The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum became one of Los Angeles' most enduring civic landmarks after civic leaders transformed the deteriorated Agricultural Park into a memorial to war veterans and a stadium for sports and public events. Opened in 1923 and first named the Olympic Stadium, it was created by the city, county, and state, which still share its oversight equally. Its design drew on ancient Greek and Roman arenas, and it quickly became a center of civic memory, hosting football, baseball, concerts, speeches, religious gatherings, and Olympic competition. USC played the first football game there in 1923, UCLA arrived in 1929 and remained for 52 years, and the Rams moved there from Cleveland in 1946, winning a professional championship five years later. William May Garland secured the 1932 Olympic summer games for Los Angeles, helping place the city on the world map, and the Coliseum later hosted the Olympics again in 1984. In June 1945, after victory in Europe, 105,000 people gathered there to welcome Gen. George S. Patton Jr. and Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle at a mock battle spectacle. The Dodgers used the Coliseum from 1958 to 1961, and in 1959 more than 92,000 spectators saw Los Angeles' first World Series there. The Raiders later played there for 13 years after arriving in 1982. Over time, figures including Jesse Owens, Jack Dempsey, Sonja Henie, Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy, Sandy Koufax, Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II, and the Rolling Stones appeared there. The Coliseum became the only stadium in the world to host two Olympiads, two Super Bowls, and a World Series, and it endures as both a national and state historic landmark closely tied to Los Angeles' civic identity.
