Social Democratic Party of America
The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901. Following the defeat of the 1894 American Railway Union strike, the former populist Eugene V. Debs exhaustively read socialist literature provided to him by Milwaukee publisher Victor L. Berger and other independent socialists. Debs converted to the socialist cause, believing in the aftermath of the suppression of the ARU strike by federal troops that trade union action alone was insufficient to bring about the liberation of the working class. In this same summer, smarting from a failed effort at establishing a socialist community near Tennessee City, publisher Julius Wayland established in Kansas City a new socialist weekly newspaper, Appeal to Reason moving the operation for financial reasons to a small town in southeastern Kansas called Girard.
This paper was a major success gaining a paid subscribership of 80,000 and invigorating the socialist movement. A new colonization project was conceived through this paper, the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth, which aimed to seed an undecided western state with socialist colonies and to electorally take over the government of that state, thus establishing a foothold for socialism in America. Debs was named the head of this project and the planets were thus aligned for the formation of a new national political organization. A convention of the remnant of the American Railway Union was called for June 1897 in Chicago; the convention which gave birth to the new organization began as a final conclave of the ARU, which opened Tuesday morning June 15, 1897 in Handel Hall, Chicago. Director William E. Burns called the meeting to order and A. B. Adair of the Typographical Union presided. President of the ARU Eugene V. Debs delivered an address to the assembled delegates; the first three days of the convention were occupied with hearing reports of officers and of committees and closing up the affairs of the ARU.
On Friday June 18, the organization formally changed its name to the Social Democracy of America and adopted a Declaration of Principles. The convention was thrown open to delegates representing other organizations; those represented included the Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the Scandinavian Cooperative League, the Metal Polishers and Buffers' Union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the Chicago Labor Union Exchange and an assortment of other organizations. The Social Democracy of America did not have an official head—its executive powers were vested in an Executive Board, with a chairman presiding over the activities of that body; the unit of organization of the Social Democracy was the local branch of at least 5 members. On the first Tuesday in April, each of these local branches was to elect a single representative to the state union, the state-level governing body. On the first Tuesday in May, all the state unions were to assemble and elect one representative each to the National Council, in turn to meet on the first Tuesday in May and elect a 5-member Executive Board, to hold office for a term of one year.
An initiation fee of 25 cents was set and monthly dues pegged at 15 cents per month. Office of the organization was established at 504 Trude Building, Corner of Randolph and Wabash Aves. Chicago; the Social Democracy of America proved to be a short lived and disparate group of Marxists, trade unionists, Owenite socialists and unaffiliated radicals. The party sought to establish socialist cooperative colonies. In August 1897, a three-member Colonization Committee was established, consisting of Col. Richard J. Hinton, Wilfred P. Borland and Cyrus Field Willard; this trio explored the possibility of establishing a colony to seed the future Cooperative Commonwealth in the Cumberland plateau of Tennessee. As an associated side-project seems to have made a concrete proposal to the city of Nashville to construct 75 miles of railroad for the city—a project which would put to work the blacklisted and unemployed former members of the ARU and Social Democracy and help to build the notion of social ownership of productive capital in a single moment, it was hoped.
In addition to the "colonizationists", who favored concentration of their efforts on building a model economic unit and gaining the achievement of socialism through the power of example there emerged a "political action wing", which sought to achieve socialism through political organization and use of the electoral process, starting with concentration on a single state. The colonization scheme failed to materialize by the time of the second convention of the SDA, held in Chicago from June 7–11, 1898 and attended by some 70 delegates. Frederic Heath, the first historian of the movement, recounted the gathering in a 1900 book: Chairman Debs presided. Outwardly the meeting presented the picture of a pleasing and harmonious gathering, creditable to the Socialist movement. Under the surface, there was a hostility that meant certain rupture; the presence of such well-known Anarchists as Mrs. Lucy Parsons, wife of one of the victims of the outrageous Haymarket trial, Emma Goldman, common-law wife of Berkman, who shot Manager Frick at the time of the Homestead strike, others, all enlisted under the colonization wing, the members of which were now using the phrases of the Anarchists at sneering at political action, showed that a parting of the ways must come.
