Monday, March 11, 2024

The AFL: A proposal for an NFL Spring Football League

 Over the years, I have watched many failed attempts to create a spring football league (WFL, USFL-twice, XFL-twice, WLAF/NFL Europe, the old UFL) and currently an attempt is being made with a new UFL. I think there's a market for a spring football league and the best organization to try and make it work is the NFL.

Why the NFL? Because only they can make NFL players available. My idea is to use current non-starters and practice squad players to fill the roster for a few teams that play in non-NFL cities in the spring, where the players are chosen by geography. I'd call the league the American Football League (AFL), a name the NFL owns thanks to it's merger with the old AFL. 

Here's how it would work. Twelve teams - San Diego, San Antonio, San Jose, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Memphis, Grand Rapids, Orlando, Columbus, Virginia Beach, Providence and Raleigh.

At the end of the season the 27 players who played the most for each NFL team (11 offense, 11 defense, a kicker, a punter and one other) would be declared ineligible for the AFL leaving the other 27, all practice squad players and anyone else the option of whether to play in the AFL. The league would buy insurance for any player that would cover their expected lifetime earnings based on their age, current contract and perceived value - a value they would know before they agree to play.

The 12 teams would then each choose 90 players from their geographic region to go to training camp. The geographic region would be based on where a player last played college football. So, for example, San Antonio might be choosing players from Texas and New Mexico; San Diego from southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii; etc.. If there is no one eligible, willing and currently in the NFL for a team to fill a slot, they may go outside their geographic region and/or outside the current NFL.

They'd trim the teams down to 54 by the end of camp and then the season would start.

The teams would be placed into two divisions, east and west, and play a 10 game home-and home schedule. Top 4 teams make the playoffs played out over 2 weeks culminating with the AFL Championship.

This could be a classic win-win-win. The fans get to see more football featuring high-quality players, who they already know - and in cities without pro football now. The players would be able to start, star, score touchdowns, be heroes and MVPs again and - for some current practice squad players - run through the tunnel and get on the field again. The league could try out rule changes and measure the appetite for football in other parts of the US. 

And, if done right, players and owners could make some extra money. A career in football is short, and for players not pulling down franchise tag, the chance to enhance their salaries while they're still young could be a great boon to them. 

I'd love to see Andy Dalton and the San Antonio Lobos face off against Mike White and the Memphis Hound Dogs in the 2024 AFL Championship game.


Thursday, August 17, 2023

Gadsden Purchase: How the US gave up a Vermont (and got part of it back)

The history of the US is mostly one of expansion, sometimes through military acquisition and sometimes via purchase. When the US had an opportunity to buy land, they have normally taken it.  Normally. There are a few times in US history that the country gave up territory (the Panama Canal zone, The Philippines, US Trust Territories and Corn Island, for examples) and a couple of times that places came looking for annexation and were rebuffed (part of the Dominican Republic did so), but only one time that the US had a deal in hand to buy land and  turned that land down. That came during the Gadsden Purchase. 

As the State Department describes it
Gadsden met with Santa Anna on September 25, 1853. President Pierce sent verbal instructions for Gadsden, giving Gadsden negotiating options ranging from $50 million for lower California and a large portion of northern Mexico to $15 million for a smaller land deal that would still provide for a southern railroad....
Santa Anna refused to sell a large portion of Mexico, but he needed money to fund an army to put down ongoing rebellions, so on December 30, 1853 he and Gadsden signed a treaty stipulating that the United States would pay $15 million for 45,000 square miles south of the New Mexico territory....  
With a great deal of difficulty resulting from the increasing strife between the northern and southern states, the U.S. Senate ratified a revised treaty on April 25, 1854. The new treaty reduced the amount paid to Mexico to $10 million and the land purchased to 29,670 square miles.
The original copy of the treaty that Gadsden negotiated defined the border as "From the existing border at the Colorado River, south along that river to a point two marine leagues north of the most northern part of the Gulf of California; then in succession a right line to the intersection of the 31st parallel of latitude north with the 111 degree of longitude, whence another right line to the 31deg 47' 30" north latitude, where the same will cross the boundary line, descending to the Rio Grande to the Gulf of Mexico." There was a contingency if it was discovered that the boundary bisected Lake Guzman, but the lake turned out to be far south of the defined line.[1]

The boundary was then modified by Congress on April 10, 1854 to appease northerners who wanted as little future slave territory as possible.  The change was approved by Mexico and the President and that deal created in the current boundary - a smaller land acquisition than was originally intended. 

