Portal:California/Did you know/Archives
If you wish to make a suggestion for an article to be rotated in the Did you know? section of this portal, please leave a note on the portal talk page, as a DYK subpage must have at least three interesting facts on it to qualify for transclusion within the portal.
DYKs in rotation
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- ...that the San Ardo Oil Field is the 13th-largest oil field in California, and of the top twenty California oil fields in size, it is the most recent to be discovered?
- ...that Bodega Bay in California was the setting for Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film The Birds?
- ..that California State Senator Abel Maldonado ran for election to the Santa Maria City Council in 1994 after being involved in a building dispute?
- ...that William Penn Patrick, founder of companies Holiday Magic and Leadership Dynamics, ran against Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination for Governor of California?
- ..that Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona was set at Rancho Camulos in Piru, California?
- ...that the Alameda Works Shipyard in Alameda, California, was one of the largest and best equipped shipyards in the United States?
- ...that U.S. Route 50 in California was the route traveled by many '49ers and the Pony Express, and later became California's first state highway and a branch of the Lincoln Highway?
- ...that California Mule Deer have had their population controlled by humans starting in 12,000 BCE by indigenous Native Americans?
- ...that when the Brother Jonathan (pictured) sank off the coast of California in 1856, it was the worst shipwreck on the Pacific Coast of the United States at the time?
- ...that the California Condor, Mauritius Kestrel and Kakapo were all saved from extinction using modern bird conservation techniques?
- ...that Junípero Serra and Juan María de Salvatierra have both been called "the apostle of California," for their work establishing Spanish missions in Alta and Baja California, respectively?
- ...that after the first demonstration by members of Catolicos Por La Raza at St. Basil's Cathedral, in downtown Los Angeles, California, the archbishop resigned?
- ...that Filipino jazz singer Katy de la Cruz was once a top-billed performer at the famed Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco?
- ...that Van Nuys Boulevard, running through the heart of LA's San Fernando Valley, was a center of teenage cruising from the 1950s through the 1970s?
- ...that Barstow, California, and Strong City, Kansas, are both named in honor of William Barstow Strong, former president of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway?
- ...that Ruth Comfort Mitchell Young, owner of the Yung See San Fong House in Los Gatos, California, didn't want it to be a bungalow, but a "bungahigh"?
- ...that Josiah Belden was a member of the first party to use the California Trail, and the first mayor of San Jose, California?
- ...that Byron N. Scott was a public school teacher in Long Beach, California prior to being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1934?
- ...that the passing lanes of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, California's first freeway, were paved in a different color to encourage drivers to stay in their lanes?
- ...that when San Francisco–based photographer William Rulofson fell to his death, he was heard to have exclaimed, "I am killed"?
- ...that Kimberly Crest, a Victorian mansion and California historic landmark was donated to the city of Redlands as part of a botanical park?
- ...that the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway was San Francisco's first electric streetcar company?
- ...that the origins of Castle Lake in California date to the Pleistocene Era (more than 10,000 years ago) when a glacier carved a basin in the location of the current lake?
- ...that the easternmost part of California State Route 20 follows a branch of the historic California Trail, parts of which have been preserved as a National Recreation Trail?
- ...that Alameda Street was built by Los Angeles County, California as a "truck boulevard" to the port?
- ...that the Yulupa Creek watershed has been designated as critical habitat for two California endangered species?
- ...that Josiah Belden was a member of the first party to use the California Trail, and the first mayor of San Jose, California?
- ...that the California Pacific Conference has school members that range from members of the California State University system to religious and liberal arts colleges?
- ... that Isaac Newton Van Nuys of New York founded Van Nuys, California, United States in 1911?
- ...the UPC-Arena in Austria was renamed from "Arnold Schwarzenegger-Stadium" to its current name after controversy over Arnold Schwarzenegger's decisions in recent death penalty cases in California?
- ...that Corry v. Stanford was a California court case that declared Stanford University's speech code illegal under the freedom of speech protections of the state's Leonard Law?
- ...that the Ramona Valley in San Diego County California is the country's 162nd American Viticultural Area, and only the third such AVA designated in Southern California by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau?
- ...that 8-year-old Sylvia Mendez played an instrumental role in the 1946 Mendez v. Westminster case, which successfully ended de jure segregation in California schools?
- ...that the Yana people of California hid in the Sierra Nevada mountains for over 40 years their survival and existence unknown in the United States from 1865 to 1911?
- ...that Zinfandel was grown for table grapes in Boston long before it made wine in California?
- ...that, despite being added to California's state highway system in 1933, the portion of State Route 190 over the Sierra Nevada remains unconstructed?
- ...that the Great Rose Bowl Hoax was a 1961 prank by students at the California Institute of Technology that was broadcast by NBC to an estimated 30 million viewers in the United States?
- ...that Goat Rock Beach in Sonoma County has a number of sea stacks and offers viewing of marine natural arches? ...
- ...that California State Route 174, which includes a historic 1924 bridge, was not designated a State Scenic Highway due to opposition by residents concerned about their property rights?
- ... that California Certified Organic Farmers was one of the first US based organizations to certify organic farmers?
- ...that after former House representative John H. Burke was not a candidate for renomination in 1934, he went back to his home in Long Beach, California and became a real estate broker?
- ...that the Caltech hacker who used a remote control to alter the scoreboard at the 1984 Rose Bowl received college credit for the prank?
- ...that the California Pacific Conference has school members that range from members of the California State University system to religious and liberal arts colleges?
- ... that the Laguna de Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, California, has several endemic endangered species and is the second-largest freshwater wetland in Northern California?
- ...that Rattlesnake James, the last man to be hanged in California, was convicted of drowning his wife after a failed first attempt to kill her with rattlesnake venom?
- ...that the California Maritime Academy has named three of its four training ships Golden Bear since 1946?
- ...that exploitation film director/producer S. S. Millard was able to pass himself off as Romanian nobility when a former Romanian queen visited California?