Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is a functioning Roman Catholic mission and a historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. The settlement was founded by Spaniards of the Franciscan order on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary," September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become 21 Spanish missions in California. San Gabriel Arcángel, named after the Archangel Gabriel and referred to as the "Godmother of the Pueblo of Los Angeles", was designed by Antonio Cruzado, who hailed from Córdoba, Spain. Cruzado gave the building its strong Moorish architectural influence; the capped buttresses and the tall, narrow windows are unique among the missions of the California chain. Mission San Gabriel was founded on September 8, 1771, by Fray Angel Francisco de Sonera and Fray Pedro Benito Cambon; the planned site for the Mission was along the banks of the Río de Los Temblores. The priests chose an alternate site on a fertile plain located directly alongside the Rio Hondo in the Whittier Narrows; the site of the Misión Vieja is located near the intersection of San Gabriel Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue.
In 1776, a flash flood destroyed much of the crops and ruined the Mission complex, subsequently relocated five miles closer to the mountains in present-day San Gabriel. The Mission is the base. On December 9, 1812, a series of massive earthquakes shook Southern California; the 1812 Wrightwood earthquake caused the three-bell campanario, located adjacent to the chapel's east façade, to collapse. A larger, six-bell structure was subsequently constructed at the far end of the Capilla. While no pictorial record exists to document what the original structure looked like, architectural historian Rexford Newcomb deduced the design and published a depiction in his 1916 work The Franciscan Mission Architecture of Alta California. Legend has it that the founding expedition was confronted by a large group of native Tongva peoples whose intention was to drive the strangers away. One of the priests laid a painting of "Our Lady of Sorrows" on the ground for all to see, whereupon the natives, designated by the settlers as the Gabrieliños made peace with the missionaries, because they were so moved by the painting's beauty.
Today the 300-year-old work hangs in front of and to the left of the old high altar and reredos in the Mission's sanctuary. A large stone cross stands in the center of the Campo Santo, first consecrated in 1778 and again on January 29, 1939, by the Los Angeles Archbishop John Cantwell, it serves as the final resting place for some 6,000 "neophytes. Interred at the Mission are the bodies of numerous Franciscan priests who died during their time of service, as well as the remains of Reverend Raymond Catalan, C. M. F. who undertook the restoration of the Mission's gardens. Entombed at the foot of the altar are the remains of eight Franciscan priests: Miguel Sánchez, Antonio Cruzado, Francisco Dumetz, Roman Ulibarri, Joaquin P. Nunez, Gerónimo Boscana, José Bernardo Sánchez, Blas Ordaz. Buried among the priests is centenarian Eulalia Perez de Guillén Mariné, the "keeper of the keys" under Spanish rule. Well over 25,000 baptisms were conducted at San Gabriel between 1771 and 1834, making it the most prolific in the mission chain.
In its heyday, it furnished food and supplies to settlements and other missions throughout California. A majority of the Mission structures fell into ruins after it was secularized in November 1834; the once-extensive vineyards were falling to decay, with fences broken down and animals roaming through it. The Mission's chapel functioned as a parish church for the City of San Gabriel from 1862 until 1908, when the Claretian Missionaries came to San Gabriel and began the job of rebuilding and restoring the Mission. In 1874, tracks were laid for Southern Pacific Railroad near the mission. In 2012, artifacts from the mission era were found when the tracks were lowered into a trench known as the Alameda Corridor-East. On October 1, 1987 the Whittier Narrows earthquake damaged the property. A significant portion of the original complex has since been restored; the goal of the missions was to become self-sufficient in short order. Farming was the most important industry of any mission. Prior to the missions, the native-Americans had developed a self-sufficient culture.