So how much land did the United States give up? It's unclear that anyone has accurately calculated this.

Reported sizes of the Gadsden Purchase

It's first important to note that at the time no one was really clear on how much land the United States was buying (and no one would be for more than 90 years) - or how much land it was choosing not to buy by modifying the treaty. Negotiators weren't even sure where Lake Guzman was.  For many years, the official measurement for the size of the purchase was given by the Census Bureau in 1870. They used official government estimates for the size of the New Mexico territory before and after the purchase, without realizing how those numbers were calculated (and the maps at the time were of low quality). The number they came up with was 45,535 square miles, which they got by subtracting the estimated area of the territory in 1850 (215,807) from that in 1860 (261,342).[2] This would be the official estimate for more than 40 years (though starting in 1900, the Census Office's Statistical Atlas of the United States began reporting it as 31,017. It isn't clear where they got this number.). It was also off by more than 50%.

One reason this number was flawed is that the southern border with Mexico wasn't determined in 1850. Due to the flawed Disturnell map (below) used in setting the border in the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Mexico claimed the border was farther north than the United States did, and not without good cause. A controversial agreement, the Bartlett-Garcia Conde Compromise, defining the border wasn't signed until 1851.

 
Oddly enough, a more accurate measurement was available at the time the Census Bureau made its error. An 1857 Interior Department Survey by William H. Emory calculated the area as 26,185 square miles.[3] Though some publications reported this number for years, the larger number was far more common.

In 1912, Frank Bond, chief Clerk of the General Land Office, recalculated the size of the Gadsden purchase using the more modern methods of the time, and the value he came up with was a much more accurate value of 29,670 square miles.[4]

Finally, in 1940, the Census Bureau recalculated the sizes of all territorial acquisitions and determined that the 1912 number was slightly off. They determined that the actual size of the Gadsden Purchase was 29,640 square miles.[3][5]

Interestingly, each of the numbers and the errors that most of them represent, are so pervasive that they can still be found reported in books published today. Even the State Department historian used an old number in the quote above.

Amount by which the Purchase was reduced.

I could only find one attempt to answer the question about the size of the area by which Congress reduced the purchase. That number is 9,000 sq. mi. It comes from a 1923 thesis on the Gadsden Purchase written by historian Paul Neff Gabor. That thesis includes a map of the area and states the number definitively based on a citation. But that number does not seem accurate when the area is calculated using tools available today. The source of the 9,000 sq. mi. claim is from the "United States and Mexico Claims Commission, 1868, pub of the Department of State, III, 38" however a search for the original document indicates that the citation is flawed. Volume III does not include a case #38 and case #38 (found in another Volume) does not mention the size of the reduced area. It is unclear why a border dispute decision would contain this number and it's unlikely they would have accurately calculated it at that time. Thus I can't figure out how Garber determined the size of the reduced area, and the number he determined makes little sense.

The line that Gadsden negotiated started at a point farther south on the Colorado and then created a wedge shape going south to a point below the current border south of Nogales and then back north in a straight line to the point where the current border reaches its northernmost point along the Rio Grande. The new line removed from the sale two pieces, in black on the map below, and added a small wedge, in red, of what is now the south east corner of New Mexico's boot heel.



There are a few problems with trying to determine the size of the area by which the Purchase was reduced.

One is that the treaty is not the final say on where the border is. The Border Commission was. In fact, the markers on the ground, placed by agreement between Mexican and American survey teams, are the definitive word on where the border is, not the treaty or any map. Without such a survey and agreement on what the border would have been, we can only rely on the treaty.

Another problem is that the treaty set the boundary as departing the Colorado River at a point "two marine leagues north of the most northern part of the Gulf of California." Not only is it difficult to determine what would have been considered the "most northern part of the Gulf of California" in 1854, but when setting the border elsewhere, commissioners couldn't agree on how far a marine league was.[6]

That being said, using the area defined by the treaty and the standard 3-mile long modern definition of a marine league, the area winds up looking like the one in the map above. In that map, more than 10,000 sq. mi. in the Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California And Chihuahua were originally to be part of the Purchase, and 300+ sq. mi. in New Mexico and Arizona was not, for a total change of ~9,750 sq. mi. which is not too far off from the 9,000 sq. mi. reported by Gabor, but enough to be wrong. [How far north along the Colorado River the line goes matters, as drawing it at the current departure point results in an area ~4,200 sq. mi. and at the mouth of the Colorado results in an area of ~10,300 sq. mi.]

