NEW YORK — Republican Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday follows a series of political events at New York City’s historic arena.

The garden has hosted both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions since the 1800s, and in 1939 thousands attended a succession of pro-Nazi and Communist Party rallies ahead of World War II. Marilyn Monroe took the stage to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy in 1962, adding to the narrative surrounding what the New York Knicks announcer called “the most famous arena in the world.”

Here are a few highlights from the political history of Madison Square Garden, which occupied four buildings over time.

Grover Cleveland is making a comeback

Grover Cleveland is the only US president to serve two consecutive terms. Trump hopes to come in second.

After the 1892 Democratic National Convention met in Chicago and nominated Cleveland—he was impeached after serving from 1885 to 1889—he accepted the nomination with a speech (his second) at Madison Square Garden in his hometown of New York.

The Evening World reported that “a band on one of the balconies played popular songs, with the audience joining in the chorus of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” and “Four more years Grover.”

Cleveland has pledged to lower tariffs, while Trump has said imposing massive tariffs on foreign goods would boost the U.S. economy. Cleveland then defeated Republican Benjamin Harrison to become both the 24th and 22nd president.

A record-breaking 103 votes

By its second meeting at Madison Square Garden in 1924, the Democratic Party was deeply divided over immigration, Prohibition, and the growing importance of the Ku Klux Klan. The race was deadlocked between California’s William Gibbs McAdoo and New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, whom the Klan opposed because he was Roman Catholic.

No nominations were made in consecutive votes held from 24 June to 9 July. The Associated Press reported on July 2 that McAdoo “passed the much-sought-after 500-vote mark, thanks to the frantic work, persuasion and maneuvering of floor managers who declared they were not done yet.”

It wasn’t enough. After both McAdoo and Smith left, former West Virginia Congressman John W. Davis, a compromise candidate, was nominated on the 103rd ballot; he later lost to Republican Calvin Coolidge.

Speeches by Hoover and Roosevelt

The first two Gardens were near Madison Square, where Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet at 23rd Street, while the third was in the northwest of that neighborhood, on Eighth Avenue and West 50th Street. It opened in 1925 and hosted both Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt during their campaigns.

Incumbent Republican president Hoover opposed Democrat Roosevelt, who advocated “A New Deal for the American people,” saying in his speech on October 21, 1932, that he opposed “the proposal to change the entire foundation of our national life.”

Roosevelt defeated Hoover, then spoke at the Garden again during the 1936 and 1940 campaigns.

In a fiery speech on October 31, 1936, he railed against “the old enemies of peace – commercial and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class hostility, separatism, war profiteering.” “Never in our history have these forces been so united against a single candidate as they are today,” Roosevelt said. “They are unanimous in their hatred of me, and I welcome their hatred.”

Nazis and communists rally

On February 20, 1939, more than 20,000 people attended a rally at the Garden organized by the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group that hung swastikas next to a giant portrait of George Washington.

The group’s national secretary, James Wheeler-Hill, claimed that if the first US president were alive he would “be friends with Adolf Hitler”. ruled the United States” and “non-Jewish-controlled labor unions free from domination by Jewish Moscow.”

Isadore Greenbaum, a 26-year-old Jewish protester, ran onto the stage. AP reported what happened next as follows:

“Immediately a dozen or more Storm Troopers descended on him, knocking him to the ground and beating him as he cradled his head in his arms, his black, wild hair flying. A team of police pushed the Storm Trooper aside, picked him up from the floor of the platform, and, holding him above their heads, rushed for the exit. Most of his clothes were torn from his body. “He was later arrested for disorderly conduct.”

The 1930s were also the height of the Communist Party’s popularity in the United States. Police estimated that 16,000 to 17,000 people attended the communist rally in the Garden, held a week after the Bund meeting. CPUSA Secretary General Earl Browder said accusations that American communists were taking their orders from Moscow were a “slanderous attack” spread by supporters of the “Rome-Berlin-Tokyo anti-Comintern warmakers alliance,” AP reported.

Presidential birthday party

On May 19, 1962, the Garden’s third iteration hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser and John F. Kennedy’s birthday celebration, where Marilyn Monroe serenaded the president wearing a tight dress.

It was the hottest May 1 in New York City history, with temperatures rising to 99 degrees (37 Celsius). “Heat waves were still rising at the Garden when the President said, ‘I can retire from politics now,’ after Marilyn Monroe sang her sultry ‘Happy Birthday,'” AP reported.

Monroe and Kennedy died within a year and a half; himself from a drug overdose, and himself from an assassin’s bullet.

George Wallace’s campaigns in New York

The current Garden opened in 1968, about a mile south of its predecessor; It is home to the NBA’s Knicks and the NHL’s Rangers and hosts musical performances, prize fights and other spectacles.

Former and future governor of Alabama, George Wallace, during his 1968 presidential run as the candidate of the American Independent Party, used a “Stand Up for America” ​​speech for the kind of populist nationalism that defines Trump’s “Make America Great” slogan. made a speech. “Again” movement.

Wallace’s campaign was less racist than in Alabama, but he pushed for law and order: When protesters disrupted the Garden rally, Wallace asked why Democratic and Republican leaders were “caving in to these anarchists.”

“There is no riot in Alabama. They start a riot there, the first one to get the brick gets a bullet in the brain, that’s it,” Wallace said.

Republican Richard Nixon then defeated Democrats Hubert Humphrey and Wallace to win the presidency.

Convention site for Democrats and Republicans

This Garden was also the location of the 1976, 1980, and 1992 Democratic National Conventions and the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Jimmy Carter talked about the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal when accepting his nomination. “Our country went through a period of torture,” Carter said. “Now is the time to heal. We want to have faith again. We want to be proud once again. We want truth once again.”

Carter returned in 1980, challenged by Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, who lacked the necessary delegates. AP reporters observed that Kennedy’s “futile struggle to turn the odds was symbolized at the convention center, where the president’s men conducted the convention, where the small suite of rooms contrasted with five large, white trailers decorated in Carter’s campaign green.”

Carter won the nomination but lost the election to Republican Ronald Reagan.

When Democrats met again in 1992, Bill Clinton accepted the nomination with a 52-minute speech that “tested the attention span of much of the partisan audience,” according to AP political writer David Espo. Clinton promised “leaner government, not weaker”; A government that expands opportunities, not bureaucracy.”

The Republican Party held its only convention at Madison Square Garden in 2004, when New York was still reeling from the attacks on the World Trade Center.

“We will build a safer world and a more hopeful America, and nothing will hold us back,” President George W. Bush said.

More than 1,800 people were arrested outside the city as they demonstrated against the Iraq War and for other reasons.