Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and BMI calculated that radio stations had played it 3 million times from seventeen continuous years of airplay. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 1 song for 1973. It also reached No. 1 in the UK and Australia, and has sold 1 million copies in the UK. In New Zealand, the song spent 10 weeks at number one. In the Philippines, the song was best known for its use in the return of exiled politician Benigno Aquino, Jr. to the country in 1983, during which Aquino supporters tied yellow ribbons on trees in anticipation
Encino Oak Tree in the pre-urban Encino that the community was named after the Spanish word for "oak." The Encino oak was the most magnificent of the community's oaks, so large that Louise Avenue was split to accommodate its enormous canopy, diameter, and circumference. It has been said that the Encino oak "creates a woodsy atmosphere more resembling a whole forest than just a single tree." In 1958, the oak was threatened when a developer planned to bulldoze the tree to build a road. Local residents formed a group called Encino Save the Oaks and the developer eventually donated the tree to the