It developed that the colonization forces had organized to get co
San Diego
San Diego is a city in the U. S. state of California. It is in San Diego County, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California 120 miles south of Los Angeles and adjacent to the border with Mexico. With an estimated population of 1,419,516 as of July 1, 2017, San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest in California, it is part of the San Diego–Tijuana conurbation, the second-largest transborder agglomeration between the U. S. and a bordering country after Detroit–Windsor, with a population of 4,922,723 people. The city is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches, long association with the United States Navy, recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology development center. San Diego has been called "the birthplace of California". Home to the Kumeyaay people, it was the first site visited by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California 200 years later.
The Presidio and Mission San Diego de Alcalá, founded in 1769, formed the first European settlement in what is now California. In 1821, San Diego became part of the newly independent Mexico, which reformed as the First Mexican Republic two years later. California became part of the United States in 1848 following the Mexican–American War and was admitted to the union as a state in 1850; the city is the seat of San Diego County and is the economic center of the region as well as the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. San Diego's main economic engines are military and defense-related activities, international trade, manufacturing; the presence of the University of California, San Diego, with the affiliated UCSD Medical Center, has helped make the area a center of research in biotechnology. The original inhabitants of the region are now known as the San La Jolla people; the area of San Diego has been inhabited by the Kumeyaay people. The first European to visit the region was explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, sailing under the flag of Castile but born in Portugal.
Sailing his flagship San Salvador from Navidad, New Spain, Cabrillo claimed the bay for the Spanish Empire in 1542, named the site "San Miguel". In November 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno was sent to map the California coast. Arriving on his flagship San Diego, Vizcaíno surveyed the harbor and what are now Mission Bay and Point Loma and named the area for the Catholic Saint Didacus, a Spaniard more known as San Diego de Alcalá. On November 12, 1602, the first Christian religious service of record in Alta California was conducted by Friar Antonio de la Ascensión, a member of Vizcaíno's expedition, to celebrate the feast day of San Diego. Permanent colonization of California and of San Diego began in 1769 with the arrival of four contingents of Spaniards from New Spain and the Baja California peninsula. Two seaborne parties reached San Diego Bay: the San Carlos, under Vicente Vila and including as notable members the engineer and cartographer Miguel Costansó and the soldier and future governor Pedro Fages, the San Antonio, under Juan Pérez.
An initial overland expedition to San Diego from the south was led by the soldier Fernando Rivera and included the Franciscan missionary and chronicler Juan Crespí, followed by a second party led by the designated governor Gaspar de Portolà and including the mission president Junípero Serra. In May 1769, Portolà established the Fort Presidio of San Diego on a hill near the San Diego River, it was the first settlement by Europeans in. In July of the same year, Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded by Franciscan friars under Serra. By 1797, the mission boasted the largest native population in Alta California, with over 1,400 neophytes living in and around the mission proper. Mission San Diego was the southern anchor in Alta California of the historic mission trail El Camino Real. Both the Presidio and the Mission are National Historic Landmarks. In 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain, San Diego became part of the Mexican territory of Alta California. In 1822, Mexico began its attempt to extend its authority over the coastal territory of Alta California.
The fort on Presidio Hill was abandoned, while the town of San Diego grew up on the level land below Presidio Hill. The Mission was secularized by the Mexican government in 1834, most of the Mission lands were granted to former soldiers; the 432 residents of the town petitioned the governor to form a pueblo, Juan María Osuna was elected the first alcalde, defeating Pío Pico in the vote. However, San Diego had been losing population throughout the 1830s and in 1838 the town lost its pueblo status because its size dropped to an estimated 100 to 150 residents. Beyond town Mexican land grants expanded the number of California ranchos that modestly added to the local economy. Americans gained increased awareness of California, its commercial possibilities, from the writings of two countrymen involved in the officially forbidden, to foreigners, but economically significant hide and tallow trade, where San Diego was a major port and the only one with an adequate harbor: William Shaler's "Journal of a Voyage Between China and the North-Western Coast of America, Made in 1804" and Richard Henry Dana's more substantial and convincing account, of his 1834–36 voyage, the classic Two Years Before the Mast.
In 1846, the United States went to war against Mexico and sent a naval and land expedition to conquer Alta California. At firs
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman was an American poet and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon called the father of free verse, his work was controversial in its time his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and—in addition to publishing his poetry—was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans. Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money; the work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined; when he died at age 72, his funeral became a public spectacle.
Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, to parents with interests in Quaker thought and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. The second of nine children, he was nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father. Walter Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after American leaders: Andrew Jackson, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson. The oldest was named Jesse and another boy died unnamed at the age of six months; the couple's sixth son, the youngest, was named Edward. At age four, Whitman moved with his family from West Hills to Brooklyn, living in a series of homes, in part due to bad investments. Whitman looked back on his childhood as restless and unhappy, given his family's difficult economic status. One happy moment that he recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on the cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette during a celebration in Brooklyn on July 4, 1825. At age eleven Whitman concluded formal schooling, he sought employment for further income for his family.
There, Whitman learned about typesetting. He may have written "sentimental bits" of filler material for occasional issues. Clements aroused controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse of Elias Hicks to create a plaster mold of his head. Clements left the Patriot shortly afterward as a result of the controversy; the following summer Whitman worked for Erastus Worthington, in Brooklyn. His family moved back to West Hills in the spring, but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Whig weekly newspaper the Long-Island Star. While at the Star, Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances, anonymously published some of his earliest poetry in the New-York Mirror. At age 16 in May 1835, Whitman left the Brooklyn, he moved to New York City to work as a compositor though, in years, Whitman could not remember where. He attempted to find further work but had difficulty, in part due to a severe fire in the printing and publishing district, in part due to a general collapse in the economy leading up to the Panic of 1837.
In May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in Long Island. Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not satisfied as a teacher. After his teaching attempts, Whitman went back to Huntington, New York, to found his own newspaper, the Long-Islander. Whitman served as publisher, editor and distributor and provided home delivery. After ten months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839. There are no known surviving copies of the Long-Islander published under Whitman. By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in Jamaica, Queens with the Long Island Democrat, edited by James J. Brenton, he left shortly thereafter, made another attempt at teaching from the winter of 1840 to the spring of 1841. One story apocryphal, tells of Whitman's being chased away from a teaching job in Southold, New York, in 1840. After a local preacher called him a "Sodomite", Whitman was tarred and feathered. Biographer Justin Kaplan notes that the story is untrue, because Whitman vacationed in the town thereafter.
Biographer Jerome Loving calls the incident a "myth". During this time, Whitman published a series of ten editorials, called "Sun-Down Papers—From the Desk of a Schoolmaster", in three newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July 1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he would employ throughout his career. Whitman moved to New York City in May working a low-level job at the New World, working under Park Benjamin Sr. and Rufus Wilmot Griswold. He continued working for short periods of time for various newspapers, he contributed freelance fiction and poetry throughout the 1840s. Whitman lost his position at the Brooklyn Eagle in 1848 after siding with the free-soil "Barnburner" wing of the Democratic party against the newspaper's owner, Isaac Van Anden, who belonged to the conservative, or "Hunker", wing of the party. Whitman was a delegate to the 1848 founding convention of the Free Soil Party, concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen moving
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids is the second-largest city in Iowa and is the county seat of Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, 20 miles north of Iowa City and 100 miles northeast of Des Moines, the state's capital and largest city, it is a part of the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Corridor of Linn, Cedar, Jones and Washington counties. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 126,326; the estimated population of the three-county Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes the nearby cities of Marion and Hiawatha, was 255,452 in 2008. Cedar Rapids is an economic hub of the state, located in the core of the Interstate 380; the Cedar Rapids Metropolitan Statistical Area is a part of a Combined Statistical Area with the Iowa City MSA. This CSA plus two additional counties are known as the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids Corridor and collectively have a population of over 450,000. A flourishing center for arts and culture in Eastern Iowa, the city is home to the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, the Paramount Theatre, Orchestra Iowa, Theatre Cedar Rapids, the African-American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa, the Iowa Cultural Corridor Alliance.
In the 1990s and 2000s, several Cedar Rapidians became well-known actors, including Bobby Driscoll, Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood, Ron Livingston. The city is the comedy film Cedar Rapids. Cedar Rapids is nicknamed the "City of Five Seasons", for the "fifth season", time to enjoy the other four; the symbol of the five seasons is the Tree of Five Seasons sculpture in downtown along the north river bank. The name "Five Seasons" and representations of the sculpture appear throughout the city in many forms; the location of present-day Cedar Rapids was in the territory of the Sac tribes. The first permanent settler, Osgood Shepherd, arrived in 1838; when Cedar Rapids was first established in 1838, William Stone named the town Columbus. In 1841 it was resurveyed and renamed by N. B. Brown and his associates, they named the town Cedar Rapids for the rapids in the Cedar River at the site, the river itself was named for the large number of red cedar trees that grew along its banks. Cedar Rapids was incorporated on January 15, 1849.
