Welcome to the Portal:California. Such a lovely place.
California
State of California
Map of the United States with California highlighted
California ( KAL -ih-FORN -yə, -FOR -nee-ə ) is a state in the Western United States , lying on the American Pacific Coast . It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With over 38.9 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2 ), it is the most populous U.S. state, the third-largest U.S. state by area, and the most populated subnational entity in North America .
The Greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas in California are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions respectively. Greater Los Angeles has over 18.7 million residents and the San Francisco Bay Area has over 9.6 million residents. Los Angeles is the state's most populous city and the nation's second-most populous city , after New York City . San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major city in the country, after New York City. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous county , and San Bernardino County is the nation's largest county by area . Sacramento is the state's capital city .
Prior to European colonization , California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America , and the indigenous peoples of California constituted the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico . European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire . In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain . The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence , but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War . The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including the depopulation of indigenous peoples in the California genocide . The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850 , as a free state , following the Compromise of 1850 . (Full article... )
First day's edition of the
Illustrated Daily News , September 3, 1923, reporting on the
Great Kantō earthquake in Japan
The Daily News (originally the Illustrated Daily News ) was a newspaper published in Los Angeles from 1923 to 1954. It was founded in 1923 by Cornelius Vanderbilt IV and bought by Manchester Boddy who operated it through most of its existence.
The Daily News was founded in 1923 by Vanderbilt as the first of several newspapers he wanted to manage. After quickly going into receivership, it was sold to Boddy, a businessman with no newspaper experience. Boddy was able to make the newspaper succeed, and it remained profitable through the 1930s and 1940s, taking a Democratic perspective at a time when most Los Angeles newspapers supported the Republican Party . (Full article... )
The following are images from various California-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 2 Map of the route taken by the
Anza Expedition of 1775–76, from the
Presidio of Tubac to
San Francisco Bay . (from
History of California )
Image 5 General
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo reviewing his troops in
Sonoma in 1846. (from
History of California )
Image 6 The American capture of
San Diego by the
USS Cyane in 1846 (from
History of California )
Image 7 The
Treaty of Cahuenga , signed at the
Campo de Cahuenga in 1847 by Californio general
Andrés Pico and American general
John C. Frémont , proclaimed a ceasefire under an American victory. The
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo , signed a year later in 1848, officially ended the
Mexican–American War and formally ceded
Alta California to the United States. (from
History of California )
Image 9 A Southern Pacific Train at
Arcade Depot , Los Angeles, 1891 (from
History of California )
Image 10 The railway station in
Sacramento in 1874. (from
History of California )
Image 11 California was often depicted as an island , due to the
Baja California peninsula , from the 16th to the 18th centuries, such as in this 1650 map by cartographer
Johannes Vingboons . (from
History of California )
Image 12 San Francisco harbor,
c. 1850 –51. (from
History of California )
Image 13 Mission San Francisco Solano , founded in 1823 by order of Governor
Luis Antonio Argüello , was the last Californian mission established. (from
History of California )
Image 14 Forces raising the U.S. flag over the
Monterey Customhouse following their victory at the
Battle of Monterey (from
History of California )
Image 18 Mission San Gabriel Arcángel , founded in 1771 by padres Pedro Benito Cambón and Ángel de la Somera. (from
History of California )
Image 21 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo , established in 1770, was the headquarters of the
Californian mission system from 1797 until 1833. (from
History of California )
Image 22 "Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California", c. 1850 (from
History of California )
Image 23 Depiction of the revolt of the
Mission Indians against padre
Luis Jayme at
Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1775. (from
History of California )
Image 26 The Spanish founded
Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the
Californian missions . (from
History of California )
Image 28 Mission Santa Barbara , founded in 1786, was the first mission to be established by
Fermín de Lasuén . (from
History of California )
Image 29 Joaquín Murrieta , called the "
Robin Hood of California", was a notorious
outlaw during the
California Gold Rush . He served as inspiration for
Zorro , the famed Californian bandit-hero character. (from
History of California )
Image 32 Founded by
Vicente Francisco de Sarría in 1817,
Mission San Rafael Arcángel , was the last mission founded during the Spanish period. (from
History of California )
Image 34 Map of the
Butterfield Overland Mail routes through California, c. 1858. (from
History of California )
Image 35 Francis Drake 's 1579 landing in "
New Albion " (modern-day
Point Reyes ); engraving by
Theodor De Bry , 1590. (from
History of California )
Image 37 Between 1846 and 1873, U.S. government agents waged an extermination campaign against
Indigenous Californians , known as the
California genocide , resulting in as many as 100,000 deaths. (from
History of California )
Image 38 Depiction of the
Donner Party heading west on the
California Trail . (from
History of California )
Image 40 Advertisement for sailing to California, c. 1850. (from
History of California )
Image 43 Portrait of an "