What was given up

The United States gave up ~9,750 sq miles of land, an area larger than 6 states, and in return saved $5 million, which would be worth more than $135 million today.

Had the US made the larger purchase it likely would've come out ahead. The US would have gained land that contained the sizable cities of Nogales (population 232,000), San Luis Rio Colorado (population 180,000+) and Aqua Prieta (pop. 84,000) in Sonora as well as dozens of smaller towns spread across three Mexican states. It would have gained all of the fertile farm land in the Mexicali Valley east of the Colorado and some of the farm land in the Rio Sonoyta Valley. It would have gained most of the El Pinacae y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve and part of the Upper Gulf of California and Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve, both of which are UNESCO sites.  In addition, Mexico is currently entitled to 1,500,000-acre-foot of Colorado River water (less in times of drought, or more in surplus) which is based on the amount of water they were believed to be using in 1944.[7] If Mexico had access to less Colorado River water - a reasonable assumption if the border went farther south along the river - they would've been given a smaller share. A foot-acre of water in California goes for $70, and the larger purchase would have reduced Mexico's Colorado River shore by 40%. A 40% reduction in river water would have gained the United States $42 million dollars of water per year. 

In addition to the $5 million dollars, Mexico would have gained a sliver of New Mexico's boot heal, and about 5 acres of Arizona's southeast corner. It's a small sparsely populated area and the largest town in it is the border town of Antelope Wells, NM (population: 2).

Not only did Mexico retain land and water, it avoided being nearly cut in half. Had the original purchase gone through, it would have left Mexico with a narrow band of land along the coast of the Gulf of California that would have made connecting Baja to the rest of Mexico more difficult. This would have been particularly ironic since the primary point of the purchase was to make connecting the United States to California easier. The two major east-west Mexican highways and the one railroad both pass through the are retained by the reduction. Without the reduction, Mexico would have been forced to build transportation links that go through the United States or build roads on less desirable routes close to the coast and through the Colorado River delta.

And what was accidentally given back

Marking the border was a matter of science, but at the time the science was still in its infancy. The Boudary Survey performed in the 1850's set several key monuments in the wrong place, and always to the benefit of the United States.  Monument #40, the marker along the New Mexico border that defines the spot where the border turns south, is about a mile too far east, resulting in the unintended transfer of about 30 square miles to the United States.[8] The monument that set the point where the 111th meridian of longitude west meets the parallel of 31° 20', and where the boundary turns north along the Arizona border, was erroneously placed at a point 4 miles to the west of where it should have been. This gave the United States another 297 square miles of unintended land.[9] Altogether, surveying cost Mexico an area equal to about one-fourth the size of Rhode Island. 

Had the boundary been surveyed correctly, the reduction of the purchase would have been more than 10,000 square miles. 

1. And should the line from 31, 111 to the Rio Grande traverse Lake Guzman (which is actually Laguna de Guzman or the Guzman Basin) the line was to be "broken so as to form an angle at a point one marine league south of the most southern part of the lake." This was done to ensure that there was space around the southern end of the lake for a railroad to be built.
2. Compendium of the 9th Census, Page 542
3. Manifest Opportunity and the Gadsden Purchase, Louis Bernard Smith, Arizona and the West, Vol. 3, No. 3, page 264, 1961 Size and supporting evidence was submitted to World Almanac in 1953
4. Historical Sketch of "Louisiana" and the Louisiana Purchase, Frank Bond, 1912, page 13
5. Statistical Abstract of the United States 1941, page 1 and Statistical Abstract of the United States 1942, page 1
6.Disagreements arose immediately, since there was no standard measurement for a marine league." Monuments, Manifest Destiny and Mexico, Prologue Magazine, Summer 2005, Vol. 37, No.2, Michael Deer.
7. Water and the West: The Colorado River Compact and the Politics of Water in the American West; Norris Hundley, 2009, page 296
8. Border Spaces: Visualizing the U.S.-Mexico Frontera, page 41
9. La Gran LĂ­nea: Mapping the United States–Mexico Boundary, 1849–1857, Paula Rebert, page 129.

