.25 m (20 ft 6 in).

text: The NCAA's Southern Conference became the first collegiate conference to use the three-point rule, adopting a 22-foot (6.71 m) line for the 1980–81 season.[5][6] Ronnie Carr of Western Carolina University was the first to score a three-point field goal in college basketball history on November 29, 1980.[6][7][8] Over the following five years, NCAA conferences differed in their use of the rule and distance required for a three-pointer. The line was as close as 17 ft 9 in (5.41 m) in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and as far away as 22 feet in the Big Sky Conference.[9] Used in conference play, it was adopted by the NCAA for the 1986–87 men's season at 19 ft 9 in (6.02 m), and was first used in the NCAA Tournament in 1987.[10] In the same 1986–87 season, the NCAA adopted the three-pointer in women's basketball on an experimental basis, using the same 19 ft 9 in distance, and made its use mandatory beginning in 1987–88.[11] In 2007, the NCAA lengthened the men's three-point distance to 20 ft 9 in (6.32 m), with the rule coming into effect at the beginning of the 2008–09 season.[12] The NCAA women's three-point distance was moved to match the men's distance in 2011–12.[11] American high schools, along with elementary and middle schools, adopted a 19 ft 9 in (6.02 m) line nationally in 1987, a year after the NCAA.[13] The NCAA used the FIBA three-point line (see below) in the 2018 National Invitation Tournament.[14]

text: During the 1994–95, 1995–96, and 1996–97 seasons, the NBA attempted to address decreased scoring by shortening the distance of the line from 23 ft 9 in (7.24 m) (22 ft (6.71 m) at the corners) to a uniform 22 ft (6.71 m) around the basket. From the 1997–98 season on, the NBA reverted the line to its original distance of 23 ft 9 in (22 ft at the corners, with a 3 inch differential). Ray Allen is currently the NBA all-time leader in career made three-pointers with 2,973.[15]

text: In 2008, FIBA announced that the distance would be increased by 50 cm (19.69 in) to 6.75 m (22 ft 1 3⁄4 in), with the change being phased in beginning in October 2010. In December 2012, the WNBA announced that it would be using FIBA's distance, too, as of the 2013 season. The NBA has discussed adding a four-point line, according to president Rod Thorn.[16]

text: In the NBA, three-point field goals have become increasingly more frequent along the years, with effectiveness increasing slightly. The 1979-80 season had an average 2.2 three-point goals per game and 6.6 attempts (28% effectiveness). The 1989-90 season had an average 4.8 three-point goals per game and 13.7 attempts (35% effectiveness). The 2009-10 season had an average 6.4 three-point goals per game and 18.1 attempts (36% effectiveness). The 2016-17 season had an average 9.7 three-point goals per game and 27.0 attempts (36% effectiveness).[17]

text: Rule specifications[edit]

text: A three-point line consists of an arc at a set radius measured from the point on the floor directly below the center of the basket, and two parallel lines equidistant from each sideline extending from the nearest end line to the point at which they intersect the arc. In the NBA and FIBA standard, the arc spans the width of the court until it is a specified minimum distance from each sideline. The three-point line then becomes parallel to the sidelines from those points to the baseline. The unusual formation of the three-point line at these levels allows players some space from which to attempt a three-point shot at the corners of the court; the arc would be less than 2 feet (0.61 m) from each sideline at the corners if it was a continuous arc. In the NCAA and American high school standards, the arc spans 180° around the basket, then becomes parallel to the sidelines from the plane of the basket center to the baseline (5 feet 3 inches or 1.60 metres). The distance of the three-point line to the center of the hoop varies by level:

text:
Arc radius
Minimum distance from sidelines

National Basketball Association
23 feet 9 inches (7.24 m)
3 feet (0.91 m)
[18]

FIBA (also used by WNBA)
6.75 meters (22 ft 2 in)
0.90 meters (2 ft 11 in)
[19]

National Collegiate Athletic Association
20 feet 9 inches (6.32 m)
4 feet 3 inches (1.30 m)
[20]

American high school basketball
19 feet 9 inches (6.02 m)
5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m)
[21]

tag: table

text: A player's feet must be completely behind the three-point line at the time of the shot or jump in order to make a three-point attempt; if the player's feet are on or in front of the line, it is a two-point attempt. A player is allowed to jump from outside the line and land inside the line to make a three-point attempt, as long as the ball is released in mid-air.

text: An official raises his/her arm with three fingers extended to signal the shot attempt. If the attempt is successful, he/she raises his/her other arm with all fingers fully extended in manner similar to a football official signifying successful field goal to indicate the three-point goal. The official must recognize it for it to count as three points. Instant replay has sometimes been used, depending on league rules. The NBA,[22] WNBA, FIBA and the NCAA specifically allow replay for this purpose. In NBA, FIBA, and WNBA games, video replay does not have to occur immediately following a shot; play can continue and the officials can adjust the scoring later in the game, after reviewing the video. However, in late game situations, play may be paused pending a review.

text: If a shooter is fouled while attempting a three-pointer and subsequently misses the shot, the shooter is awarded three free-throw attempts. If a player completes a three-pointer while being fouled, the player is awarded one free-throw for a possible 4-point play. Conceivably, if a player completed a three-pointer while being fouled, and that foul was ruled as either a Flagrant 1 or a Flagrant 2 foul, the player would be awarded two free throws for a possible 5-point play.

text: Related concepts[edit]

text: Major League Lacrosse features a two-point line which forms a 15-yard (14 m) arc around the front of the goal. Shots taken from behind this line count for two points, as opposed to the standard one point.

text: In gridiron football, a standard field goal is worth three points; various professional and semi-pro leagues have experimented with four-point field goals. NFL Europe and the Stars Football League adopted a rule similar to basketball's three-point line in which an additional point was awarded for longer field goals; in both leagues any field goal of 50 yards (46 m) or more was worth four points. The Arena Football League awards four points for any successful drop kicked field goal (like the three-point shot, the drop kick is more challenging than a standard place kick, as the bounce of the ball makes a kick less predictable, and arena football also uses narrower goal posts for all kicks than the outdoor game does).

text: During the existence of the World Hockey Association in the 1970s, there were proposals for two-point hockey goals for shots taken beyond an established distance (one proposal was a 44-foot (13.4m) arc, which would have intersected the faceoff circles), but this proposal gained little support and faded after the WHA merged with the NHL. It was widely believed that long-distance shots in hockey had little direct relation to skill (usually resulting more from goalies' vision being screened or obscured), plus with the lower scoring intrinsic to the sport a two-point goal was seen as disruptive of the structure of the game.

text: The Super Goal is a similar concept in Australian rules football, in which a 50-meter (55 yd) arc determines the value of a goal; within the arc, it is the usual 6 points, but 9 points are scored for a "super goal" scored from outside the arc. To date the super goal is only used in pre-season games and not in the season proper.[23]

text: The National Professional Soccer League II, which awarded two points for all goals except those on the power play, also used a three-point line, drawn 45 feet (14 m) from the goal. It has since been adopted by some other indoor soccer leagues.


document_title: Great Fire of London

question_text: who was the king during the great fire of london

question_tokens: who was the king during the great fire of london

root

text: Great Fire of London

text: Origin and consequences of the fire[edit]

text: The Great Fire started at the bakery (or baker's house) of Thomas Farriner (or Farynor) on Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday, 2 September and spread rapidly west across the City of London. The major firefighting technique of the time was to create firebreaks by means of demolition; this, however, was critically delayed owing to the indecisiveness of Lord Mayor of London Sir Thomas Bloodworth. By the time that large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm that defeated such measures. The fire pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City.

tag: p

text: Order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of suspicious foreigners setting fires. The fears of the homeless focused on the French and Dutch, England's enemies in the ongoing Second Anglo-Dutch War; these substantial immigrant groups became victims of lynchings and street violence. On Tuesday, the fire spread over most of the City, destroying St Paul's Cathedral and leaping the River Fleet to threaten King Charles II's court at Whitehall, while coordinated firefighting efforts were simultaneously mobilising. The battle to quench the fire is considered to have been won by two factors: the strong east winds died down, and the Tower of London garrison used gunpowder to create effective firebreaks to halt further spread eastward.

text: The social and economic problems created by the disaster were overwhelming. Evacuation from London and resettlement elsewhere were strongly encouraged by Charles II, who feared a London rebellion amongst the dispossessed refugees. Despite numerous radical proposals, London was reconstructed on essentially the same street plan used before the fire.[5]

text: London in the 1660s[edit]

text: By the 1660s, London was by far the largest city in Britain, estimated at half a million inhabitants. John Evelyn, comparing London to the Baroque magnificence of Paris, called it a "wooden, northern, and inartificial congestion of Houses", and expressed alarm about the fire hazards posed by the wood and the congestion.[6] By "inartificial", Evelyn meant unplanned and makeshift, the result of organic growth and unregulated urban sprawl.[7]

text: London had been a Roman settlement for four centuries and had become progressively more crowded inside its defensive city wall. It had also pushed outwards beyond the wall into squalid extramural slums such as Shoreditch, Holborn, and Southwark, and had reached far enough to include the independent City of Westminster.[7]

text: By the late 17th century, the City proper—the area bounded by the City wall and the River Thames—was only a part of London, covering some 700 acres (2.8 km2; 1.1 sq mi),[8] and home to about 80,000 people, or one sixth of London's inhabitants. The City was surrounded by a ring of inner suburbs where most Londoners lived. The City was then, as now, the commercial heart of the capital, and was the largest market and busiest port in England, dominated by the trading and manufacturing classes.[9]

text: The aristocracy shunned the City and lived either in the countryside beyond the slum suburbs, or in the exclusive Westminster district (the modern West End), the site of King Charles II's court at Whitehall. Wealthy people preferred to live at a convenient distance from the traffic-clogged, polluted, unhealthy City, especially after it was hit by a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in the Plague Year of 1665.

text: The relationship was often tense between the City and the Crown. The City of London had been a stronghold of republicanism during the Civil War (1642–1651), and the wealthy and economically dynamic capital still had the potential to be a threat to Charles II, as had been demonstrated by several republican uprisings in London in the early 1660s. The City magistrates were of the generation that had fought in the Civil War, and could remember how Charles I's grab for absolute power had led to that national trauma.[10]

text: They were determined to thwart any similar tendencies in his son, and when the Great Fire threatened the City, they refused the offers that Charles made of soldiers and other resources. Even in such an emergency, the idea of having the unpopular Royal troops ordered into the City was political dynamite. By the time that Charles took over command from the ineffectual Lord Mayor, the fire was already out of control.[11]

text: Fire hazards in the city[edit]

text: The City was essentially medieval in its street plan, an overcrowded warren of narrow, winding, cobbled alleys. It had experienced several major fires before 1666, the most recent in 1632. Building with wood and roofing with thatch had been prohibited for centuries, but these cheap materials continued to be used.[12] The only major stone-built area was the wealthy centre of the City, where the mansions of the merchants and brokers stood on spacious lots, surrounded by an inner ring of overcrowded poorer parishes whose every inch of building space was used to accommodate the rapidly growing population. These parishes contained workplaces, many of which were fire hazards—foundries, smithies, glaziers—which were technically illegal in the City but tolerated in practice.

