Portal:California

California
California
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	State of California
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	Map of the United States with California highlighted

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California 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 an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With nearly 39 million residents across an area of 163,696 square miles (423,970 km²), it is the most populous U.S. state, the third-largest by area, and most populated subnational entity in North America.

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization by the Spanish Empire. 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 social and demographic changes, including depopulation of Indigenous peoples in the California genocide. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state in 1850, as a free state, following the Compromise of 1850.

California's economy is the largest of any U.S. state, with a $4.0 trillion gross state product as of 2024^[update]. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. California's agricultural industry has the highest output of any U.S. state, and is led by its dairy, almonds, and grapes. With the busiest port in the country (Los Angeles), California plays a pivotal role in the global supply chain, hauling in about 40% of goods imported to the US. Notable contributions to popular culture, ranging from entertainment, sports, music, and fashion, have their origins in California. California is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, profoundly influencing global entertainment. The San Francisco Bay and the Greater Los Angeles areas are seen as the centers of the global technology and U.S. film industries, respectively. (Full article...)

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Metallica at the 2024 Gershwin Prize ceremony. From left to right: Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, Robert Trujillo and James Hetfield.

Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrumentals and aggressive musicianship made them one of the founding "big four" bands of thrash metal, alongside Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. Metallica's current lineup comprises founding members and primary songwriters Hetfield and Ulrich, longtime lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo. Guitarist Dave Mustaine, who formed Megadeth after being fired from Metallica, and bassists Ron McGovney, Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted are former members of the band.