assimilated "
Maidu man in
Sacramento , 1867. (from
History of California )
Image 45 The 1835
Manifiesto a la República Mejicana , by
José Figueroa , was the first book published in California (from
Culture of California )
Image 46 The 1562 map of the Americas, created by Spanish cartographer
Diego Gutiérrez , which applied
the name California for the first time. (from
History of California )
Image 47 Junípero Serra conducting the first
mass in
Monterey Bay in 1770. (from
History of California )
Image 50 California's first State Capitol building in
San Jose , which served as the capital of California 1850–51. (from
History of California )
Image 51 Portrait of a
Californio in traditional
vaquero clothing. Californios benefitted immensely by the establishment of the
ranchos of California , following the
Mexican secularization act of 1833 . (from
History of California )
Image 55 Angustias de la Guerra played a crucial role in defending
women's property rights during the drafting of the Constitution of California. (from
History of California )
Image 56 In-N-Out burgers (from
Culture of California )
Image 57 Map of Spain's
Manila galleon trade routes, showing routes between the
Spanish East Indies and
Acapulco passing along the
coast of California . (from
History of California )
Image 58 The
University of California, Berkeley is the flagship school of the University of California system. (from
Culture of California )
We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is Manifest Destiny.
Image 1 Nancy Davis Reagan (; born
Anne Frances Robbins ; July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American film actress and the
First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989, as the second wife of president
Ronald Reagan .
Reagan was born in New York City. After her parents separated, she lived in
Maryland with an aunt and uncle for six years. When her mother remarried in 1929, she moved to Chicago and later was adopted by her mother's second husband. As
Nancy Davis , she was a Hollywood actress in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films such as
The Next Voice You Hear... ,
Night into Morning , and
Donovan's Brain . In 1952, she married Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the
Screen Actors Guild . He had two children from his previous marriage to
Jane Wyman and he and Nancy had two children together. Nancy Reagan was the First Lady of California when her husband was
governor from 1967 to 1975, and she began to work with the
Foster Grandparents Program . (
Full article... )
Image 2 Frederick Russell Burnham DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the
British South Africa Company and to the
British Army in
colonial Africa , and for teaching
woodcraft to
Robert Baden-Powell in
Rhodesia . Burnham helped inspire the founding of the international
Scouting Movement .
Burnham was born on a
Dakota Sioux Indian reservation in Minnesota, in the small village of Tivoli near the city of Mankato; there he learned the ways of
American Indians as a boy. By the age of 14, he was supporting himself in California, while also learning scouting from some of the last of the cowboys and frontiersmen of the
American Southwest . Burnham had little formal education, never finishing high school. After moving to the
Arizona Territory in the early 1880s, he was drawn into the
Pleasant Valley War , a feud between families of ranchers and sheepherders. He escaped and later worked as a civilian tracker for the
United States Army in the
Apache Wars . Feeling the need for new adventures, Burnham took his family to southern Africa in 1893, seeing
Cecil Rhodes 's
Cape to Cairo Railway project as the next undeveloped frontier. (
Full article... )
Image 3 Angelina Jolie (; born
Angelina Jolie Voight ; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. The recipient of
numerous accolades , including an
Academy Award and three
Golden Globe Awards , she has been named Hollywood's highest-paid actress multiple times.
Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father,
Jon Voight , in
Lookin' to Get Out (1982). Her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production
Cyborg 2 (1993), followed by her first leading role in
Hackers (1995). After starring in the biographical television films
George Wallace (1997) and
Gia (1998), Jolie won the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a sociopath in the 1999 drama
Girl, Interrupted . Her portrayal of the
titular heroine in
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) established her as a household name. Her fame continued with roles in the action films
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005),
Wanted (2008), and
Salt (2010). She also received acclaim for her performances in the dramas
A Mighty Heart (2007) and
Changeling (2008), the latter earning her a nomination for the
Academy Award for Best Actress . Her other commercial successes include the fantasy film
Maleficent (2014), its
2019 sequel , and the superhero film
Eternals (2021). She played a voice role in the
Kung Fu Panda animated film series from 2008 to 2016. Jolie has directed and written the war dramas
In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011),
Unbroken (2014), and
First They Killed My Father (2017). (
Full article... )
Image 4 Paula Julie Abdul (born June 19, 1962) is an American singer, dancer, choreographer, actress, and television personality. She began her career as a
cheerleader for the
Los Angeles Lakers at the age of 18 and later became the head choreographer for the
Laker Girls , where she was discovered by
the Jacksons . After choreographing music videos for
Janet Jackson , Abdul became a choreographer at the height of the music video era and soon thereafter she was signed to
Virgin Records . Her debut studio album
Forever Your Girl (1988) became one of the most successful debut albums at that time, selling seven million copies in the United States and setting a record for the most number-one singles from a debut album on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart: "
Straight Up ", "
Forever Your Girl ", "
Cold Hearted ", and "
Opposites Attract ". Her second album
Spellbound (1991) scored her two more chart-toppers – "
Rush Rush " and "
The Promise of a New Day ". With six number-one singles on Hot 100, Abdul tied
Diana Ross for the third-most chart-toppers among female solo artists at the time.