text: The human habitations were crowded to bursting point, intermingled with these sources of heat, sparks, and pollution, and their construction increased the fire risk. The typical six- or seven-storey timbered London tenement houses had "jetties" (projecting upper floors). They had a narrow footprint at ground level, but maximised their use of land by "encroaching" on the street, as a contemporary observer put it, with the gradually increasing size of their upper storeys. The fire hazard was well perceived when the top jetties all but met across the narrow alleys; "as it does facilitate a conflagration, so does it also hinder the remedy", wrote one observer[13]—but "the covetousness of the citizens and connivancy [corruption] of Magistrates" worked in favour of jetties. In 1661, Charles II issued a proclamation forbidding overhanging windows and jetties, but this was largely ignored by the local government. Charles's next, sharper message in 1665 warned of the risk of fire from the narrowness of the streets and authorised both imprisonment of recalcitrant builders and demolition of dangerous buildings. It, too, had little impact.

text: The river front was important in the development of the Great Fire. The Thames offered water for firefighting and the chance of escape by boat, but the poorer districts along the riverfront had stores and cellars of combustibles which increased the fire risk. All along the wharves, the rickety wooden tenements and tar paper shacks of the poor were shoehorned amongst "old paper buildings and the most combustible matter of tarr, pitch, hemp, rosen, and flax which was all layd up thereabouts."[14]

text: London was also full of black powder, especially along the river front. Much of it was left in the homes of private citizens from the days of the English Civil War, as the former members of Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army still retained their muskets and the powder with which to load them. Five to six hundred tons of powder was stored in the Tower of London.[15] The ship chandlers along the wharves also held large stocks, stored in wooden barrels.

text: 17th century firefighting[edit]

text: Fires were common in the crowded wood-built city with its open fireplaces, candles, ovens, and stores of combustibles. There was no police or fire brigade to call, but London's local militia, known as the Trained Bands, was available for general emergencies, at least in principle, and watching for fire was one of the jobs of the watch, a thousand watchmen or "bellmen" who patrolled the streets at night.[16] Self-reliant community procedures were in place for dealing with fires, and they were usually effective. Public-spirited citizens would be alerted to a dangerous house fire by muffled peals on the church bells, and would congregate hastily to fight the fire.

text: The methods available for this relied on demolition and water. By law, the tower of every parish church had to hold equipment for these efforts: long ladders, leather buckets, axes, and "firehooks" for pulling down buildings (see illustration right, see also pike pole).[17] Sometimes taller buildings were levelled to the ground quickly and effectively by means of controlled gunpowder explosions. This drastic method of creating firebreaks was increasingly used towards the end of the Great Fire, and modern historians believe that it was what finally won the struggle.[18]

text: Failures in fighting the fire[edit]

text: London Bridge was the only physical connection between the City and the south side of the river Thames and was itself covered with houses. It had been noted as a deathtrap in the fire of 1632 and, by dawn on Sunday, these houses were burning. Samuel Pepys observed the conflagration from the Tower of London and recorded great concern for friends living on the bridge.[19] There were fears that the flames would cross London Bridge to threaten the borough of Southwark on the south bank, but this danger was averted by an open space between buildings on the bridge which acted as a firebreak.[20]

text: The 18-foot (5.5 m) high Roman wall enclosing the City put the fleeing homeless at risk of being shut into the inferno. Once the riverfront was on fire and the escape route cut off by boat, the only exits were the eight gates in the wall. During the first couple of days, few people had any notion of fleeing the burning City altogether. They would remove what they could carry of their belongings to the nearest "safe house", in many cases the parish church or the precincts of St Paul's Cathedral, only to have to move again hours later. Some moved their belongings and themselves "four and five times" in a single day.[21] The perception of a need to get beyond the walls took root only late on the Monday, and then there were near-panic scenes at the narrow gates as distraught refugees tried to get out with their bundles, carts, horses, and wagons.

text: The crucial factor which frustrated firefighting efforts was the narrowness of the streets. Even under normal circumstances, the mix of carts, wagons, and pedestrians in the undersized alleys was subject to frequent traffic jams and gridlock. During the fire, the passages were additionally blocked by refugees camping in them amongst their rescued belongings, or escaping outwards, away from the centre of destruction, as demolition teams and fire engine crews struggled in vain to move in towards it.

text: Demolishing the houses downwind of a dangerous fire was often an effective way of containing the destruction by means of firehooks or explosives. This time, however, demolition was fatally delayed for hours by the Lord Mayor's lack of leadership and failure to give the necessary orders.[22] By the time that orders came directly from the King to "spare no houses", the fire had devoured many more houses, and the demolition workers could no longer get through the crowded streets.

text: The use of water to extinguish the fire was also frustrated. In principle, water was available from a system of elm pipes which supplied 30,000 houses via a high water tower at Cornhill, filled from the river at high tide, and also via a reservoir of Hertfordshire spring water in Islington.[23] It was often possible to open a pipe near a burning building and connect it to a hose to play on a fire or fill buckets. Further, Pudding Lane was close to the river. Theoretically, all the lanes from the river up to the bakery and adjoining buildings should have been manned with double rows of firefighters passing full buckets up to the fire and empty buckets back down to the river.

text: This did not happen, or at least was no longer happening by the time that Pepys viewed the fire from the river at mid-morning on the Sunday. Pepys comments in his diary that nobody was trying to put it out, but instead they fled from it in fear, hurrying "to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire." The flames crept towards the river front with little interference from the overwhelmed community and soon torched the flammable warehouses along the wharves. The resulting conflagration cut off the firefighters from the immediate water supply from the river and set alight the water wheels under London Bridge which pumped water to the Cornhill water tower; the direct access to the river and the supply of piped water failed together.

text: London possessed advanced fire-fighting technology in the form of fire engines, which had been used in earlier large-scale fires. However, unlike the useful firehooks, these large pumps had rarely proved flexible or functional enough to make much difference. Only some of them had wheels; others were mounted on wheelless sleds.[24] They had to be brought a long way, tended to arrive too late, and had limited reach, with spouts but no delivery hoses.[25]

text: On this occasion, an unknown number of fire engines were either wheeled or dragged through the streets, some from across the City. The piped water had already failed which they were designed to use, but parts of the river bank could still be reached. Gangs of men tried desperately to manoeuvre the engines right up to the river to fill their reservoirs, and several of the engines toppled into the Thames. The heat from the flames by then was too great for the remaining engines to get within a useful distance; they could not even get into Pudding Lane.

text: Development of the fire[edit]

text: The personal experiences of many Londoners during the fire are glimpsed in letters and memoirs. The two best-known diarists of the Restoration are Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) and John Evelyn (1620–1706), and both recorded the events and their own reactions day by day, and made great efforts to keep themselves informed of what was happening all over the City and beyond. For example, they both travelled out to the Moorfields park area north of the City on the Wednesday—the fourth day—to view the mighty encampment of distressed refugees there, which shocked them. Their diaries are the most important sources for all modern retellings of the disaster. Books on the fire by Tinniswood (2003) and Hanson (2001) also rely on the brief memoirs of William Taswell (1651–82), who was a fourteen year-old schoolboy at Westminster School in 1666.

text: Sunday morning[edit]

text: After two rainy summers in 1664 and 1665, London had lain under an exceptional drought since November 1665, and the wooden buildings were tinder-dry after the long hot summer of 1666. A fire broke out at Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane a little after midnight on Sunday 2 September. The family was trapped upstairs but managed to climb from an upstairs window to the house next door, except for a maidservant who was too frightened to try, who became the first victim.[27] The neighbours tried to help douse the fire; after an hour, the parish constables arrived and judged that the adjoining houses had better be demolished to prevent further spread. The householders protested, and Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth was summoned, who alone had the authority to override their wishes.

text: When Bloodworth arrived, the flames were consuming the adjoining houses and creeping towards the paper warehouses and flammable stores on the river front. The more experienced firemen were clamouring for demolition, but Bloodworth refused on the grounds that most premises were rented and the owners could not be found. Bloodworth is generally thought to have been appointed to the office of Lord Mayor as a yes man, rather than by possessing requisite capabilities for the job. He panicked when faced with a sudden emergency[28] and, when pressed, made the oft-quoted remark, "Pish! A woman could piss it out", and left. After the City had been destroyed, Samuel Pepys looked back on the events and wrote in his diary on 7 September 1666: "People do all the world over cry out of the simplicity [the stupidity] of my Lord Mayor in general; and more particularly in this business of the fire, laying it all upon him."

text: Pepys was a senior official in the Navy Office by then, and he ascended the Tower of London on Sunday morning to view the fire from a turret. He recorded in his diary that the eastern gale had turned it into a conflagration. It had burned down several churches and, he estimated, 300 houses and reached the river front. The houses on London Bridge were burning.

text: He took a boat to inspect the destruction around Pudding Lane at close range and describes a "lamentable" fire, "everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another." Pepys continued westward on the river to the court at Whitehall, "where people come about me, and did give them an account dismayed them all, and word was carried in to the King. So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of Yorke what I saw, and that unless His Majesty did command houses to be pulled down nothing could stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and the King commanded me to go to my Lord Mayor from him, and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down before the fire every way." Charles' brother James, Duke of York, offered the use of the Royal Life Guards to help fight the fire.[29]

text: Young schoolboy William Taswell had bolted from the early morning service in Westminster Abbey. He saw some refugees arrive in hired lighter boats near Westminster Stairs, a mile west of Pudding Lane, unclothed and covered only with blankets.[30] The services of the lightermen had suddenly become extremely expensive, and only the luckiest refugees secured a place in a boat.

text: Sunday afternoon[edit]

text: The fire spread quickly in the high wind and, by mid-morning on Sunday, people abandoned attempts at extinguishing it and fled. The moving human mass and their bundles and carts made the lanes impassable for firemen and carriages. Pepys took a coach back into the city from Whitehall, but reached only St Paul's Cathedral before he had to get out and walk. Pedestrians with handcarts and goods were still on the move away from the fire, heavily weighed down. The parish churches not directly threatened were filling up with furniture and valuables, which soon had to be moved further afield.