Monday, March 7, 2022

The Space travelers and Time travelers in the MCU

My kids have recently been watching the MCU movies and just caught up. One of them noted that a lot of the humans have been to alien planets but they don't make as big a deal of it as they should. Especially compared to how many times our neighbor talks about their "summer in Paris" (We get it. It was magical). We started to list them all and realized that it's not that many characters - in fact only 10 earthlings from the MCU movies have been to alien worlds - though many more from the show Agents of Shield have been. Here they are listed in chronological order. Spoilers below.

Alveus, by then transformed into the inhuman Hive, was banished to the planet Maveth over 5000 years ago, making him the first human to set foot on another planet in the MCU. Over the following millennia, an unknown number of humans were transported there as a sacrifice to Hive and for him to use as a host. Two such victims were Lord Manzini in 1839 and Nathaniel Malick in 1970.

Peter Quill/Star-Lord (who's only half human) was abducted in 1988 and then spent his life, except for a brief time on Earth during Endgame, in space and on alien worlds.

Capt. Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel - only 1 year later, Danvers becomes the 2nd Earthling (from the movies) to visit an alien planet when she is kidnapped by the Kree and taken to Hala where she lives until 1995 when the events of the Captain Marvel movie takes place. Afterward we're led to believe that she too visits many alien worlds. 

Will Daniels, S. Austin, Brubaker and Taylor - In 2001, Astronaut Will Daniels and three scientists were sent to Maveth as part of a NASA mission (and secretly as another sacrifice to Hive). 

Dr. Jane Foster -  Jane Foster traveled to Asgard and then Svartalfheim in 2013. In 2024, as the Mighty Thor, she traveled to The Moon of Shame in the Shadow Realm, Omnipotence City,  and the Gates of Eternity.


Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk* - Following the events of Age of Ultron, Banner commandeers a twinjet and flies it into space. Sometime by 2017 he passed through a wormhole that took him to the planet of Sakaar. After reuniting with Thor there in 2017, the two travel to Asgard (making him the 2nd, and last, human to visit). As Asgard is destroyed, Hulk escaped with the Agardians aboard their ship which was later boarded by Thanos. After fighting Thanos and being nearly killed he was transported back to Earth. 


Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz, Grant Ward, Phil Coulson and unnamed Hydra troops - In 2015, Simmons was also transported to Maveth via the Monolith. Shortly thereafter Fitz traveled to the planet via the Monolith to rescue her. Later that same year, a Hydra team led by Grant Ward and guided by Fitz (who returned to Maveth) went through the portal to Maveth and Phil Coulson followed. Only Coulson, Fitz and Hive (using Ward's body) escaped.

Peter Parker/Spiderman, Tony Stark/Ironman* and Dr. Strange - After Ebony Maw comes to Earth in 2018 to retrieve the Time Stone, he captures Dr. Strange and takes him aboard his Q-ship. Parker and Stark try to rescue him and wind up onboard as well. The ship then takes them to Titan where they battle Thanos and lose.

Steve Rogers/Captain America, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Bruce Banner/Hulk and James Rhodes/War Machine and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel - In 2018 this group, along with Rocket Raccoon and Thor, travel to "the Garden" (aka Planet 0259-S) to find the Infinity Stones, but only discover that Thanos has destroyed them. Thor kills Thanos and the group leaves, seemingly defeated. 

Clint Barton/Hawkeye* and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow* - During the 2023 "Time Heist", Barton and Romanoff travel first to Morag, to drop off another team, and then continue to Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone. 

James Rhodes/War Machine* - During the 2023 "Time Heist", Rhodes travels to Morag with Barton, Romanoff and Nebula to retrieve the Power Stone.

Steve Rogers/Captain America* - After the Battle of Earth and the defeat of Thanos, Rogers travels to Morag, Vormir, and Asgard to return the Power, Soul and Reality stones. 


Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau - After the Blip, when Supremor Dar-Benn disrupts the jump points, Rambeau switches places with Danvers and winds up on MB-418. Later all three of them travel to Tarnax IV and Aladna,  

But wait, there's more. Characters listed with an asterisk by their name are also time travelers, meaning there are six earthlings who have both travelled to another planet and travelled through time, of which four are still alive at the end of Endgame.