Abdul was one of the original judges on the television series
American Idol from 2002 to 2009, and has since appeared as a judge on
The X Factor ,
Live to Dance ,
So You Think You Can Dance , and
The Masked Dancer . She received choreography credits in numerous films, including
Can't Buy Me Love (1987),
The Running Man (1987),
Coming to America (1988),
Action Jackson (1988),
The Doors (1991),
Jerry Maguire (1996), and
American Beauty (1999). She received 17
MTV Video Music Award nominations, winning five, as well as receiving the
Grammy Award for Best Music Video for "Opposites Attract" in 1991. She received the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography twice for her work on
The Tracey Ullman Show , and her own performance at the
American Music Awards in 1990. Abdul was honored with her own star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame , and is the first entertainer to be honored with the
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards ' Hall of Fame Award. (
Full article... )
Image 5 Ruth E. Norman (born
Ruth Nields ; August 18, 1900 – July 12, 1993), also known as
Uriel , was an American religious leader who co-founded the
Unarius Academy of Science , based in
Southern California . Raised in California, Norman received little education and worked from an early age in a variety of jobs. In the 1940s, she developed an interest in
psychic phenomena and
past-life regression . These pursuits led to her introduction to
Ernest Norman , a self-described psychic, in 1954. He engaged in
channeling , past-life regression, and attempts at
communication with extraterrestrials . She married Ernest, her fourth husband, in the mid-1950s. Together they published several books about his revelations and formed Unarius, an organization which later became known as the Unarius Academy of Science, to popularize his teachings. The couple discussed numerous details about their alleged past lives and spiritual visits to other planets, forming a
mythology from these accounts.
After Ernest died in 1971, Ruth succeeded him as their group's leader and primary channeler. She subsequently began publishing accounts of her experiences and
revelations . In early 1974, she predicted that a space fleet of benevolent extraterrestrials, the Space Brothers, would land on Earth later that year, which led the Unarius Academy to purchase a property to serve as the landing site. After the extraterrestrials failed to appear, Norman said that trauma she had suffered in a past life had caused her to make an inaccurate prediction. Undaunted, she rented a building for Unarius' meetings and sought publicity for the movement, claiming to have united the Earth with an interplanetary confederation. She revised the Space Brothers' expected landing date several times, before finally settling on 2001. Her health declined in the late 1980s, prompting her students to try to heal her with rituals of past-life regression. Despite predicting that she would live to see the extraterrestrials land, Norman died in 1993. Unarius has continued to operate after her death, and formed a board of directors. Since the 2000s, leaders have concentrated on individual transformation leading to spiritual change in humankind. (
Full article... )
Image 6 Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers (born October 1, 1989), known professionally as
Brie Larson , is an American actress. Known for her supporting roles in comedies as a teenager, she has since expanded to leading roles in
independent films and
blockbusters . She has received
various accolades , including an
Academy Award , a
Golden Globe Award , and a
Primetime Emmy Award .
Time magazine named her one of the
100 most influential people in the world in 2019.
At age six, Larson was the youngest student admitted to a training program at the
American Conservatory Theater , and she began her acting career in 1998 with a
comedy sketch on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno . She appeared as a regular in the 2001 sitcom
Raising Dad and briefly dabbled with a music career, releasing the album
Finally Out of P.E. in 2005. She subsequently had supporting roles in the comedy films
Hoot (2006),
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), and
21 Jump Street (2012), and appeared as a sardonic teenager in the television series
United States of Tara (2009–2011). (
Full article... )
Image 7 Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th
governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the
Democratic Party , he was elected
Secretary of State of California in 1970; Brown later served as Mayor of
Oakland from 1999 to 2007 and
Attorney General of California from 2007 to 2011. He was both the oldest and sixth-youngest governor of California due to the 28-year gap between his second and third terms. Upon completing his fourth term in office, Brown became the fourth
longest-serving governor in U.S. history , serving 16 years and 5 days in office.
