California
California became the thirty-first state to join the United States on September 9, 1850. Known as the Golden State, it has Sacramento as its capital and Los Angeles as its largest city. Its varied geography includes the Pacific coastline, Central Valley, Sierra Nevada, Mojave and Colorado deserts, redwood forests, fertile agricultural regions and some of the country’s highest and lowest elevations.
The discovery of gold in 1848 brought rapid population growth and helped propel California toward statehood. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, agriculture, railroads, shipping, oil, aviation and manufacturing shaped its development. California later became internationally influential through the motion-picture industry, Silicon Valley technology, scientific research and its role as a major center of trade across the Pacific.
Recent Articles
Shakespeare Garden
Passing through the ornamental gate of Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park is like entering a place where literature has been given physical form. The garden was created not simply as a collection of flowers but as a living tribute to William Shakespeare and the natural world preserved within his plays and poetry. The idea […]
Shirley Temple’s Hand Prints
The forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles has preserved the handprints, footprints, signatures, and sometimes unusual personal objects of Hollywood performers since 1927. The tradition is said to have begun when actress Norma Talmadge accidentally stepped into wet concrete while the theater was under construction, although several versions of the story have been […]