Some superlatives - Danvers and Quill obviously have been to the most planets of any earthlings and spent the most time in space (not counting the centuries spent on Maveth by Alveus), but we don't know which has been to more places. Quill had spent more time in space up until the snap, but it's likely Danvers beat him out by the time of the blip.  

Of the time traveling earthlings, Rogers went to the most planets - four, and Banner spent the most time in space/another planet (up to 3 years). Rogers also did the most time traveling. It seems that Barton spent the least amount of time on another planet.

In the movies Romanoff is the first (and only so far) human to die on another planet. But it was one of Hive's unnamed victims that holds that honor if we count that show.

So yeah, this post is stupid, but hopefully fun. 

Thursday, May 20, 2021

How tenuous is the Democratic advantage in the Senate

16 states currently have a partisan split between the Governor and the Senators. Of these 16 states, 9 allow the Governor to appoint a replacement from a different party until the expiry of the original term, or the next statewide election: Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire, Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. A further three also allow gubernatorial appointments from a different party, but with a proximate special election to be held: Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

7 of those states have Republican governors and Democratic senators and 2 have Democratic governors and Republican senators, meaning there are many more opportunities for Republicans to flip the Senate with an opportune death than there are for Democrats. And more so since the Democrats are older. The Democratic Senators by state and age are:
And the Republican are
Using the Social Security actuarial life table and the some high school math, it turns out that, when Congress started, there was a 49.44% chance that one of these critical Democratic Senators would die before 2023. There's only a 12.55% chance that one of the Republicans will. [Note: US Senators are likely of better health, and definitely have access to better care, than the average American their age does and so these numbers are likely inflated.] That means there was 43.23% chance that at least one of the Democrats would die and none of the Republicans would and the Senate would flip (This ignores the rare situations in which two Democrats die and only one of these Republicans, or three and two or five and four, etc...).

With each day that probability goes down. At the start of 2022, the probabilities will be 29.56%, 6.72% and 27.57% and then continue to drop. [Update: While true at the beginning of 2022, it quickly got worse when Republican Glenn Youngkin flipped the Virginia Governor's mansion creating two more at risk Democratic seats. Tim Kaine is 64 and Mark Warner is 67.]

Nonetheless, every day the Democrats don't pass the legislation they want to pass they're rolling the dice and the dice are not in their favor. RBG gambled too when she didn't resign while Democrats controlled the Senate and liberals lost when she did. 

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

The Republican Party's Senate Advantage

The US Senate is perhaps the least democratic body in the world. And the ways in which it's undemocratic - with each state getting 2 senators regardless of population and winner take all elections - happens to create an advantage for Republicans. This advantage has been reported in several different ways such as how many people the Senators represent

Today, according to Drutman’s figures, the 47 Democratic senators represent almost 169 million people, while the 53 Republican senators represent about 158 million.

Or how many people voted for each 

In the new Senate, the 46 Democrats will have received 20 million more votes than the 54 Republicans.

Neither of these seem like the right way to demonstrate the advantage. The problem with the first method stems from the word "represent." Someone can represent you - legally - without representing you philosophically. If one party won all 100 seats by just 1 vote each, they would legally represent everyone, but not policy-wise.

The second method ignores all the people who voted against someone. 

Instead, the right way is compare everyone who voted for Democrats in the Senate's 100 races to everyone who voted for Republicans in those same races. If we do that it turns out that Republicans haven't had the advantage in votes since January 2, 2001 even though they've controlled the Senate for nearly 13 of the 20 years since then.


On the plot above, the purple line shows how many more (or fewer) people voted for Democrats in the 100 Senate elections that fill the seats at any given time The blue streaks show the periods of Democratic control of the Senate. You can see that Democrats have had a vote advantage of millions, but it has not resulted in control of the Senate. Over the past 4 years, their vote advantage was more than 10 million votes and yet they didn't control the Senate.