text: Pepys found Bloodworth trying to co-ordinate the fire-fighting efforts and near to collapse, "like a fainting woman", crying out plaintively in response to the King's message that he was pulling down houses. "But the fire overtakes us faster then [sic] we can do it." Holding on to his civic dignity, he refused James's offer of soldiers and then went home to bed.[31] King Charles II sailed down from Whitehall in the Royal barge to inspect the scene. He found that houses were still not being pulled down, in spite of Bloodworth's assurances to Pepys, and daringly overrode the authority of Bloodworth to order wholesale demolitions west of the fire zone.[32] The delay rendered these measures largely futile, as the fire was already out of control.

text: By Sunday afternoon, 18 hours after the alarm was raised in Pudding Lane, the fire had become a raging firestorm that created its own weather. A tremendous uprush of hot air above the flames was driven by the chimney effect wherever constrictions narrowed the air current, such as the constricted space between jettied buildings, and this left a vacuum at ground level. The resulting strong inward winds did not tend to put the fire out, as might be thought;[33] instead, they supplied fresh oxygen to the flames, and the turbulence created by the uprush made the wind veer erratically both north and south of the main easterly direction of the gale which was still blowing.

text: Pepys went again on the river in the early evening with his wife and some friends, "and to the fire up and down, it still encreasing". They ordered the boatman to go "so near the fire as we could for smoke; and all over the Thames, with one's face in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of firedrops". When the "firedrops" became unbearable, the party went on to an alehouse on the South Bank and stayed there till darkness came and they could see the fire on London Bridge and across the river, "as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it". Pepys described this arch of fire as "a bow with God's arrow in it with a shining point".

text: Monday[edit]

text: The fire was principally expanding north and west by dawn on Monday, 3 September, the turbulence of the fire storm pushing the flames both farther south and farther north than the day before.[34] The spread to the south was mostly halted by the river, but it had torched the houses on London Bridge and was threatening to cross the bridge and endanger the borough of Southwark on the south bank of the river. Southwark was preserved by a pre-existent firebreak on the bridge, a long gap between the buildings which had saved the south side of the Thames in the fire of 1632 and now did so again.[35] Flying embers started a fire in Southwark but it was quickly stopped.

text: The fire's spread to the north reached the financial heart of the City. The houses of the bankers in Lombard Street began to burn on Monday afternoon, prompting a rush to get their stacks of gold coins to safety before they melted away, so crucial to the wealth of the city and the nation. Several observers emphasise the despair and helplessness which seemed to seize Londoners on this second day, and the lack of efforts to save the wealthy, fashionable districts which were now menaced by the flames, such as the Royal Exchange—combined bourse and shopping centre – and the opulent consumer goods shops in Cheapside. The Royal Exchange caught fire in the late afternoon, and was a smoking shell within a few hours. John Evelyn, courtier and diarist, wrote:

text:
“
The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures without at all attempting to save even their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them.[36]
”

text: Evelyn lived in Deptford, four miles (6 km) outside the City, and so he did not see the early stages of the disaster. He went by coach to Southwark on Monday, joining many other upper-class people, to see the view which Pepys had seen the day before of the burning City across the river. The conflagration was much larger now: "the whole City in dreadful flames near the water-side; all the houses from the Bridge, all Thames-street, and upwards towards Cheapside, down to the Three Cranes, were now consumed".[37]

text: In the evening, Evelyn reported that the river was covered with barges and boats making their escape piled with goods. He observed a great exodus of carts and pedestrians through the bottleneck City gates, making for the open fields to the north and east, "which for many miles were strewed with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh, the miserable and calamitous spectacle!"[37]

text: Suspicion and fear[edit]

text: Suspicion soon arose in the threatened city that the fire was no accident. The swirling winds carried sparks and burning flakes long distances to lodge on thatched roofs and in wooden gutters, causing seemingly unrelated house fires to break out far from their source and giving rise to rumours that fresh fires were being set on purpose. Foreigners were immediately suspects because of the current Second Anglo-Dutch War. Fear and suspicion hardened into certainty on Monday, as reports circulated of imminent invasion and of foreign undercover agents seen casting "fireballs" into houses, or caught with hand grenades or matches.[38] There was a wave of street violence.[39] William Taswell saw a mob loot the shop of a French painter and level it to the ground, and watched in horror as a blacksmith walked up to a Frenchman in the street and hit him over the head with an iron bar.

text: The fears of terrorism received an extra boost from the disruption of communications and news as facilities were devoured by the fire. The General Letter Office in Threadneedle Street burned down early on Monday morning, through which post passed for the entire country. The London Gazette just managed to put out its Monday issue before the printer's premises went up in flames. The whole nation depended on these communications, and the void which they left filled up with rumours.

text: There were also religious alarms of renewed Gunpowder Plots. Suspicions rose to panic and collective paranoia on Monday, and both the Trained Bands and the Coldstream Guards focused less on fire fighting and more on rounding up foreigners, Catholics, and any odd-looking people, arresting them or rescuing them from mobs, or both together.

text: The inhabitants were growing desperate to remove their belongings from the City, especially the upper class. This provided a source of income for the able-bodied poor, who hired out as porters (sometimes simply making off with the goods), and it was especially profitable for the owners of carts and boats. Hiring a cart had cost a couple of shillings on the Saturday before the fire; on Monday, it rose to as much as £40, a fortune equivalent to more than £4,000 in 2005.[40]

text: Seemingly every cart and boat owner within reach of London made their way towards the City to share in these opportunities, the carts jostling at the narrow gates with the panicked inhabitants trying to get out. The chaos at the gates was such that the magistrates ordered the gates shut on Monday afternoon, in the hope of turning the inhabitants' attention from safeguarding their own possessions to fighting the fire: "that, no hopes of saving any things left, they might have more desperately endeavoured the quenching of the fire."[41] This headlong and unsuccessful measure was rescinded the next day.

text: Monday marked the beginning of organised action, even as order broke down in the streets, especially at the gates, and the fire raged unchecked. Bloodworth was responsible as Lord Mayor for co-ordinating the fire-fighting, but he had apparently left the City; his name is not mentioned in any contemporaneous accounts of the Monday's events.[42] In this state of emergency, the King again overrode the City authorities and put his brother James, Duke of York, in charge of operations.

text: James set up command posts round the perimeter of the fire, press-ganging into teams of well-paid and well-fed firemen any men of the lower classes found in the streets. Three courtiers were put in charge of each post, with authority from Charles himself to order demolitions. This visible gesture of solidarity from the Crown was intended to cut through the citizens' misgivings about being held financially responsible for pulling down houses. James and his life guards rode up and down the streets all Monday, rescuing foreigners from the mob and attempting to keep order. "The Duke of York hath won the hearts of the people with his continual and indefatigable pains day and night in helping to quench the Fire," wrote a witness in a letter on 8 September.[43]

text: On Monday evening, hopes were dashed that the massive stone walls of Baynard's Castle, Blackfriars would stay the course of the flames, the western counterpart of the Tower of London. This historic royal palace was completely consumed, burning all night.[44]

text: A contemporary account said that King Charles in person worked manually, that day or later, to help throw water on flames and to help demolish buildings to make a firebreak.

text: Tuesday[edit]

text: Tuesday, 4 September was the day of greatest destruction.[45] The Duke of York's command post at Temple Bar, where Strand meets Fleet Street, was supposed to stop the fire's westward advance towards the Palace of Whitehall. He hoped that the River Fleet would form a natural firebreak, making a stand with his firemen from the Fleet Bridge and down to the Thames. However, early on Tuesday morning, the flames jumped over the Fleet and outflanked them, driven by the unabated easterly gale, forcing them to run for it. There was consternation at the palace as the fire continued implacably westward; "Oh, the confusion there was then at that court!" wrote Evelyn.

text: Working to a plan at last, James's firefighters had also created a large firebreak to the north of the conflagration. It contained the fire until late afternoon, when the flames leapt across and began to destroy the wide, affluent luxury shopping street of Cheapside.

text: Everybody had thought St. Paul's Cathedral a safe refuge, with its thick stone walls and natural firebreak in the form of a wide, empty surrounding plaza. It had been crammed full of rescued goods and its crypt filled with the tightly packed stocks of the printers and booksellers in adjoining Paternoster Row. However, an enormous stroke of bad luck meant that the building was covered in wooden scaffolding, undergoing piecemeal restoration by a relatively unknown Christopher Wren. The scaffolding caught fire on Tuesday night.

text: Leaving school, young William Taswell stood on Westminster Stairs a mile away and watched as the flames crept round the cathedral and the burning scaffolding ignited the timbered roof beams. Within half an hour, the lead roof was melting, and the books and papers in the crypt caught with a roar. "The stones of Paul's flew like grenados," reported Evelyn in his diary, "the melting lead running down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them." The cathedral was quickly a ruin.

text: During the day, the flames began to move eastward from the neighbourhood of Pudding Lane, straight against the prevailing east wind and towards Pepys's home on Seething Lane and the Tower of London with its gunpowder stores. The garrison at the Tower took matters into their own hands after waiting all day for requested help from James's official firemen who were busy in the west. They created firebreaks by blowing up houses on a large scale in the vicinity, halting the advance of the fire. In a letter to William Coventry, Pepys wrote that he "saw how horribly the sky looks, all on a fire in the night, was [sic] enough to put us out of our wits; and, indeed, it was extremely dreadful, for it looks just as if it was at us, and the whole heaven on fire."[46]

text: Wednesday[edit]

text: The wind dropped on Tuesday evening, and the firebreaks created by the garrison finally began to take effect on Wednesday 5 September.[47] Stopping the fire caused much fire and demolition damage in the lawyers' area called the Temple. Pepys walked all over the smouldering city, getting his feet hot, and climbed the steeple of Barking Church, from which he viewed the destroyed City, "the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw." There were many separate fires still burning themselves out, but the Great Fire was over.

text: Pepys visited Moorfields, a large public park immediately north of the City, and saw a great encampment of homeless refugees, "poor wretches carrying their good there, and every body keeping his goods together by themselves". He noted that the price of bread had doubled in the environs of the park. Evelyn also went out to Moorfields, which was turning into the main point of assembly for the homeless, and was horrified at the numbers of distressed people filling it, some under tents, others in makeshift shacks: "Many [were] without a rag or any necessary utensils, bed or board ... reduced to extremest misery and poverty."[48] Evelyn was impressed by the pride of these distressed Londoners, "tho' ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one pennie for relief."