Born in
San Francisco , he is the son of
Bernice Layne Brown and
Pat Brown , who was the 32nd Governor of California (1959–1967). After graduating from the
University of California, Berkeley , and
Yale Law School , he practiced law and began his political career as a member of the
Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees (1969–1971). He was elected to serve as the 23rd Secretary of State of California from 1971 to 1975. At 36, Brown was elected to his first term as governor in
1974 , making him the youngest California Governor in 111 years. In
1978 , he won his second term. During his governorship, Brown ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in
1976 and
1980 . He declined to pursue a third term as governor in
1982 , instead making an unsuccessful run for the
United States Senate that
same year , losing to San Diego Mayor and future Governor
Pete Wilson . (
Full article... )
Image 8 Orenthal James Simpson (July 9, 1947 – April 10, 2024) was an American
football player and actor who played in the
National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, primarily with the
Buffalo Bills . Regarded as one of the greatest
running backs of all time, his professional success was overshadowed by
his trial and controversial acquittal for the murders of his former wife
Nicole Brown and her friend
Ron Goldman in 1994.
Simpson played
college football for the
USC Trojans , where he won the
Heisman Trophy as a senior, and was selected
first overall by the Bills in the
1969 NFL/AFL draft . During his nine seasons with the Bills, he received five consecutive
Pro Bowl and first-team
All-Pro selections from 1972 to 1976. He also led the league in
rushing yards four times, in rushing
touchdowns twice, and in points scored in 1975. He became the first NFL player to rush for more than
2,000 yards in a season, earning him
NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP), and is the only NFL player to do so in a 14-game
regular season . He holds the record for the single-season yards-per-game average at 143.1. (
Full article... )
Image 10 Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress. She won five
Primetime Emmy Awards and two
Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of the title character on the
CBS sitcom
Murphy Brown (1988–1998, 2018). She is also known for her role as
Shirley Schmidt on the
ABC drama
Boston Legal (2005–2008). In films, Bergen was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for
Starting Over (1979) and for the
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for
Gandhi (1982).
Bergen began her career as a fashion model and appeared on the cover of
Vogue before she made her screen debut in the film
The Group (1966). She starred in
The Sand Pebbles (1966),
Soldier Blue (1970),
Carnal Knowledge (1971), and
The Wind and the Lion (1975). She made her
Broadway debut in the 1984 play
Hurlyburly and starred in the revivals of
The Best Man (2012) and
Love Letters (2014). From 2002 to 2004, she appeared in three episodes of the
HBO series
Sex and the City . Her other film roles include
Miss Congeniality (2000),
Sweet Home Alabama (2002),
The Women (2008),
Bride Wars (2009),
Book Club (2018) and
Let Them All Talk (2020). (
Full article... )
Image 11 J. Robert Oppenheimer (born
Julius Robert Oppenheimer ;
OP -ən-hy-mər; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American
theoretical physicist . He was director of the
Manhattan Project 's
Los Alamos Laboratory during
World War II and is often called the "father of the
atomic bomb ".
Born in New York City, Oppenheimer earned a
bachelor of arts degree in chemistry from
Harvard University in 1925 and a
doctorate in physics from the
University of Göttingen in Germany in 1927, where he studied under
Max Born . After research at other institutions, he joined the physics department at the
University of California, Berkeley , where he became a full professor in 1936. He made significant contributions to theoretical physics, including achievements in
quantum mechanics and
nuclear physics such as the
Born–Oppenheimer approximation for molecular
wave functions , work on the theory of
electrons and
positrons , the
Oppenheimer–Phillips process in
nuclear fusion , and early work on
quantum tunneling . With his students, he also made contributions to the theory of
neutron stars and
black holes ,
quantum field theory , and the interactions of
cosmic rays . (
Full article... )
Image 12 Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American
nuclear physicist and winner of the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the
cyclotron , being the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. He is known for his work on
uranium-isotope separation for the
Manhattan Project , as well as for founding the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory .
A graduate of the
University of South Dakota and
University of Minnesota , Lawrence obtained a PhD in physics at
Yale in 1925. In 1928, he was hired as an associate professor of physics at the
University of California, Berkeley , becoming the youngest full professor there two years later. In its library one evening, Lawrence was intrigued by a diagram of an accelerator that produced
high-energy particles . He contemplated how it could be made compact, and came up with an idea for a circular accelerating chamber between the poles of an
electromagnet . The result was the first cyclotron. (
Full article... )
Image 13 Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th
president of the United States , serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the
Republican Party , he previously served as a
representative and
senator from
California and as the 36th
vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President
Dwight D. Eisenhower .