Metallica first found commercial success with the release of its third album, Master of Puppets (1986), which is cited as one of the heaviest metal albums and the band's best work. The band's next album, ...And Justice for All (1988), gave Metallica its first Grammy Award nomination. Its fifth album, Metallica (1991), was a turning point for the band that saw them transition from their thrash roots; it appealed to a more mainstream audience, achieving substantial commercial success and selling more than 16 million copies in the United States to date, making it the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. After experimenting with different genres and directions in subsequent releases, Metallica returned to its thrash metal roots with its ninth album, Death Magnetic (2008), which drew similar praise to that of the band's earlier albums. The band's eleventh and most recent album, 72 Seasons, was released in 2023. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various California-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Depiction of the California hide trade. (from History of California)
Image 2Bodega y Quadra led a 1775 expedition along the coast of California into the Pacific Northwest. (from History of California)
Image 3General Richard Barnes Mason was the longest serving U.S. Military Governor of California (1847–1849), overseeing California's transition into statehood. (from History of California)
Image 4Portrait 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 5SS California (1848), the first paddle steamer to steam between Panama City and San Francisco, as part of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. (from History of California)
Image 6Joaquín 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. (from History of California)
Image 7The 1835 Manifiesto a la República Mejicana, by José Figueroa, was the first book published in California (from Culture of California)
Image 8California's first State Capitol building in San Jose, which served as the capital of California 1850–51. (from History of California)
Image 9Map 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 10Map of the Butterfield Overland Mail routes through California, c. 1858. (from History of California)
Image 11The Petaluma Adobe, built by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo in 1836 on Rancho Petaluma. (from History of California)
Image 12Map 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 13Founded 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 14The Vallecitos stop of the Butterfield Overland Mail, in Julian, California. (from History of California)
Image 15Goldfields in the Sierra Nevada and Shasta Cascade. (from History of California)
Image 16Juan Bautista de Anza led the 1774-76 Anza Expeditions. (from History of California)
Image 17Advertisement for sailing to California, c. 1850. (from History of California)
Image 18Bilingual English-Spanish sign in the Colorado Desert of Southern California. (from Culture of California)
Image 19Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, founded in 1771 by padres Pedro Benito Cambón and Ángel de la Somera. (from History of California)
Image 20Between 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 21The railway station in Sacramento in 1874. (from History of California)
Image 22The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions. (from History of California)
Image 23Mission Santa Barbara, founded in 1786, was the first mission to be established by Fermín de Lasuén. (from History of California)
Image 24The Battle of San Pasqual in 1846. (from History of California)
Image 25Francis Drake's 1579 landing in "New Albion" (modern-day Point Reyes); engraving by Theodor De Bry, 1590. (from History of California)
Image 26Pacheco Adobe, built 1835 by Salvio Pacheco on Rancho Monte del Diablo. (from History of California)
Image 27The 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 28Poppies, Antelope Valley, a California Impressionist painting by Benjamin Chambers Brown (from Culture of California)
Image 29The American capture of San Diego by the USS Cyane in 1846 (from History of California)
Image 30In-N-Out burgers (from Culture of California)
Image 31California 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 32Manuel Domínguez built Domínguez Adobe on Rancho San Pedro in 1826. (from History of California)
Image 33The Getty Villa (from Culture of California)
Image 34The 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 35Depiction of the Donner Party heading west on the California Trail. (from History of California)
Image 36Gaspar de Portolá served as the first Governor of the Californias and led the famed Portolá expedition of 1769-70. (from History of California)
Image 37"Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California", c. 1850 (from History of California)
Image 38Mission 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 39Flag of Company A (The California 100) during the U.S. Civil War. (from History of California)
Image 40The Battle of Río San Gabriel, in 1847, was a decisive victory for the American campaign in Alta California. (from History of California)
Image 41San Francisco harbor, c. 1850–51. (from History of California)
Image 42A Southern Pacific Train at Arcade Depot, Los Angeles, 1891 (from History of California)
Image 43Presidio of Santa Barbara. (from Culture of California)
Image 44Dividing the Light (2007), a skyspace by James Turrell at Pomona College (from Culture of California)
Image 45Forces raising the U.S. flag over the Monterey Customhouse following their victory at the Battle of Monterey (from History of California)
Image 46Concord Coach no. 251 in Wells Fargo livery in Old Town San Diego. (from History of California)
Image 47While slavery was abolished in California by Mexican authorities in 1829, the first California State Legislature under U.S. statehood passed the 1850 Indian Indenture Act, which allowed for the forced labor of indigenous Californians by Americans. (from History of California)
Image 48The University of California, Berkeley is the flagship school of the University of California system. (from Culture of California)
Image 49Balthazar, Inhabitant of Northern California, an 1818 portrait of a Miwok man by artist Mikhail Tikhanov. (from History of California)
Image 50Portrait of an "assimilated" Maidu man in Sacramento, 1867. (from History of California)
Image 51Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in 1823 by order of Governor Luis Antonio Argüello, was the last Californian mission established. (from History of California)
Image 52Junípero Serra conducting the first mass in Monterey Bay in 1770. (from History of California)
Image 53Angustias 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 54General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo reviewing his troops in Sonoma in 1846. (from History of California)
Image 55The colonial coat of arms of the Californias, granted by Antonio de Mendoza, the first Viceroy of New Spain. (from History of California)
Image 56Depiction of the revolt of the Mission Indians against padre Luis Jayme at Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1775. (from History of California)
Image 57Presidio of San Francisco, founded by José Joaquín Moraga in 1776. (from History of California)
Image 58Stanford University Oval (from Culture of California)
Image 59The 1846 Bear Flag Revolt declared the California Republic and prefaced the American conquest of California. (from History of California)

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California is an island, and New York's an island. Maybe it's time for me to change islands.

— Paul Mazursky

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Image 1

Official portrait, 1981

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement, and his presidency is known as the Reagan era.

Born and raised in Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and was hired the next year as a sports broadcaster in Iowa. In 1937, he moved to California where he became a well-known film actor. During his acting career, Reagan was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild twice, serving from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960. In the 1950s, he became the host for General Electric Theater and also worked as a motivational speaker for General Electric. Subsequently, Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech during the 1964 U.S. presidential election launched his rise as a leading conservative figure. After being elected governor of California in 1966, he raised the state taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus and implemented harsh crackdowns on university protests. Following his loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination and then a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. (Full article...)
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James Robert Baker (October 18, 1947 – November 5, 1997) was an American author of sharply satirical, predominantly gay-themed transgressional fiction. A native Californian, his work is set almost entirely in Southern California. After graduating from UCLA, he began his career as a screenwriter, but became disillusioned and started writing novels instead. Though he garnered fame for his books Fuel-Injected Dreams and Boy Wonder, after the controversy surrounding publication of his novel, Tim and Pete, he faced increasing difficulty having his work published. According to his life partner, this was a contributing factor in his suicide.