text: Fears were as high as ever among the traumatised fire victims, fear of foreign arsonists and of a French and Dutch invasion. There was an outbreak of general panic on Wednesday night in the encampments at Parliament Hill, Moorfields, and Islington. A light in the sky over Fleet Street started a story that 50,000 French and Dutch immigrants had risen, widely rumoured to have started the fire, and were marching towards Moorfields to finish what the fire had begun: to cut the men's throats, rape the women, and steal their few possessions. Surging into the streets, the frightened mob fell on any foreigners whom they happened to encounter, and were appeased, according to Evelyn, only "with infinite pains and great difficulty"[49] and pushed back into the fields by the Trained Bands, troops of Life Guards, and members of the court.

text: The mood was now so volatile that Charles feared a full-scale London rebellion against the monarchy. Food production and distribution had been disrupted to the point of non-existence; Charles announced that supplies of bread would be brought into the City every day, and safe markets set up round the perimeter. These markets were for buying and selling;[50] there was no question of distributing emergency aid.

text: Deaths and destruction[edit]

text: Only a few deaths from the fire are officially recorded, and deaths are traditionally believed to have been few. Porter gives the figure as eight[51] and Tinniswood as "in single figures", although he adds that some deaths must have gone unrecorded and that, besides direct deaths from burning and smoke inhalation, refugees also perished in the impromptu camps.[52]

text: Hanson takes issue with the idea that there were only a few deaths, enumerating known deaths from hunger and exposure among survivors of the fire, "huddled in shacks or living among the ruins that had once been their homes" in the cold winter that followed, including, for instance, dramatist James Shirley and his wife. Hanson also maintains that "it stretches credulity to believe that the only papists or foreigners being beaten to death or lynched were the ones rescued by the Duke of York", that official figures say very little about the fate of the undocumented poor, and that the heat at the heart of the firestorms was far greater than an ordinary house fire, and was enough to consume bodies fully or leave only a few skeletal fragments.

text: The fire was fed not merely by wood, fabrics, and thatch, Hanson points out, but also by the oil, pitch, coal, tallow, fats, sugar, alcohol, turpentine, and gunpowder stored in the riverside district. It melted the imported steel lying along the wharves (melting point between 1,250 and 1,480 °C (2,300 and 2,700 °F)) and the great iron chains and locks on the City gates (melting point between 1,100 and 1,650 °C (2,000 and 3000 °F)). Nor would anonymous bone fragments have been of much interest to the hungry people sifting through the tens of thousands of tons of rubble and debris after the fire, looking for valuables, or to the workmen clearing away the rubble later during the rebuilding.[53]

text: Hanson appeals to common sense and "the experience of every other major urban fire down the centuries", emphasising that the fire attacked the rotting tenements of the poor with furious speed, surely trapping at the very least "the old, the very young, the halt and the lame" and burying the dust and ashes of their bones under the rubble of cellars, producing a death toll not of four or eight, but of "several hundred and quite possibly several thousand."[53]

text: The material destruction has been computed at 13,500 houses, 87 parish churches, 44 Company Halls, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House, St Paul's Cathedral, the Bridewell Palace and other City prisons, the General Letter Office, and the three western city gates—Ludgate, Newgate, and Aldersgate.[54] The monetary value of the loss, first estimated at £100,000,000 in the currency of the time, was later reduced to an uncertain £10,000,000[55] (equivalent to £1.55 billion in 2016). Evelyn believed that he saw as many as "200,000 people of all ranks and stations dispersed, and lying along their heaps of what they could save" in the fields towards Islington and Highgate.[55]

text: Aftermath[edit]

text: An example of the urge to identify scapegoats for the fire is the acceptance of the confession of a simple-minded French watchmaker named Robert Hubert, who claimed that he was an agent of the Pope and had started the Great Fire in Westminster.[56] He later changed his story to say that he had started the fire at the bakery in Pudding Lane. Hubert was convicted, despite some misgivings about his fitness to plead, and hanged at Tyburn on 28 September 1666. After his death, it became apparent that he had been on board a ship in the North Sea, and had not arrived in London until two days after the fire started.[57] These allegations that Catholics had started the fire were exploited as powerful political propaganda by opponents of pro-Catholic Charles II's court, mostly during the Popish Plot and the exclusion crisis later in his reign.[58]

text: Abroad in the Netherlands, the Great Fire of London was seen as a divine retribution for Holmes's Bonfire, the burning by the English of a Dutch town during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.[59]

text: On 5 October, Marc Antonio Giustinian, Venetian Ambassador in France, reported to the Doge of Venice and the Senate, that Louis XIV announced that he would not "have any rejoicings about it, being such a deplorable accident involving injury to so many unhappy people". Louis had made an offer to his aunt, the British Queen Henrietta Maria, to send food and whatever goods might be of aid in alleviating the plight of Londoners, yet he made no secret that he regarded "the fire of London as a stroke of good fortune for him " as it reduced the risk of French ships crossing the Channel and the North Sea being taken or sunk by the English fleet.[60] Louis tried to take advantage but an attempt by a Franco-Dutch fleet to combine with a larger Dutch fleet ended in failure on 17 September when they encountered a larger English fleet led by Thomas Allin off Dungeness.[61]

text: In the chaos and unrest after the fire, Charles II feared another London rebellion. He encouraged the homeless to move away from London and settle elsewhere, immediately issuing a proclamation that "all Cities and Towns whatsoever shall without any contradiction receive the said distressed persons and permit them the free exercise of their manual trades." A special Fire Court was set up to deal with disputes between tenants and landlords and decide who should rebuild, based on ability to pay. The Court was in session from February 1667 to September 1672. Cases were heard and a verdict usually given within a day; without the Fire Court, lengthy legal wrangles would have seriously delayed the rebuilding which was so necessary if London was to recover.

text: Radical rebuilding schemes poured in for the gutted City and were encouraged by Charles. If it had been rebuilt under some of these plans, London would have rivalled Paris in Baroque magnificence (see Evelyn's plan on the right). The Crown and the City authorities attempted to establish "to whom all the houses and ground did in truth belong" to negotiate with their owners about compensation for the large-scale remodelling that these plans entailed, but that unrealistic idea had to be abandoned. Exhortations to bring workmen and measure the plots on which the houses had stood were mostly ignored by people worried about day-to-day survival, as well as by those who had left the capital; for one thing, with the shortage of labour following the fire, it was impossible to secure workmen for the purpose. Apart from Wren and Evelyn, it is known that Robert Hooke, Valentine Knight, and Richard Newcourt proposed rebuilding plans.

text: With the complexities of ownership unresolved, none of the grand Baroque schemes could be realised for a City of piazzas and avenues; there was nobody to negotiate with, and no means of calculating how much compensation should be paid. Instead, much of the old street plan was recreated in the new City, with improvements in hygiene and fire safety: wider streets, open and accessible wharves along the length of the Thames, with no houses obstructing access to the river, and, most importantly, buildings constructed of brick and stone, not wood. New public buildings were created on their predecessors' sites; perhaps the most famous is St Paul's Cathedral and its smaller cousins, Christopher Wren's 50 new churches.

text: On Charles' initiative, a Monument to the Great Fire of London was erected near Pudding Lane, designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, standing 61 metres (200 ft) tall and known simply as "The Monument". It is a familiar London landmark which has since given its name to a tube station. In 1668, accusations against the Catholics were added to the inscription on the Monument which read, in part:

text:
“
Here by permission of heaven, hell broke loose upon this Protestant city.....the most dreadful Burning of this City; begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction...Popish frenzy which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched...
”

text: The inscription remained in place until 1830 after the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, aside from the four years of James II's rule from 1685 to 1689.[62]

text: Another monument marks the spot where the fire stopped: the Golden Boy of Pye Corner in Smithfield. According to the inscription, it was evidence of God's wrath on the City of London for the sin of gluttony that the fire started at Pudding Lane and stopped at Pye Corner.

text: The Great Plague epidemic of 1665 is believed to have killed a sixth of London's inhabitants, or 80,000 people,[63] and it is sometimes suggested that the fire saved lives in the long run by burning down so much unsanitary housing with their rats and their fleas which transmitted the plague, as plague epidemics did not recur in London after the fire.[64] Historians disagree as to whether the fire played a part in preventing subsequent major outbreaks. The Museum of London website claims that there was a connection,[65] while historian Roy Porter points out that the fire left the most insalubrious parts of London, the slum suburbs, untouched.[66]

text: Following the Fire, the thoroughfares of Queen Street and King Street were newly laid out, cutting across more ancient thoroughfares in the City, creating a new route up from the Thames to the Guildhall; they were the only notable new streets following the fire's destruction of much of the City.[67]

text: In culture[edit]

text: William Harrison Ainsworth's novel Old St Paul's is set during the events of the fire.[69]

text: The Great Fire was released on ITV television in 2014. It was shown in four episodes. It constructs a fictional scenario involving the Pudding Lane baker's family in an alleged popish plot.[70]

text: The round "London's Burning" is said to be about the Great Fire.[68] However, the first notation of a song in this theme dates from 1580 as "Scotland's Burning".[71]


document_title: Denver Broncos

question_text: when did the broncos last win a superbowl

question_tokens: when did the broncos last win a superbowl

text: Denver Broncos

text: Franchise history[edit]

text: 1960–1969: AFL era[edit]

text: The Denver Broncos were founded on August 14, 1959, when Minor League Baseball owner Bob Howsam was awarded an American Football League (AFL) charter franchise.[8] The Broncos won the first-ever AFL game over the Boston Patriots 13–10, on September 9, 1960. On August 5, 1967, they became the first-ever AFL team to defeat an NFL team, with a 13–7 win over the Detroit Lions in a preseason game.[8] However, the Broncos were not successful in the 1960s, compiling a record of 39–97–4 in the league.[9]

text: Denver came close to losing its franchise in 1965, until a local ownership group took control and rebuilt the team.[10] The team's first superstar, "Franchise" Floyd Little, was instrumental in keeping the team in Denver, due to his signing in 1967 as well as his Pro Bowl efforts on and off the field. The Broncos were the only original AFL team that never played in the title game, as well as the only original AFL team never to have a winning season while a member of the AFL during the upstart league's 10-year history.[11]

text: In 1972, the Broncos hired former Stanford University coach John Ralston as their head coach. In 1973, he was the UPI's AFC Coach of the Year, after Denver achieved its first winning season at 7–5–2. In five seasons with the Broncos, Ralston guided the team to winning seasons three times. Though Ralston finished the 1976 season with a 9–5 record, the team, as was the case in Ralston's previous winning seasons, still missed the playoffs. Following the season, several prominent players publicly voiced their discontent with Ralston, which soon led to his resignation.[12]