His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the
Vietnam War ,
détente with the
Soviet Union and
China , the
Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the
Environmental Protection Agency and
Occupational Safety and Health Administration . Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to
resign from office, as a result of the
Watergate scandal .
Nixon was born into a poor family of
Quakers in a small town in
Southern California . He graduated from
Duke Law School in 1937, practiced law in California, and then moved with his wife
Pat to
Washington, D.C. , in 1942 to work for the
federal government . After serving active duty in the
Naval Reserve during
World War II , he was elected to the
House of Representatives in
1946 . His work on the
Alger Hiss case established his reputation as a leading
anti-communist , which elevated him to national prominence. In
1950 , he was elected to the
Senate . Nixon was the running mate of Eisenhower, the Republican Party's presidential nominee in the
1952 election , and served for eight years as vice president. He narrowly lost the
1960 presidential election to the
Democratic Party nominee
John F. Kennedy ; after his loss in the
1962 race for governor of California, he announced his retirement from political life. However, in
1968 , he made another run for the presidency and defeated the Democratic incumbent vice president
Hubert Humphrey . (
Full article... )
Image 14 Nancy Patricia Pelosi (
pə-LOH -see ;
née D'Alesandro ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who served as the
52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. A member of the
Democratic Party , she was the first woman elected as U.S. House Speaker and the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of
Congress , leading the
House Democrats from 2003 to 2023. A member of the House since 1987, Pelosi currently represents
California's 11th congressional district , which includes most of
San Francisco . She is the dean of
California's congressional delegation .
Pelosi was born and raised in
Baltimore , and is the daughter of mayor and congressman
Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. She graduated from
Trinity College, Washington in 1962 and married businessman
Paul Pelosi the next year; the two had met while both were students. They moved to New York City before settling down in San Francisco with their children. Focused on raising her family, Pelosi stepped into politics as a volunteer for the Democratic Party in the 1960s. After years of party work, she was first elected to Congress in a
1987 special election and is now in her 19th term; she is the dean of
California's congressional delegation . Pelosi steadily rose through the ranks of the House Democratic Caucus to be elected
House minority whip in 2001 and elevated to
House minority leader a year later, becoming the first woman to hold each of those positions in either chamber of Congress. (
Full article... )
Image 15 John Whiteside Parsons (born
Marvel Whiteside Parsons ; October 2, 1914 – June 17, 1952) was an American
rocket engineer ,
chemist , and
Thelemite occultist . Associated with the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the
Aerojet Engineering Corporation . He invented the first
rocket engine to use a
castable ,
composite rocket propellant , and pioneered the advancement of both
liquid-fuel and
solid-fuel rockets.
Born in Los Angeles, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family on
Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena, California. Inspired by
science fiction literature , he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began
amateur rocket experiments with school friend
Edward Forman . He dropped out of
Pasadena Junior College and
Stanford University due to financial difficulties during the
Great Depression , and in 1934 he united with Forman and graduate
Frank Malina to form the Caltech-affiliated
Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) Rocket Research Group, supported by GALCIT chairman
Theodore von Kármán . In 1939 the GALCIT Group gained funding from the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to work on
Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) for the U.S. military. After the U.S. entered World War II, they founded Aerojet in 1942 to develop and sell JATO technology; the GALCIT Group became JPL in 1943. (
Full article... )
... that Project Carryall proposed the detonation of 23 nuclear devices in California to build a road?
... that prior to his career in the CIA, Dick Linthicum played basketball at UCLA and became the university's first All-American in any sport?
... that the wooden-hulled Mallard II (pictured) , built in 1936, is "probably the oldest operating dredge in California"?
... that Richmond station includes a "rather disquieting" artwork by William Mitchell ?
... that aircraft helping to fight the Poe Fire in northern California in September 2001 were grounded by the FAA following the September 11 attacks?
... that in 1888, Edward P. Duplex became the first African American to be elected a mayor in California?
... that the founder of a California radio station "didn't want to do background music"?
... that Chester Smith 's California TV station ran its newscast on a "dental floss budget", as one former anchor put it?
The Nine Sisters chain of peaks
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Nicknames: The Golden State
Capital: Sacramento
Total area: 163,696 mi2
Land: 156,002 mi2
Water: 7,694 mi2
Highest elevation: 14,505 ft (Mount Whitney )
Population 39,250,017 (2016 est)
Admission to the Union: September 9, 1850 (31st )
State symbols:
Things you can do