Cedar Rapids annexed the community of Kingston in 1870. The economic growth of Cedar Rapids increased in 1871 upon the founding of the Sinclair meatpacking company. In 2010, the Census Bureau reported Cedar Rapids' population as 87.98% white, 5.58% black. During the Iowa flood of 2008, the Cedar River reached a record high of 31.12 feet on June 13, surpassing the 500-year flood plain. 1,126 city blocks were flooded, or more than 10 square miles, 561 city blocks were damaged, on both banks of the Cedar River, comprising 14% of the city's total area. A total of 7,749 flooded properties had to be evacuated, including 5,900 homes and 310 city facilities, among them the City Hall, Central Fire Station, Main Public Library, Ground Transportation Center, Public Works building, the Animal Control building, it is estimated that at least 1,300 properties had to be demolished in the Cedar Rapids area because of the flood, which caused several billions of dollars in damages. More than 4,000 members of the Iowa National Guard were activated to assist the city.
The temporary levees became saturated not only with the flood waters but with additional rainfall, causing them to fail. Until the flood, the city's government was headquartered in the Veterans Memorial Building, near the Linn County Courthouse and jail on Mays Island in the Cedar River, making Cedar Rapids one of a few cities in the world, along with Paris, with governmental offices on a municipal island. During the flood of 2016, remnants of Hurricane Paine from the eastern Pacific Ocean via the Gulf of California caused the second highest recorded crest of the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, reaching 22 feet on September 27; the inundation of southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa by Hurricane Paine's remnants began on September 21 and 22 and continued until the end of the month. The cresting in Cedar Rapids was below the initial estimate of 25 feet and the revised estimate of 23 feet, but more than 10 feet above the flood stage of 12 feet; the flood was above levels considered to have about a 1% chance of occurring in a given year.
More than 5,000 homes were affected. The Cedar Rapids Schools were closed for a week. In 2015, Cedar Rapids approved a $625 million flood protection plan over 20 years for levee improvements. Although the improvement to the levee system in Cedar Rapids had not been completed due to over $80 million in funding not appropriated by the United States Congresses of 2014 and 2016 and the voting down by local residents of a temporary increase in the local sales tax to pay for the levee improvements, out of school students along with hundreds of thousands of volunteers and 412 Iowa National Guard troops filled more than a quarter of a million sandbags in a successful effort to prevent any major flooding of the city outside the evacuation zone. A 9.8-mile system of Hesco barriers, earthen berms, over 400,000 sandbags were used to plug the gaps in the levee system. The city of Cedar Rapids purchased additional Hesco barriers from Iowa City for $1.4 million. Numerous upstream cities, earlier affected by the September flooding and mandatory evacuations, including Charles City, Manchester, Shell Rock, Janesville, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, sent hundreds of thousands of unused sandbags to support efforts in Cedar Rapids and near
Los Angeles
Los Angeles the City of Los Angeles and known by its initials L. A. is the most populous city in California, the second most populous city in the United States, after New York City, the third most populous city in North America. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the cultural and commercial center of Southern California; the city is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity and the entertainment industry, its sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles is the largest city on the West Coast of North America. Los Angeles is in a large basin bounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side and by mountains as high as 10,000 feet on the other; the city proper, which covers about 469 square miles, is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. Los Angeles is the principal city of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second largest in the United States after that of New York City, with a population of 13.1 million. It is part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach combined statistical area the nation's second most populous area with a 2015 estimated population of 18.7 million.
Los Angeles is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States, with a diverse economy in a broad range of professional and cultural fields. Los Angeles is famous as the home of Hollywood, a major center of the world entertainment industry. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index and 9th in the Global Economic Power Index; the Los Angeles metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of $1.044 trillion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will host the event for a third time in 2028; the city hosted the Miss Universe pageant twice, in 1990 and 2006, was one of 9 American cities to host the 1994 FIFA men's soccer World Cup and one of 8 to host the 1999 FIFA women's soccer World Cup, hosting the final match for both tournaments. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California.