text: Red Miller, a long-time assistant coach was hired and along with the Orange Crush Defense (a nickname originating in the early 1970s, also the brand of the popular orange-flavored soft drink) and aging quarterback Craig Morton, took the Broncos to what was then a record-setting 12–2 regular season record and their first playoff appearance in 1977, and ultimately first Super Bowl, in which they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys (Morton's former team), 27–10.[13]

text: In 1981, Broncos' owner Gerald Phipps, who had purchased the team in May 1961 from the original owner Bob Howsam, sold the team to Canadian financier Edgar Kaiser Jr., grandson of shipbuilding industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.[14] In 1984, the team was purchased by Pat Bowlen, who placed team ownership into a family trust sometime before 2004 and remained in day-to-day control until his battle with Alzheimer's disease forced him to cede the team to Joe Ellis in 2014.[5][6][15]

text: 1983–1998: John Elway era[edit]

text: Dan Reeves became the youngest head coach in the NFL when he joined the Broncos in 1981 as vice president and head coach. Quarterback John Elway, who played college football at Stanford, arrived in 1983 via a trade. Originally drafted by the Baltimore Colts as the first pick of the draft, Elway proclaimed that he would shun football in favor of baseball (he was drafted by the New York Yankees to play center field and was also a pitching prospect), unless he was traded to a selected list of other teams, which included the Broncos.[16] Prior to Elway, the Broncos had over 24 different starting quarterbacks in its 23 seasons to that point.[17]

text: Reeves and Elway guided the Broncos to six post-season appearances, five AFC West divisional titles, three AFC championships and three Super Bowl appearances (Super Bowl XXI, XXII and XXIV) during their 12-year span together. The Broncos lost Super Bowl XXI to the New York Giants, 39–20; Super Bowl XXII to the Washington Redskins, 42–10; and Super Bowl XXIV to the San Francisco 49ers, 55–10; the latter score remains the most lopsided scoring differential in Super Bowl history. The last year of the Reeves-Elway era were marked by feuding, due to Reeves taking on play-calling duties after ousting Elway's favorite offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan after the 1991 season, as well as Reeves drafting quarterback Tommy Maddox out of UCLA instead of going with a wide receiver to help Elway. Reeves was fired after the 1992 season and replaced by his protégé and friend Wade Phillips, who had been serving as the Broncos' defensive coordinator.[18][19][20] Phillips was fired after a mediocre 1994 season, in which management felt he lost control of the team.

text: In 1995, Mike Shanahan, who had formerly served under Reeves as the Broncos' offensive coordinator, returned as head coach. Shanahan drafted rookie running back Terrell Davis. In 1996, the Broncos were the top seed in the AFC with a 13–3 record, dominating most of the teams that year. The fifth-seeded Jacksonville Jaguars, however, upset the Broncos 30–27 in the divisional round of the playoffs, ending the Broncos' 1996 run.[12]

text: During the 1997 season, Elway and Davis helped guide the Broncos to their first Super Bowl victory, a 31–24 win over the defending champion Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXII. Though Elway completed only 13 of 22 passes, throwing one interception and no touchdowns (he did, however, have a rushing touchdown), Davis rushed for 157 yards and a Super Bowl–record three touchdowns to earn the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award—this while overcoming a severe migraine headache that caused him blurred vision.[21] The Broncos repeated as Super Bowl champions the following season, defeating the Atlanta Falcons (led by Elway's longtime head coach Dan Reeves) in Super Bowl XXXIII, 34–19. Elway was named Super Bowl MVP, completing 18 of 29 passes for 336 yards, with an 80-yard touchdown to wide receiver Rod Smith and one interception.[20]

text: 1999–2011: Post-Elway era[edit]

text: John Elway retired following the 1998 season, and Brian Griese started at quarterback for the next four seasons. After a 6–10 record in 1999, the Broncos recovered in 2000, earning a Wild Card playoff berth, but losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens. After missing the playoffs the following two seasons, former Arizona Cardinals' quarterback Jake Plummer replaced Griese in 2003, and led the Broncos to two straight 10–6 seasons, earning Wild Card playoff berths both years. However, the Broncos went on the road to face the Indianapolis Colts in back-to-back seasons and were blown out by more than 20 points in each game, allowing a combined 90 points.[12]

text: Plummer led the Broncos to a 13–3 record in 2005 and their first AFC West division title since 1998. After a first-round bye, the Broncos defeated the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, 27–13, denying New England from becoming the first NFL team ever to win three consecutive Super Bowl championships. The Broncos' playoff run came to an end next week, after losing at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship game, 34–17. The Steelers went on to win Super Bowl XL.

text: The Broncos' defense began the first five games of the 2006 season allowing only one touchdown—an NFL record, but struggled down the season stretch. Plummer led the team to a 7–2 record, only to struggle and be replaced by rookie quarterback Jay Cutler. Cutler went 2–3 as a starter, and the Broncos finished with a 9–7 record, losing the tiebreaker to the Kansas City Chiefs for the final playoff spot. Cutler's first full season as a starter in 2007 became the Broncos' first losing season since 1999, with a 7–9 record.

text: The 2008 season ended in a 52–21 loss at the San Diego Chargers, giving the Broncos an 8–8 record and their third straight season out of the playoffs. Mike Shanahan, the longest-tenured and most successful head coach in Broncos' franchise history, was fired after 14 seasons.[22]

text: On January 11, 2009, two weeks after Shanahan was fired, the Broncos hired former New England Patriots' offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels as the team's new head coach.[23] Three months later, the team acquired quarterback Kyle Orton as part of a trade that sent Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears.

text: Under McDaniels and Orton, the Broncos jumped out to a surprising 6–0 start in 2009. However, the team lost eight of their next ten games, finishing 8–8 for a second consecutive season and missing the playoffs. The next season (2010), the Broncos set a new franchise record for losses in a single season, with a 4–12 record.[24] McDaniels was fired before the end of the 2010 season following a combination of the team's poor record and the fallout from a highly publicized videotaping scandal. Running backs coach Eric Studesville was named interim coach for the final four games of the 2010 season.[25] He chose to start rookie first-round draft choice Tim Tebow at quarterback for the final three games.

text: Following the 2010 season, Joe Ellis was promoted from Chief Operating Officer to team president, while John Elway returned to the organization as the team's Executive Vice President of Football Operations.[26] In addition, the Broncos hired John Fox as the team's 14th head coach. Fox previously served as the Carolina Panthers' head coach from 2002–10.[27]

text: Following a 1–4 start to the 2011 season, Tim Tebow replaced Kyle Orton as the Broncos' starting quarterback, and led the Broncos to an 8–8 record and the team's first playoff berth and division title since 2005. The Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wild Card round on a memorable 80-yard touchdown pass from Tebow to wide receiver Demaryius Thomas on the first play of overtime, setting a record for the fastest overtime in NFL history.[28] However, the Broncos were blown out by the New England Patriots in the Divisional round.[29]

text: 2012–2015: Peyton Manning era[edit]

text: In March 2012, the Broncos reached an agreement on a five-year, $96 million contract with former longtime Indianapolis Colts' quarterback Peyton Manning, who had recently missed the entire 2011 season following multiple neck surgeries.[30][31] This resulted in the Broncos subsequently trading incumbent quarterback Tim Tebow to the New York Jets.[32] The Broncos finished with a 13–3 record and the AFC's No. 1 seed in the 2012 playoffs, but were defeated by the Baltimore Ravens in the Divisional round.[33]

text: Like 2012, the Broncos finished with a 13–3 record and the AFC's No. 1 seed in 2013. In the 2013 playoffs, the Broncos defeated the San Diego Chargers in the Divisional round and the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship. However, the Broncos were soundly defeated by the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII by a score of 43–8, the Broncos' first Super Bowl berth since winning back-to-back Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998.[34]

text: Prior to the start of the 2014 season, the Broncos announced that Pat Bowlen, the team's owner since 1984, relinquished control of the team due to his battle with Alzheimer's disease, resulting in team president Joe Ellis and general manager John Elway assuming control of the team.[15] The Broncos finished the 2014 season with a 12–4 record and the AFC's No. 2 seed. However, the Broncos were defeated by the Indianapolis Colts in the Divisional round of the 2014 playoffs, marking the third time in four seasons that the Broncos lost in the Divisional round of the playoffs. Quarterback Peyton Manning had been playing with strained quadriceps for the final month of the 2014 season.[35]

text: On January 12, 2015, one day after the aforementioned Divisional playoff loss to the Colts, the Broncos and head coach John Fox mutually agreed to part ways.[36] Fox left the Broncos with a .719 winning percentage in his four seasons as the Broncos' head coach—the highest in franchise history.[37] One week later, the Broncos hired Gary Kubiak as the team's 15th head coach. Kubiak served as a backup quarterback to executive vice president/general manager John Elway from 1983–1991, as well as the Broncos' offensive coordinator from 1995–2005.[38] Shortly after Kubiak became head coach, the Broncos underwent numerous changes to their coaching staff, including the hiring of defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, under whom the Broncos' defense ranked No. 1 in the NFL during the 2015 season.[39] The Broncos finished with a 12–4 record and the AFC's No. 1 seed, despite Peyton Manning having his worst statistical season since his rookie year with the Indianapolis Colts in 1998[40] and backup quarterback Brock Osweiler filling in for Manning during the second half of the regular season due to Manning suffering from a foot injury. In the playoffs, the Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 23–16 in the Divisional Round, the New England Patriots 20–18 in the AFC Championship, and defeated the Carolina Panthers 24–10 in Super Bowl 50—the Broncos' third Super Bowl title.[41]

text: 2016–present: Post-Manning era[edit]

text: On March 7, 2016, quarterback Peyton Manning retired after 18 NFL seasons during a press conference at the team's Dove Valley headquarters.[42] Following Manning's retirement, the Broncos have undergone changes at the quarterback position, including the free agent departure of backup quarterback Brock Osweiler to the Houston Texans, the trade acquisition of Mark Sanchez from the Philadelphia Eagles and the selection of Paxton Lynch during the 2016 draft. Sanchez, Lynch and second-year quarterback Trevor Siemian competed for the starting quarterback spot during the off-season and preseason; however, Sanchez was released and Siemian was named the starter prior to the start of the season. The Broncos finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010. On January 2, 2017, coach Gary Kubiak announced his retirement, citing health as the main reason for retiring.[43] The Broncos would later hire Vance Joseph to be their new head coach on January 11, 2017.