The missionaries believed the native Tongva people were inferior and in need of conversion to Christianity. The mission priests established what they thought of as a manual training school: to teach the Indians their style of agriculture, the mechanical arts, the raising and care of livestock; the missions, utilizing the labor of the neophytes, produced everything they consumed. After 1811, the mission Indians could be said to sustain the entire military and civil government of California."The names of the rancherias associated with San Gabriel Mission were: Acuragna, Awigna, Cahuenga, Chowigna, Hahaulogna, Houtgna, Isanthcogna, Nacaugna, Pasinogna, Pubugna, Sisitcanogna, Suangna, Toviscanga, Yangna."To efficiently manage its extensive lands, Mission San Gabriel established several outlying sub-missions, known as asistencias. Several of these became or were
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Colorado Boulevard
Colorado Boulevard is a major east–west street in Southern California. It runs from Griffith Park in Los Angeles east through Glendale, the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles and Arcadia, ending in Monrovia; the full route was once various state highways but is now locally maintained in favor of the parallel Ventura Freeway and Foothill Freeway. Colorado Street begins at Interstate 5 as a short freeway spur carrying State Route 134 until it was moved north onto the Ventura Freeway. After crossing the Los Angeles River, there are two interchanges—with Edenhurst Avenue and San Fernando Road—before it becomes a surface street. At the second interchange it enters Glendale. At the east border of Glendale, Colorado Street becomes Colorado Boulevard as it crosses State Route 2 into Los Angeles. Another short freeway spur splits west of the intersection with Figueroa Street, heading northeast to the Ventura Freeway; this spur carried SR 134 after the Ventura Freeway was built to the east but before it was built west of the split with the spur.
After crossing Figueroa Street, Colorado Boulevard splits from Linda Vista Avenue and passes over the Arroyo Seco on the Colorado Street Bridge into Pasadena. In Pasadena, Colorado Boulevard crosses the short State Route 710 spur and forms the north end of State Route 110. Colorado Street, renamed "Boulevard" in 1958, runs through Old Town Pasadena from Arroyo Parkway to Orange Grove Boulevard, it is the north–south zero axis of the street grid in Pasadena. The Tournament of Roses parade route travels north on Orange Grove Avenue east along Colorado Boulevard as far as Sierra Madre Boulevard, where it heads north to Victory Park. Most major Pasadena attractions are found within one block of Colorado Boulevard. Pasadena City College is located at 1570 E. Colorado Boulevard; the street was mentioned in Dean's 1964 hit song The Little Old Lady from Pasadena. The road leaves the city into unincorporated East Pasadena, where it intersects Rosemead Boulevard, all while signed as California State Route 248.
Colorado Boulevard becomes Colorado Street as it crosses Michillinda Avenue from East Pasadena into Arcadia. Through Arcadia, the street parallels the Foothill Freeway, providing access to many of the neighborhoods in west Arcadia. Colorado Street turns southeast and splits into two streets--Colorado Boulevard, which continues east, Colorado Place, a short segment of old US 66 that goes southeast to merge with Huntington Drive near the Santa Anita Racetrack. From the split, Colorado Boulevard becomes a residential street, with some commercial zones near Santa Anita Avenue in Arcadia; the street passes under the Foothill Freeway between First and Second Streets in Arcadia with no access, in front of Monrovia High School, through Old Town Monrovia before ending at Shamrock Avenue at Recreation Park in Monrovia. The Santa Anita Depot, built in 1890 to serve Lucky Baldwin, the people of Rancho Santa Anita, was located at Colorado Boulevard and Old Ranch Road, it was moved to the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden during the construction of the 210 Foothill Freeway in 1970.
The most original portion of Colorado Boulevard ran from Orange Grove Boulevard to Broadway, now Arroyo Parkway. This portion of the street always contained many shops, banks and major commercial industries. By the late 19th century, this part of Colorado had become so popular, it was becoming a traffic bottleneck, as early as May 1900 there were public outcries to the City Council to widen the road, it wasn't until 1929 that the City undertook the major and unprecedented task of cutting back the buildings along Colorado 14 feet on each side. This undertaking created a monumental amount of legal red tape as well as many engineering dilemmas which were handled with amazing results. At the same time many of the Victorian facings on the buildings were replaced with Spanish and Art Deco designs. Colorado Street and Colorado Boulevard carried pre-1964 Legislative Route 161 from its west end to the merge with Huntington Drive; this was signed as State Route 134 west of Figueroa Street, U. S. Route 66 Alternate from Figueroa Street to Arroyo Parkway, U.
