The Donner Party were a group of at least 87 American settlers who tried to cross the Sierra Nevada into California in the winter of 1846–47. Most historians count 87 members of the party. Stephen McCurdy in the "Western Journal of Medicine" includes three others, bringing the number to 90. Forty-Two of them died from starvation, disease and the cold weather. The rest reached California the following year. They became famous in the history of the American West.