text: Championships[edit]

text: Super Bowls[edit]

text:
Year
Coach
Super Bowl
Location
Opponent
Score
Record

1997
Mike Shanahan
XXXII
San Diego, CA
Green Bay Packers
31–24
12–4

1998
Mike Shanahan
XXXIII
Miami, FL
Atlanta Falcons
34–19
14–2

2015
Gary Kubiak
50
Santa Clara, CA
Carolina Panthers
24–10
12–4

Total Super Bowl championships won:
3

text: AFC Championships[edit]

text:
Year
Coach
Location
Opponent
Score
Record

1977
Red Miller
Denver, CO
Oakland Raiders
20–17
12–2

1986
Dan Reeves
Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Browns
23–20 (OT)
11–5

1987
Dan Reeves
Denver, CO
Cleveland Browns
38–33
10–4–1

1989
Dan Reeves
Denver, CO
Cleveland Browns
37–21
11–5

1997
Mike Shanahan
Pittsburgh, PA
Pittsburgh Steelers
24–21
12–4

1998
Mike Shanahan
Denver, CO
New York Jets
23–10
14–2

2013
John Fox
Denver, CO
New England Patriots
26–16
13–3

2015
Gary Kubiak
Denver, CO
New England Patriots
20–18
12–4

Total AFC Championships won:
8

text: Rivalries[edit]

text: Divisional[edit]

text: The Denver Broncos have three AFC West rivals—the Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Chargers and Oakland Raiders. All teams, along with the Broncos, were charter members of the American Football League (AFL), with each team placed in the AFL Western Division. The Broncos were barely competitive during the AFL years (1960–69), going a combined 10–49–1 against the Chiefs, Chargers and Raiders.

text: Kansas City Chiefs[edit]

text: The Broncos have had several memorable matchups with the Chiefs, particularly during the years in which John Elway was the Broncos' starting quarterback (1983–98). The Broncos defeated the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium in the divisional round of the 1997 NFL playoffs, in route to their first Super Bowl victory. The Chiefs currently hold a 59–55 series lead over the Broncos, including the aforementioned 1997 divisional playoff game.

text: Oakland Raiders[edit]

text: The rivalry with the Raiders was ignited in 1977, when the Broncos advanced to their first Super Bowl by defeating the defending champion Raiders in the 1977 AFC Championship. The rivalry intensified in the mid-1990s, when Mike Shanahan was hired as the Broncos' head coach in 1995. Shanahan coached the Raiders in 1988 before being fired four games into the 1989 season. The Raiders currently hold a 62–51–2 series lead over the Broncos, including 1–1 in the playoffs.

text: San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers[edit]

text: Unlike their records against the Chiefs and Raiders, the Broncos currently have a winning record against the Chargers, with a 65–50–1 series lead, including 1–0 in the playoffs. The Broncos pulled off one of the largest comebacks in Monday Night Football history, when Peyton Manning led the Broncos from a 24–0 halftime deficit to a 35–24 win at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium during the 2012 season. The two teams met in the playoffs for the first time on January 12, 2014, at Denver's Sports Authority Field at Mile High, with the Broncos winning 24–17.

text: Seattle Seahawks[edit]

text: The Broncos had an old rivalry with the Seattle Seahawks, who were members of the AFC West from 1977–2001, prior to the Seahawks' move to the NFC West as part of the NFL's 2002 re-alignment.[44] During the 25 years in which the Seahawks resided in the AFC West, the Broncos went 32–18 against the Seahawks, including a loss at Seattle in the 1983 NFL playoffs. Since 2002, the two teams have split four interconference meetings,[45] and the two teams met in Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014, with the Seahawks winning by a score of 43–8.[46]

text: Historical[edit]

text: Aside from the aforementioned AFC West teams, the Broncos have had intra-conference rivalries over the years with the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots.

text: Cleveland Browns[edit]

text: The Broncos had a brief rivalry with the Browns that arose from three AFC championship matches from 1986–89. In the 1986 AFC Championship, quarterback John Elway led The Drive to secure a tie in the waning moments at Cleveland Municipal Stadium; the Broncos went on to win in 23–20 in overtime.[47] One year later, the two teams met again in the 1987 AFC Championship at Mile High Stadium. Denver took a 21–3 lead, but Browns' quarterback Bernie Kosar threw four touchdown passes to tie the game at 31–31 halfway through the 4th quarter. After a long drive, John Elway threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to running back Sammy Winder to give Denver a 38–31 lead. Cleveland advanced to Denver's 8-yard line with 1:12 left, but Broncos' safety Jeremiah Castille stripped Browns' running back Earnest Byner of the football at the 2-yard line—a play that has been called The Fumble by Browns' fans. The Broncos recovered it, gave Cleveland an intentional safety, and went on to win 38–33.[48] The two teams met yet again in the 1989 AFC Championship at Mile High Stadium, which the Broncos easily won by a score of 37–21.[49] Interestingly, the Broncos would not win the Super Bowl after any of the championship games where they beat the Browns.

text: Pittsburgh Steelers[edit]

text: As of the end of the 2015 season, the Broncos have met the Steelers in postseason play eight times, more than any other NFL team, with the Broncos owning a 5–3 playoff record vs. the Steelers.[50] Perhaps the most memorable postseason matchup occurred in the 1997 AFC Championship, in which the Broncos defeated the Steelers 24–21 at Three Rivers Stadium, en route to their first Super Bowl victory. Eight years later, the Steelers returned the favor at INVESCO Field at Mile High, defeating the Broncos 34–17 in the 2005 AFC Championship, and subsequently won Super Bowl XL.[51] In the Wild Card round of the 2011 playoffs, the Broncos stunned the Steelers 29–23 on the first play of overtime, when quarterback Tim Tebow connected with wide receiver Demaryius Thomas on an 80-yard game-winning touchdown pass.[52] The teams met again in the Divisional round of the 2015 playoffs at Denver, where the Broncos defeated the Steelers 23–16 on their way to a victory in Super Bowl 50.[53]

text: New England Patriots[edit]

text: The Broncos and Patriots met twice annually during the American Football League (AFL) years from 1960–69, and played in the first-ever AFL game on September 9, 1960.[54] Since 1995, the two teams have met frequently during the regular season, including nine consecutive seasons from 1995–2003.[55] As of the end of the 2015 season, the two teams have met in the playoffs five times, with the Broncos owning a 4–1 record.[56] The teams' first playoff match on January 4, 1987 was John Elway's first career playoff win,[57] while the teams' second playoff match on January 14, 2006 game was the Broncos' first playoff win since Elway's retirement after the 1998 season.[58] The game was also notable for Champ Bailey's 100-yard interception that resulted in a touchdown-saving tackle by Benjamin Watson at the 1-yard line.[59] On October 11, 2009, the two teams met with former Patriots' offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels as the Broncos' head coach. Both teams wore their AFL 50th anniversary jerseys.[60] The game featured a 98-yard drive in the fourth quarter, with a game-tying touchdown pass from Kyle Orton to Brandon Marshall, followed by an overtime drive led by Orton that resulted in a 41-yard game-winning field goal by Matt Prater.[61] The two teams met in the Divisional round of the 2011 playoffs, with the Patriots blowing out Tim Tebow and the Broncos by a score of 45–10.[29] The Broncos' rivalry with the Patriots later intensified when longtime Indianapolis Colts' quarterback Peyton Manning became the Broncos' starting quarterback from 2012–15. Manning and Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady maintained a legendary rivalry from 2001[62] until Manning's retirement after the 2015 season.[63] Though Brady dominated Manning in regular season play, winning nine of twelve meetings, Manning won three of five playoff meetings, the last of which was a Broncos' 20–18 win in the 2015 AFC Championship.[64]

text: Logos and uniforms[edit]

text: When the Broncos debuted in 1960, their original uniforms drew as much attention as their play on the field. They featured white and mustard yellow jerseys, with contrasting brown helmets, brown pants and vertically striped socks. Two years later, the team unveiled a new logo featuring a bucking horse, and changed their team colors to orange, royal blue and white. The 1962 uniform consisted of white pants, orange helmets, and either orange or white jerseys.[65]

text: In 1968, the Broncos debuted a design that became known as the "Orange Crush." Their logo was redesigned so that the horse was coming out of a "D." Additionally, the helmets were changed to royal blue, with thin stripes placed onto the sleeves, and other minor modifications were added. From 1969–1971, and again from 1978–79, the team wore orange pants with their white jerseys.[66]

text: The Broncos wore their white jerseys at home throughout the 1971 season, as well as for 1980 home games vs. the San Diego Chargers and Dallas Cowboys, the latter in hopes to bring out the "blue jersey jinx" which has followed the Cowboys for decades (it worked, the Broncos won 41–20). The Broncos wore their white jerseys for 1983 home games vs. the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Raiders and Cincinnati Bengals, but would not wear white at home again for two decades — see next section.[66][67]

text: In 1994, in honor of the 75th anniversary season of the NFL, the Broncos wore their 1965 throwback uniforms for two games—a Week 3 home game against the Raiders, as well a road game at the Buffalo Bills the following week.[66]

text: The Broncos radically changed their logo and uniforms in 1997, a design that the team continues to use to this day. The new logos and uniforms were unveiled on February 4, 1997.[68] Navy blue replaced royal blue on the team's color scheme. The current logo is a profile of a horse's head, with an orange mane and navy blue outlines.[69] The Broncos' popular live animal mascot Thunder was the inspiration to incorporate a horse-head profile as part of the logo on the team's helmets.[70] During a February 4, 1997 press conference introducing the new logo, the team president and the art director for Nike, who were the creators of the new design, described it as "a powerful horse with a fiery eye and mane."[68]

text: The Broncos began wearing navy blue jerseys, replacing their longtime orange jerseys that had been the team's predominant home jersey color since 1962. This new uniform design features a new word mark, numbering font and a streak that runs up and down the sides of both the jerseys and the pants. On the navy blue jerseys, the streak is orange, with an orange collar and white numerals trimmed in orange, while on the road white jerseys, the streak is navy blue, with a thin orange accent strip on both sides, a navy collar and navy numerals trimmed in orange. When they debuted, these uniforms were vilified by the press and fans, until the Broncos won their first ever Super Bowl in the new design that same season. The navy blue jerseys served as the team's primary home jersey until the end of the 2011 season — see next section.[69]

text: In 2002, the Broncos introduced an alternate orange jersey that is a mirror image of the aforementioned navy blue jerseys, but with orange and navy trading places. Like the road white jerseys, the white pants with the navy blue streaks running down the sides are worn with this uniform. This jersey was used only once in the 2002 and 2004 seasons, and were used twice per season from 2008–2011. Mike Shanahan, the team's head coach from 1995–2008, was not a big fan of the alternate orange jerseys.[71] The Broncos previously wore orange jerseys as a throwback uniform in a Thanksgiving Day game at the Dallas Cowboys in 2001.[72]

text: The team also introduced navy blue pants in 2003, with orange side streaks to match with the navy blue jerseys. Though they were part of the uniform change in 1997 (in fact, they were worn for a couple of 1997 preseason games) and most players wanted to wear them, the only player who vetoed wearing them was John Elway, thereby delaying their eventual introduction.[73] From 2003–2011, these pants were primarily used for select prime-time and late-season home games (excluding the 2008 season), and since 2012, are used exclusively with the now-alternate navy blue jerseys — see next section.