Baker's work has achieved cult status in the years since his death, and two additional novels have been posthumously published. First-edition copies of his earlier works have become collector's items. His novel Testosterone was adapted to a film of the same name, though it was not a financial success. Two other books have been optioned for films, but they have not been produced. (Full article...)
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Stefani in October 2016

Gwen Renée Stefani Shelton (/stəˈfɑːni/ stə-FAH-nee; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and fashion designer. She is a co-founder and lead vocalist of the band No Doubt, whose singles include "Just a Girl", "Spiderwebs", and "Don't Speak", from their 1995 breakthrough studio album Tragic Kingdom, as well as "Hey Baby" and "It's My Life" from later albums.

During the band's hiatus, Stefani embarked on a solo pop career in 2004 by releasing her debut studio album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Inspired by pop music from the 1980s, the album was a critical and commercial success. It spawned six singles, including "What You Waiting For?", "Rich Girl", "Hollaback Girl", and "Cool". "Hollaback Girl" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart while also becoming the first US download to sell one million copies. In 2006, Stefani released her second studio album, The Sweet Escape. Among the singles were "Wind It Up" and "The Sweet Escape", the latter of which was number three on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart of 2007. Her third solo album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like (2016), was her first solo album to reach number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Her fourth solo album and first full-length Christmas album, You Make It Feel Like Christmas, was released in 2017 and charted 19 tracks on Billboard's Holiday Digital Song Sales component chart in the United States. Stefani has released several singles with husband Blake Shelton, including "Nobody but You" (2020), which reached number 18 in the US. In 2024, she released her fifth studio album Bouquet. (Full article...)
Image 4

Larson in 2018

Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers (born October 1, 1989), known professionally as Brie Larson, is an American actress. She played supporting roles in comedies as a teenager, and has since expanded to leading roles in independent films and blockbusters. Her accolades include 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 5

Official portrait, 2004

Dianne Emiel Feinstein (née Goldman; June 22, 1933 – September 29, 2023) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from California from 1992 until her death in 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988.

A San Francisco native, Feinstein graduated from Stanford University in 1955. She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969 and immediately became the board's first female president upon her appointment in 1970. In 1978, during a third stint as the board's president, the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk drew national attention. Feinstein succeeded Moscone as mayor and became the first woman to serve in that position. During her tenure, she led the renovation of the city's cable car system and oversaw the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Despite a recall attempt in 1983, Feinstein was a popular mayor and was named the most effective mayor in the country by City & State in 1987. (Full article...)
Image 6
Wally Bill Hedrick (1928 – December 17, 2003) was a seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture, gallerist, and educator who came to prominence in the early 1960s. Hedrick's contributions to art include pioneering artworks in psychedelic light art, mechanical kinetic sculpture, junk/assemblage sculpture, Pop Art, and (California) Funk Art. Later in his life, he was a recognized forerunner in Happenings, Conceptual Art, Bad Painting, Neo-Expressionism, and image appropriation. Hedrick was also a key figure in the first important public manifestation of the Beat Generation when he helped to organize the Six Gallery Reading, and created the first artistic denunciation of American foreign policy in Vietnam. Wally Hedrick was known as an “idea artist” long before the label “conceptual art” entered the art world, and experimented with innovative use of language in art, at times resorting to puns. (Full article...)
Image 7

Official portrait, 1972

Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 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 Yorba Linda, 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. 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 John F. Kennedy. After his loss in the 1962 race for governor of California, he announced his retirement from politics. However, in 1968, he made another run for the presidency and narrowly defeated the Democratic incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey. (Full article...)
Image 8

Picture of Stafford from the New York Sunday News, September 21, 1947

Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917 – July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart, and the first by a female artist to do so.

Born in remote oil-rich Coalinga, California, near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley, Stafford made her first musical appearance at age 12. While still at high school, she joined her two older sisters to form a vocal trio named the Stafford Sisters, who found moderate success on radio and in film. In 1938, while the sisters were part of the cast of Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stafford met the future members of the Pied Pipers and became the group's lead singer. Bandleader Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform vocals with his orchestra. From 1940 to 1942, the group often performed with Dorsey's new male singer, Frank Sinatra. (Full article...)
Image 9

Emperor Norton, c. 1871–72

Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880) was an English-born resident of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 declared himself "Emperor of these United States" in a proclamation that he signed "Norton I., Emperor of the United States". Commonly known as Emperor Norton, he took the secondary title "Protector of Mexico" in 1866.