S. Route 66 from Arroyo Parkway to Huntington Drive. In 1954, the Colorado Freeway was opened between Holly Street in Pasadena and Eagle Vista Drive and Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock to help alleviate traffic congestion due to the narrow Colorado Street Bridge over the Arroyo Seco; the new freeway connected the two communities until 1971, when the entire freeway was closed and upgraded, as well as rerouted as the new Ventura Freeway. A short segment of the original Colorado Freeway remains as an on-ramp/off-ramp between Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock and the Figueroa Street off-ramp of the present Ventura Freeway. In the 1964 renumbering, LR 161 remained State Route 134 west of Pasadena, though this was being moved to the new alignment. Through and east of Pasadena, LR 161 became State Route 248, but was signed as US 66 and continued east on Huntington Drive to the interchange with Interstate 210 in Monrovia. In 1965, th
Herb
In general use, herbs are plants with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use distinguishes herbs from spices. Herbs refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant, while spices are dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark and fruits. Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, in some cases, spiritual. General usage of the term "herb" differs between medicinal herbs; the word "herb" is pronounced in Commonwealth English, but is common among North American English speakers and those from other regions where h-dropping occurs. In botany, the word "herb" is used as a synonym for "herbaceous plant". In botany, the term herb refers to a herbaceous plant, defined as a small, seed-bearing plant without a woody stem in which all aerial parts die back to the ground at the end of each growing season; the term refers to perennials, although herbaceous plants can be annuals, or biennials.
This term is in contrast to trees which possess a woody stem. Shrubs and trees are defined in terms of size, where shrubs are less than 10 meters tall, trees may grow over 10 meters; the word herbaceous is derived from Latin herbāceus meaning "grassy", from herba "grass, herb". Another sense of the term herb can refer to a much larger range of plants, with culinary, therapeutic or other uses. For example, some of the most described herbs such as Sage and Lavender would be excluded from the botanical definition of a herb as they do not die down each year, they possess woody stems. In the wider sense, herbs may be herbaceous perennials but trees, shrubs, lianas, mosses, algae and fungi. Herbalism can utilize not just stems and leaves but fruit, roots and gums; therefore one suggested definition of a herb is a plant, of use to humans, although this definition is problematic since it could cover a great many plants that are not described as herbs. Ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus divided the plant world into trees and herbs.
Herbs came to be considered in namely pot herbs, sweet herbs and salad herbs. During the seventeenth century as selective breeding changed the plants size and flavor away from the wild plant, pot herbs began to be referred to as vegetables as they were no longer considered only suitable for the pot. Culinary herbs are distinguished from vegetables in that, like spices, they are used in small amounts and provide flavor rather than substance to food. Herbs can be perennials such as thyme, sage or lavender, biennials such as parsley, or annuals like basil. Perennial herbs can be shrubs such as rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis, or trees such as bay laurel, Laurus nobilis – this contrasts with botanical herbs, which by definition cannot be woody plants; some plants are used as both herbs and spices, such as dill weed and dill seed or coriander leaves and seeds. There are some herbs, such as those in the mint family, that are used for both culinary and medicinal purposes. Emperor Charlemagne compiled a list of 74 different herbs.
The connection between herbs and health is important in the European Middle Ages--The Forme of Cury promotes extensive use of herbs, including in salads, claims in its preface "the assent and advisement of the masters of physic and philosophy in the King's Court". Some herbs can be infused in boiling water to make herbal teas; the dried leaves, flowers or seeds are used, or fresh herbs are used. Herbal teas tend to made from aromatic herbs, may not contain tannins or caffeine, are not mixed with milk. Common examples include mint tea. Herbal teas are used as a source of relaxation or can be associated with rituals. Herbs were used in prehistoric medicine; as far back as 5000 BCE, evidence that Sumerians used herbs in medicine was inscribed on cuneiform. In 162 CE, the physician Galen was known for concocting complicated herbal remedies that contained up to 100 ingredients; some plants contain phytochemicals. There may be some effects when consumed in the small levels that typify culinary "spicing", some herbs are toxic in larger quantities.