text: On November 16, 2003, the Broncos wore their white jerseys at home for the first time since 1983, in a game vs. the San Diego Chargers. This was compensation for a uniform mix-up, after the teams' first meeting at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium in Week 2 earlier that season, when the Chargers were the team that was supposed to declare their uniform color. The Chargers were planning to wear their white jerseys, but the visiting Broncos came to the stadium in white, and were fined $25,000 by the NFL as a result. When the two teams met at INVESCO Field at Mile High later that season (Week 11), the NFL allowed the visiting Chargers to choose their uniform color in advance, and they chose navy blue, forcing the Broncos to wear their white jerseys at home.[73]

text: In 2009, in honor of their 50th anniversary season as one of the eight original American Football League teams, the Broncos wore their 1960 throwback uniforms (brown helmets, mustard yellow and brown jerseys) for games against two fellow AFL rivals—a Week 5 home game vs. the New England Patriots, as well as the following week at the San Diego Chargers.[74][75]

text: Beginning in 2012, the orange jerseys that served as the alternate colored jerseys from 2002–2011 became the primary home jersey, while the navy blue jerseys that served as the primary home jersey from 1997–2011 switched to alternate designation. The change was made due to overwhelming popularity with the fans, who pressured the Broncos to return to orange as the team's primary home jersey color.[69] Since the 2012 uniform change, the team has worn the alternate navy blue jerseys for at least one home game per season, with the exception of 2013, in which the Broncos wore their alternate navy blue uniforms for an October 6, 2013 road game at the Dallas Cowboys.[76] The team will either wear the navy blue or the white pants — with the orange side stripes — to match with the alternate navy blue jerseys. The team initially did not wear the white pants with the orange side stripes, until a November 1, 2015 game vs. the Green Bay Packers, in which the Broncos wore said design in order to match the uniform ensemble that was used during the team's Super Bowl XXXII win over the Packers.[77]

text: As the designated home team in Super Bowl 50, the Broncos — who have an 0–4 Super Bowl record when using their standard orange jerseys — chose to wear their white jerseys as the designated "home" team.[78]

text: In 2016, the Broncos' unveiled a new Color Rush uniform, which the team wore for a Thursday Night game at the San Diego Chargers on October 13, 2016. The uniform kit contained the following features: orange pants, which the team wore for the first time since 1979, orange socks and shoes, along with block-style numerals trimmed in navy blue that mirrored the team's 1968–1996 uniform style. Due to the NFL's one-helmet rule implemented in 2013, the helmets remained the same, with the team temporarily replacing the modern primary logo with the throwback "D-horse" logo.[79]

text: Uniforms in the Super Bowl[edit]

text:
Super Bowl
Opponent
Favorite
Jersey Color
Result

XII
Dallas Cowboys
Cowboys by 6

L 10–27

XXI
New York Giants
Giants by 9.5

L 20–39

XXII
Washington Redskins
Broncos by 3

L 10–42

XXIV
San Francisco 49ers
49ers by 12

L 10–55

XXXII
Green Bay Packers
Packers by 11

W 31–24

XXXIII
Atlanta Falcons
Broncos by 7.5

W 34–19

XLVIII
Seattle Seahawks
Broncos by 2

L 8–43

50
Carolina Panthers
Panthers by 5.5

W 24–10

text: Home field[edit]

text: For most of their history, the Denver Broncos played in Mile High Stadium. The AFL Broncos played at the University of Denver's Hilltop Stadium from time to time, including the first-ever victory of an AFL team over an NFL team: The Broncos beat the Detroit Lions on August 5, 1967, in a preseason game. The team has sold out every home game (including post-season games) since the AFL–NFL merger in 1970, with the exception of two replacement games during the 1987 strike (but both were sold out before the strike).

text: During home games, the attendance is announced to the crowd, along with the number of no-shows (the fans subsequently boo the no-shows). The fans are also known to chant "IN-COM-PLETE!" every time the visiting team throws an incomplete pass.[80] The stadium's legendary home-field advantage is regarded as one of the best in the NFL, especially during the playoffs. The Broncos had the best home record in pro football over a 32-year span from 1974–2006 (191–65–1). Mile High Stadium was one of the NFL's loudest stadiums, with steel flooring instead of concrete, which may have given the Broncos an advantage over opponents. In 2001, the team moved into Invesco Field at Mile High, built next to the former site of the since-demolished Mile High Stadium. Sportswriter Woody Paige, along with many of Denver's fans, however, often refuse to call the new stadium by its full name, preferring to use "Mile High Stadium" because of its storied history and sentimental import. Additionally, The Denver Post had an official policy of referring to the stadium as simply "Mile High Stadium" in protest, but dropped this policy in 2004.[81]

text: Prior to the 2011 season, Englewood, Colorado-based sporting goods retailer Sports Authority claimed the naming rights of Invesco Field, which became known as Sports Authority Field at Mile High.[82][83] However, in the summer of 2016, Sports Authority went bankrupt, and the Broncos have been seeking a new corporate sponsor for their stadium ever since.[84]

text: The altitude has also been attributed as part of the team's home success. The stadium displays multiple references to the stadium's location of 5,280 feet (1.000 mi) above sea level, including a prominent mural just outside the visiting team's locker room. The team training facility, the UCHealth Training Center (formerly known as the Paul D. Bowlen Memorial Broncos Centre), is a state-of-the-art facility located in Dove Valley, Colorado. With 13.5 acres of property, the facility hosts three full-size fields, a complete weight and training facility, and a cafeteria.[85][86]

text: In their more than half-century of existence, the Broncos have never been shut out at home, a streak of over 400 games as of the 2016 season.[87]

text: In late 2012, the Broncos announced that the stadium will receive $30 million upgrades including a new video board in the south end zone that is planned to be three times larger than the previous display. The renovations were finished before kickoff of the 2013 season.[88]

text: Statistics[edit]

text: Season-by-season records[edit]

text: Players of note[edit]

text: Current roster[edit]

text:
Denver Broncos roster

view
talk
edit

Quarterbacks

12 Paxton Lynch
17 Brock Osweiler
13 Trevor Siemian

Running backs

22 C. J. Anderson
23 Devontae Booker
28 Jamaal Charles
33 De'Angelo Henderson
32 Andy Janovich FB

Wide receivers

16 Bennie Fowler
14 Cody Latimer
84 Isaiah McKenzie
10 Emmanuel Sanders
87 Jordan Taylor
88 Demaryius Thomas

Tight ends

83 A. J. Derby
85 Virgil Green
82 Jeff Heuerman

Offensive linemen

73 Allen Barbre G
72 Garett Bolles T
76 Max Garcia G
65 Ronald Leary G
60 Connor McGovern C
61 Matt Paradis C
71 Donald Stephenson T
77 Billy Turner G
75 Menelik Watson T

Defensive linemen

99 Adam Gotsis DE
96 Shelby Harris DE
92 Zach Kerr DE
94 Domata Peko NT
90 Kyle Peko NT
78 Ahtyba Rubin DE
95 Derek Wolfe DE

Linebackers

50 Zaire Anderson ILB
48 Shaquil Barrett OLB
51 Todd Davis ILB
91 Kasim Edebali OLB
54 Brandon Marshall ILB
58 Von Miller OLB
52 Corey Nelson ILB
57 DeMarcus Walker OLB

Defensive backs

20 Jamal Carter SS
37 Lorenzo Doss CB
25 Chris Harris Jr. CB
27 Brendan Langley CB
34 Will Parks FS
29 Bradley Roby CB
31 Justin Simmons SS
26 Darian Stewart FS
21 Aqib Talib CB

Special teams

 9 Riley Dixon P
42 Casey Kreiter LS
 8 Brandon McManus K

Reserve lists

80 Jake Butt TE (NF-Inj.)
93 Jared Crick DE (IR)
11 Carlos Henderson WR (IR)
 6 Chad Kelly QB (NF-Inj.)
56 Shane Ray OLB (IR)
97 Billy Winn DE (IR)

Practice squad

55 Dillon Day C
41 Jerrol Garcia-Williams ILB
98 Tyrique Jarrett NT
53 Deiontrez Mount OLB
38 Marcus Rios CB
15 Hunter Sharp WR
35 Dymonte Thomas S
86 Austin Traylor TE
68 Elijah Wilkinson OT
30 Jonathan Williams RB

Rookies in italics
Roster updated September 19, 2017
Depth chart • Transactions
53 Active, 6 Inactive, 10 Practice squad
→ AFC rosters → NFC rosters

AFC East
BUF
MIA
NE
NYJ
North
BAL
CIN
CLE
PIT
South
HOU
IND
JAX
TEN
West
DEN
KC
LAC
OAK