A few caveats about the data. 
  • When a seat is filled by an appointee, it doesn't count in the total (both Democrats and Republicans get zero votes). 
  • Senators are counted with the party they caucus with, unless they switch parties mid-term. So votes for Bernie Sanders count as votes for Democrats, but votes for Jim Jeffords following his 2001 switch still counted for Republicans. 
  • In jungle primaries or California's top-2 system, the votes from the runoff are used, unless only one party advances and then the votes from the primary are used with each parties candidates votes added together. 





https://www.brookings.edu/experts/molly-e-reynolds/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/senate-states-republican-control/2020/11/18/571573e0-2915-11eb-92b7-6ef17b3fe3b4_story.html

Friday, December 18, 2020

Below is a list of the busiest days of each year for Washington's Metrorail system - as best as can be determined. The one highlighted in purple is an imperfect estimate from an online tool.

Year  Event                                                       Day                Ridership

2020 Hockey (18,573)                                    Wen Mar 4 - 675,000 (suspected)

2019 CBF, Wiz (16,616), Baseball(23,050)    Wen, Apr 3 - 756,500

2018 Stanley Cup Celebration         Tue, Jun 12 - 840,145

2017 Women's March on Washington         Sat, Jan 21 - 1,001,613

2016 Cherry Blossom Festival (CBF)             Thu, Mar 24 - 767,000

2015 Baseball (41,291)                 Wen, July 22 - 782,707 

2014 CBF, Baseball (20,869), Miley Cyrus Thu, Apr 10 - 818,076 

2013 CBF, BB(24896), Wizs (20308), Immigration rally         Wen, Apr 10 - 871,164

2012 CBF, Hockey (18,506)         Fri, March 23 - 845,669

2011 Baseball (27,130), US Open Golf         Wen, June 15 - 851,742

2010 CBF, Wizards (18,002)                         Fri, Apr 2  - 891,240

2009 Obama Inauguration Day         Tue, Jan 20 - 1,120,000(est)

2008 Baseball (33,653), WofF conference  Fri, Jul 11 - 854,638

2007 CBF/Baseball (20,894)                         Tue, Apr 3 - 831,508

2006 Immigrant Rights Rally         Mon, Apr 10 - 821,283

2005 Baseball (36,840)                 Thu, July 21 - 769,553

2004 Reagan State Funeral         Wen, June 9 - 850,636

2003 AofGod & Soccer (Barcelona v. Milan) Wen, July 30 - 745,627 

2002 National Rally in Solidarity With Israel Mon, April 15 - 718,747

2001 No Event                 Thu, July 12 - 699,990 

2000 Million Family March         Mon, Oct 16 - 688,467 (*)

1999 CBF                                 Thu, April 8 - 637,305

1998 The highest known day was 7/4 with 585,354, but also know it was lower than 603,766

1997 Promise Keepers                 Sat, Oct 4 - 725,909

1996 Highest known day: 7/4 with 569,894, but know it was lower than 688,467 if a weekday or 725,909 if not

1995 Million Man March                 Mon, Oct 16 - 804,146 

1994 Elton John & Billy Joel concert at RFK Wed, July 20   - 603,706

1993 Clinton Inaugural 1                 Wen, Jan 20 - 811,257 

1992 Only know it was between 529,000 and 565,000

1991 Desert Storm Parade         Sat, June 8 - 786,358 Counted by hand

1990 New Kids on the Block concert Tue, July 17 - 577,800 

1989 George H.W. Bush Inauguration         Fri, Jan 20 - 604,089 

1988 Washington for Jesus rally         Fri, Apr. 29 - 565,000 (but?)

1987 No Event                 Thu, June 25 - 515,047 

1986 Highest known day: 7/4 with ~500,000 but know it was lower than 565,000

1985 Highest known day: 7/4 with ~550,000 but know it was lower than 565,000

1984 4th of July/ Beach Boys Concert         Wed, July 4 - ~ 470,000

1983 20th Anniversary of MLK March           Sat, Aug 27 -  ~370,000 (suspected)

1982 Only know it was between 303,074 and 400,000

1981 Solidarity Day         Sat, Sept 9 - ~400,000

1980 Rally for Jesus         Tue, April 29 - ~400,000 

1979 Energy Crisis                             Tue, June 19 - 306,059 

1978 Highest known day: 9/28 with 212,524 but ridership was up to 222000 by end of year

1977 Highest known day: 10/4 with 141,319 

1976 Opening Day                 Sat, Mar 27 -  51,260