The city was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood; the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California assured the city's continued rapid growth; the Los Angeles coastal area was settled by the Chumash tribes. A Gabrieleño settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning "poison oak place". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542 while on an official military exploring expedition moving north along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.
Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles,'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'; the present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African and European ancestry; the settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.
During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000; the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city. Due to clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent city and communities became compelled to annex themselves into Los Angeles.
Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones; the new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were
Southern California
Southern California is a geographic and cultural region that comprises California's southernmost counties, is the second most populous urban agglomeration in the United States. The region is traditionally described as eight counties, based on demographics and economic ties: Imperial, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura; the more extensive 10-county definition, which includes Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, is used and is based on historical political divisions. The Colorado Desert and the Colorado River are located on southern California's eastern border with Arizona, the Mojave Desert is located north on California's Nevada border. Southern California's southern border is part of the Mexico–United States border. Southern California includes the built-up urban area which stretches along the Pacific coast from Ventura through Greater Los Angeles down to Greater San Diego, inland to the Inland Empire and Coachella Valley, it encompasses eight metropolitan areas, three of which together form the Greater Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area with over 18 million people, the second-biggest CSA after the New York CSA.
These three MSAs are: the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the Inland Empire (, the Oxnard–Thousand Oaks–Ventura metropolitan area. In addition, Southern California contains the San Diego metropolitan area with 3.3 million people, Bakersfield metro area with 0.9 million, the Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, El Centro metropolitan areas. The Southern California Megaregion is larger still, extending east into Las Vegas and south across the Mexican border into Tijuana. Within southern California are two major cities, Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as three of the country's largest metropolitan areas. With a population of 4,042,000, Los Angeles is the most populous city in California and the second most populous in the United States. South of Los Angeles and with a population of 1,307,402 is San Diego, the second most populous city in the state and the eighth most populous in the nation; the counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside are the five most populous in the state, are in the top 15 most populous counties in the United States.
The motion picture and music industry are centered in the Los Angeles area in southern California. Hollywood, a district of Los Angeles, gives its name to the American motion picture industry, synonymous with the neighborhood name. Headquartered in southern California are The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, MGM, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. Universal, Warner Bros. and Sony run major record companies. Southern California is home to a large homegrown surf and skateboard culture. Companies such as Vans, Quiksilver, No Fear, RVCA, Body Glove are all headquartered here. Skateboarder Tony Hawk; some of the most famous surf locations are in southern California as well, including Trestles, The Wedge, Huntington Beach, Malibu. Some of the world's largest action sports events, including the X Games, Boost Mobile Pro, the U. S. Open of Surfing, are held in southern California; the region is important to the world of yachting with premier events including the annual Transpacific Yacht Race, or Transpac, from Los Angeles to Hawaii.
The San Diego Yacht Club held the America's Cup, the most prestigious prize in yachting, from 1988 to 1995 and hosted three America's Cup races during that time. The first modern era triathlon was held in Mission Bay, San Diego, California in 1974. Since southern California, San Diego in particular have become a mecca for triathlon and multi-sport racing and culture. Southern California is home to many sports sports networks such as Fox Sports Net. Many locals and tourists frequent the southern California coast for its beaches; the inland desert city of Palm Springs is popular. Southern California is not a formal geographic designation and definitions of what constitutes southern California vary. Geographically, California's North-South midway point lies at 37° 9' 58.23" latitude, around 11 miles south of San Jose. When the state is divided into two areas, the term southern California refers to the 10 southernmost counties of the state; this definition coincides neatly with the county lines at 35° 47′ 28″ North latitude, which form the northern borders of San Luis Obispo and San Bernardino counties.
Another definition for southern California uses Point Conception and the Tehachapi Mountains as the northern boundary. Though there is no official definition for the northern boundary of southern California, such a division has existed from the time when Mexico ruled California and political disputes raged between the Californios of Monterey in the upper part and Los Angeles in the lower part of Alta California. Following the acquisition of California by the United States, the division continued as part of the attempt by several pro-slavery politicians to arrange the division of Alta California at 36 degrees, 30 minutes, the line of the Missouri Compromise. Instead, the passing of the Compromise of 1850 enabled California to be a