Born in England and raised in South Africa, Norton left Cape Town in late 1845, sailing from Liverpool to Boston in early 1846. (Full article...)
Image 10

London in 1903

John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal welfare, workers' rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam. (Full article...)
Image 11

Meyer in 1996 (photo by Roger Ebert)

Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. He is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Meyer often named Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) as his definitive work. (Full article...)
Image 12

Monroe in 1953

Marilyn Monroe (/ˈmærəlɪn mənˈroʊ/ MARR-ə-lin mən-ROH; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2023) by the time of her death in 1962.

Born and raised in Los Angeles County, Monroe spent most of her childhood in a total of twelve foster homes and an orphanage before marrying James Dougherty at age sixteen. She was working in a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in late 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to becoming a star, but the story did not damage her career and instead resulted in increased interest in her films. (Full article...)
Image 13

Seaborg in 1964

Glenn Theodore Seaborg (/ˈsiːbɔːrɡ/ SEE-borg; April 19, 1912 – February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in this area also led to his development of the actinide concept and the arrangement of the actinide series in the periodic table of the elements.

Seaborg spent most of his career as an educator and research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, serving as a professor, and, between 1958 and 1961, as the university's second chancellor. He advised ten US presidents—from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton—on nuclear policy and was Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, where he pushed for commercial nuclear energy and the peaceful applications of nuclear science. Throughout his career, Seaborg worked for arms control. He was a signatory to the Franck Report and contributed to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He was a well-known advocate of science education and federal funding for pure research. Toward the end of the Eisenhower administration, he was the principal author of the Seaborg Report on academic science, and, as a member of President Ronald Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education, he was a key contributor to its 1983 report "A Nation at Risk". (Full article...)
Image 14

Hanna in 1977

William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator, voice actor, and occasional musician who is best known for co-creating Tom and Jerry and providing the vocal effects for the series' title characters. Alongside Joseph Barbera, he also founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera.

Hanna joined the Harman and Ising animation studio in 1930 and steadily gained skill and prominence while working on cartoons such as Captain and the Kids. In 1937, while working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Hanna met Joseph Barbera. In 1957, they co-founded Hanna-Barbera, which became the most successful television animation studio in the business, creating or producing programs such as The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear. In 1967, Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting for $12 million, but Hanna and Barbera remained heads of the company until 1991. At that time, the studio was sold to Turner Broadcasting System, which in turn was merged with Time Warner in 1996; Hanna and Barbera stayed on as advisors. (Full article...)
Image 15

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. 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...)

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... that when a state highway between Beegum and Peanut was vetoed, a newspaper accused their residents of lacking imagination?
... that construction workers at UC Berkeley paused their work in solidarity with the 2022 University of California academic workers' strike?
... that Kevin A. Gilroy served as the mayor of Gilroy?
... that it was Caltech experimental physicist Rana X. Adhikari's idea to build a gravitational-wave observatory in India?
... 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 due to business closures across California during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the exotic dancers at Jumbo's Clown Room created the Cyber Clown Girls show so they could continue working?
... that the Electriquette was an electric wicker vehicle that could be rented at the 1915 Panama–California Exposition?
... that the California State Assembly held a moment of silence over the death of fictional character Mrs. Landingham while in the midst of an energy crisis?

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Lake Isabella

Credit: Tsui

Lake Isabella is a man-made earthen reservoir in Kern County, California that consists of a main and auxiliary dam. It was formed in 1953 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Kern River at the junction of its two forks at Whiskey Flat. At 11,000 acres (45 km²), it is one of the largest reservoirs in California.

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Credit: Toksave

Lake Irvine (known in Orange County as Irvine Lake) is a reservoir in Orange County, California. The lake is located northeast of the city of Irvine close to Irvine Regional Park. The lake is formed by the Santiago Dam at its north end, which was built between 1929 and 1931, and the lake was originally called the Santiago Reservoir.

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State facts

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 (31^st)

State symbols:

Insect: California Dogface Butterfly
Bird: California Valley Quail
Fossil: Saber-toothed cat
Dance: West Coast Swing
Colors: Blue & Gold
Animal: California Grizzly Bear
Flower: California Poppy
Gem: Benitoite
Rock: Serpentine
Fish: California Golden Trout
Songs: I Love You, California
Tree: California Redwood
Mineral: Gold

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