NFC East
DAL
NYG
PHI
WAS
North
CHI
DET
GB
MIN
South
ATL
CAR
NO
TB
West
ARI
LAR
SF
SEA

text: Retired numbers[edit]

text:
Denver Broncos retired numbers

No.
Player
Position
Career

7
John Elway
QB
1983–98

18
Frank Tripucka
Peyton Manning*
QB
1960–63
2012–15 †

44
Floyd Little
RB
1967–75

text: † Note: No. 18 was re-issued for Peyton Manning after Tripucka gave his approval; it was used by Manning from the 2012 season until his retirement after the 2015 season.[89] Manning's name was added to the retired number's banner as an honorable mention.[90][91][92]

text: Pro Football Hall of Famers[edit]

text:
Denver Broncos Hall of Famers

No.
Name
Position(s)
Season(s)
Inducted

24
Brown, WillieWillie Brown
CB
1963–66
1984

30
Davis, TerrellTerrell Davis
RB
1995–2001
2017

33
Dorsett, TonyTony Dorsett
RB
1988
1994

7
Elway, JohnJohn Elway
QB
General Manager
1983–98
2011–present
2004

65
Zimmerman, GaryGary Zimmerman
OT
1993–97
2008

44
Little, FloydFloyd Little
RB
1967–75
2010

84
Sharpe, ShannonShannon Sharpe
TE
1990–99,
2002–03
2011

text: Ring of Fame[edit]

text: The Broncos have a Ring of Fame on the Level 5 façade of Sports Authority Field at Mile High, which honors the following:

text:
Denver Broncos Ring of Fame

No.
Name
Position(s)
Seasons
Inducted

23
Goose Gonsoulin
S
1960–66
1984

87
Rich Jackson
DE
1967–72
1984

44
Floyd Little
RB
1967–75
1984

87
Lionel Taylor
WR
1960–66
1984

–
Gerald Phipps
Owner
1961–81
1985

12
Charley Johnson
QB
1972–75
1986

70
Paul Smith
DE
1968–78
1986

18
Frank Tripucka
QB
1960–63
1986

36
Billy Thompson
S
1969–81
1987

7
Craig Morton
QB
1977–82
1988

25
Haven Moses
WR
1972–81
1988

15
Jim Turner
PK
1971–79
1988

53
Randy Gradishar
LB
1974–83
1989

57
Tom Jackson
LB
1973–86
1992

20
Louis Wright
CB
1975–86
1993

7
John Elway
QB
General manager
1983–98
2011–present
1999

77
Karl Mecklenburg
LB
1983–95
2001

49
Dennis Smith
S
1981–94
2001

65
Gary Zimmerman
OT
1993–97
2003

27
Steve Atwater
S
1989–98
2005

30
Terrell Davis
RB
1995–2001
2007

84
Shannon Sharpe
TE
1990–99, 2002–03
2009

80
Rod Smith
WR
1994–2006
2012

66
Tom Nalen
C
1994–2007
2013

21
Gene Mingo
RB, K, RS
1960–64
2014

–
Dan Reeves
Head coach
1981–92
2014

80
Rick Upchurch
WR, RS
1975–83
2014

–
Pat Bowlen
Owner
1984–present
2015

1
Jason Elam
PK
1993–2007
2016

73
Simon Fletcher
LB/DE
1985–95
2016

47
John Lynch
S
2004–07
2016

—
Red Miller
Head coach
1977–80
2017

text: Super Bowl MVPs[edit]

text:
Super Bowl MVP Winners

SB
Player
Position

XXXII
Terrell Davis
RB

XXXIII
John Elway
QB

50
Von Miller
LB

text: Colorado Sports Hall of Fame[edit]

text: Staff[edit]

text: Head coaches[edit]

text: Current staff[edit]

text:
Denver Broncos staff

v
t
e

Front Office

Owner – The Pat Bowlen Trust
President/Chairman/CEO – Joe Ellis
President of Football Operations/General Manager – John Elway
Director of Football Administration – Mike Sullivan
Director of Player Personnel – Matt Russell
Senior Personnel Advisor – Tom Heckert Jr.
Senior Personnel Advisor – Gary Kubiak
Director of Pro Personnel – A.J. Durso
Director of College Scouting – Brian Stark
Director of Football Analytics – Mitch Tanney

Head Coaches

Head Coach – Vance Joseph
Assistant Head Coach/Running Backs – Eric Studesville
Assistant to Head Coach – Phil Rauscher

Offensive Coaches

Offensive Coordinator – Mike McCoy
Quarterbacks – Bill Musgrave
Wide Receivers – Tyke Tolbert
Tight Ends – Geep Chryst
Offensive Line – Jeff Davidson
Assistant Offensive Line – Chris Strausser
Offensive Assistant/Quarterbacks – Klint Kubiak
Offensive Quality Control – Christopher Kragthorpe

Defensive Coaches

Defensive Coordinator – Joe Woods
Defensive Line – Bill Kollar
Linebackers – Reggie Herring
Outside Linebackers – Fred Pagac
Secondary – Marcus Robertson
Assistant Secondary – Johnnie Lynn
Defensive Assistant – Chris Beake
Defensive Quality Control – Charles Gordon

Special Teams Coaches

Special Teams Coordinator – Brock Olivo
Assistant Special Teams – Chris Gould

Strength and Conditioning

Strength and Conditioning – Luke Richesson
Assistant Strength and Conditioning – Mike Eubanks
Assistant Strength and Conditioning – Anthony Lomando
Assistant Strength and Conditioning – Cedric Smith

→ Coaching Staff
→ Management
→ More NFL staffs

AFC East
BUF
MIA
NE
NYJ
North
BAL
CIN
CLE
PIT
South
HOU
IND
JAX
TEN
West
DEN
KC
LAC
OAK

NFC East
DAL
NYG
PHI
WAS
North
CHI
DET
GB
MIN
South
ATL
CAR
NO
TB
West
ARI
LAR
SF
SEA

text: Radio and television[edit]

text: The Broncos' flagship radio station is currently KOA, 850AM, a 50,000-watt station owned by Clear Channel Communications. Dave Logan is the play-by-play announcer, with former Broncos' wide receiver Ed McCaffrey serving as the color commentator beginning in 2012, replacing Brian Griese.[93] Until 2010, preseason games not selected for airing on national television were shown on KCNC, channel 4, which is a CBS owned-and-operated station, as well as other CBS affiliates around the Rocky Mountain region. On May 26, 2011, the Broncos announced that KUSA channel 9, an NBC affiliate also known as 9NEWS in the Rocky Mountain region, will be the team's new television partner for preseason games.[94]

text: In 2011, the Broncos began a partnership with KJMN, 92.1 FM, a leading Spanish language radio station owned by Entravision Communications (EVC). The partnership also includes broadcasting rights for a half-hour weekly TV show on KCEC, the local Univision affiliate operated by Entravision Communications.[94]

text: Notable fans and in the media[edit]

text:
Tim McKernan, a.k.a. Barrel Man, began wearing a barrel in 1977 after making a $10 bet with his brother, Scott, that by wearing one he could get on television. McKernan won the bet, and the barrel he had painted to look like an Orange Crush soda can became his signature costume, and resulted in him becoming one of the Broncos' most recognized fans and a popular mascot. McKernan died on December 5, 2009.[95]
The animated television show South Park, set in Park County, Colorado, often mentions the Denver Broncos; show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone both grew up in Colorado as devout Broncos fans.[96]
In The Simpsons episode "You Only Move Twice", Hank Scorpio gives Homer Simpson the Denver Broncos as a thank-you gift for helping him. Homer complains that he wanted to own the Dallas Cowboys, as the Broncos team that just arrived are playing very sloppy football on his front lawn (a reference to the team losing four Super Bowl appearances, three by significant margins including Super Bowl XII against Dallas). Incidentally, the Broncos were 13–3 in the 1996 season, and won the Super Bowl the next 2 seasons. In the episode, "The Bonfire of the Manatees", Homer picks the Broncos to win the Super Bowl over the Seattle Seahawks. The two teams later did play against each other in Super Bowl XLVIII which aired on Fox, the U.S. home of The Simpsons.
In the Mork & Mindy episode "Hold That Mork", Mork's character, played by Robin Williams, became the first male cheerleader in Broncos' history. As a member of the "Pony Express", he trotted out on the field at Mile High Stadium during an actual Broncos' game vs. the New England Patriots on November 11, 1979. The episode aired exactly two weeks later.[97]
Many former Broncos are now in broadcasting, including Shannon Sharpe, Mark Schlereth, Alfred Williams, Tom Jackson, Ed McCaffrey, Brian Griese, David Diaz-Infante, Terrell Davis and John Lynch.

tag: ul


document_title: List of Governors of the United States Virgin Islands

question_text: who is the governor of the virgin islands

text: Appointed governors (1917–1969)[edit]

text: Naval governors (1917–1931)[edit]

text:
1917 – 1917: Edwin Taylor Pollock
1917 – 1919: James Harrison Oliver
1919 – 1921: Joseph Wallace Oman
1921 – 1922: Sumner Ely Wetmore Kittelle
1922 – 1923: Henry Hughes Hough
1923 – 1925: Philip Williams
1925 – 1927: Martin Edwin Trench
1927 – 1931: Waldo A. Evans

text: Civil governors (1931–1969)[edit]

text:
1931 – 1935: Paul Martin Pearson
1935 – 1935: Robert Herrick
1935 – 1940: Lawrence William Cramer
1940 – 1941: Robert Morss Lovett (Acting; filling in for Cramer)
1941 – 1945: Charles Harwood
1946 – 1949: William Henry Hastie
1949 – 1954: Morris Fidanque de Castro
1954 – 1955: Archibald A. Alexander
1955 – 1955: Charles K. Claunch
1955 – 1958: Walter A. Gordon
1958 – 1961: John David Merwin
1961 – 1969: Ralph Moses Paiewonsky

text: Elected governors (1969–present)[edit]

text: Republican (1)   Independent Citizens Movement (1)   Democratic (3)   Independent (3)

text:
No.

Image

Governor
(Birth–Death)

Took office

Left office

Party

1

Melvin Herbert Evans
(1917–1984)

000000001969-07-01-0000July 1, 1969

000000001975-01-06-0000January 6, 1975

Republican

2

Cyril Emmanuel King
(1921–1978)

000000001975-01-06-0000January 6, 1975

000000001978-01-02-0000January 2, 1978

Independent Citizens Movement

3

Juan Francisco Luis
(1940–2011)

000000001978-01-02-0000January 2, 1978

000000001987-01-05-0000January 5, 1987

Independent Citizens Movement
(until 1979)

Independent
(1979 onward)

4

Alexander Anthony Farrelly
(1923–2002)

000000001987-01-05-0000January 5, 1987

000000001995-01-02-0000January 2, 1995

Democratic

5

Roy Lester Schneider
(born 1939)

000000001995-01-02-0000January 2, 1995

000000001999-01-04-0000January 4, 1999

Independent[1]

6

Charles Wesley Turnbull
(born 1935)

000000001999-01-04-0000January 4, 1999

000000002007-01-01-0000January 1, 2007

Democratic

7

John de Jongh
(born 1957)

000000002007-01-01-0000January 1, 2007

000000002015-01-05-0000January 5, 2015

Democrat

8

Kenneth Mapp
(born 1955)

000000002015-01-05-0000January 5, 2015

Incumbent

Independent

text: Living former governors[edit]

text: As of January 2017[update], three former governors were alive. The most recent governor to die was John David Merwin (1958–1961), on March 17, 2013.

text:
Name
Gubernatorial term
Date of birth

Roy Lester Schneider
1995–1999
(1939-05-13) May 13, 1939 (age 78)

Charles Wesley Turnbull
1999–2007
(1935-02-05) February 5, 1935 (age 82)

John de Jongh
2007–2015
(1957-11-13) November 13, 1957 (age 59)