For instance, some types of herbal extract, such as the extract of St. John's-wort or of kava can be used for medical purposes to relieve depression and stress. However, large amounts of these herbs may lead to toxic overload that may involve complications, some of a serious nature, should be used with caution. Complications can arise when being taken with some prescription medicines. Herbs have long been used as the basis of traditional Chinese herbal medicine, with usage dating as far back as the first century CE and far before. In India, the Ayurveda medicinal system is based on herbs. Medicinal use of herbs in Western cultures has its roots in the Hippocratic elemental healing system, based on a quaternary elemental healing metaphor. Famous herbalist of the Western tradition include Avicenna, Paracelsus and the botanically inclined Eclectic physicians of 19th
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
Rancho Santa Anita
Rancho Santa Anita was a 13,319-acre land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given to naturalized Scottish immigrant Hugo Reid and his Tongva wife. Reid built an adobe residence there in 1839, the land grant was formally recognized by Governor Pio Pico in 1845; the land grant covered all or portions of the present day cities of Arcadia, Sierra Madre and San Marino. A small portion of the rancho has been preserved as the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden; the land granted to Reid was previous owned by the Mission San Gabriel. The San Gabriel Mission was founded in 1771 as the 4th of the Spanish missions in California; the San Gabriel Mission planted acres of land, in with: wheat, corn, peas lentils, fruit trees and vineyards. The land grazed about 20,000 head of cattle. After the Mexican War of Independence in 1821, the Mexican secularization act of 1833 was passed. Starting in 1834 Mexico sold it as Ranchos. Reid was a Scot. To comply with Mexican law for the land grant of 13,319 acres, he built an adobe house and lived here with his wife, Victoria.
In 1847, Reid sold Rancho Santa Anita to his Rancho Azusa neighbor, Henry Dalton for $2,700. With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican–American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored; as required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, the grant was patented to Henry Dalton in 1866. Joseph Andrew Rowe lived in the rancho for several years after purchasing it in 1854 for $33,000. In 1858, Albert Dibblee and William Corbett bought the rancho and who held it until 1864. 1865, 11,319 acres of Rancho Santa Anita, sold or $20,000 to William Wolfskills. William’s son, Luis Wolfskill, sold 8,500 acres with the lake to Los Angeles merchant Harris Newmark for $85,000. In 1875, Newmark sold Rancho Santa Anita to Elias Jackson Baldwin for $200,000. Lucky moved into the Hugo Reid's adobe house by the natural lake. In 1881 he built a white Queen Anne style house at the lake a Queen Anne style coach barn for his prized horse.
Lucky loved horse, he founded a racetrack on Rancho Santa Anita in 1904. The racetrack closed in 1909 and burned down in 1912. In 1934, the current Santa Anita Park opened as a thoroughbred horse-racing track. In the latter 1880s, Baldwin subdivided a portion of the rancho to establish the town of Arcadia. In February 1881, Nathaniel Carter purchased 845 acres of Rancho Santa Anita, along with two other purchases, to form the new town of Sierra Madre, California. In 1875, Lucky's Los Angeles Investment Company began subdividing and selling parcels from many of his ranchos. In 1883, 240 acres of Rancho Santa Anita were sold to William Monroe for $30,000. Additional parcels of Rancho Santa Anita were sold to Edward F. Spence, John D. Bicknell, James F. Crank, J. F. Falvey. Hugo Reid Adobe. Rancho Santa Anita adobe house built by Reid in 1839. Santa Anita Depot, built in 1890 for the Santa Fe Railway. Santa Anita Park Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden Ranchos of California List of Ranchos of California Map of old Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Los Angeles County
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. 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 western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
Trade, intermarriage a
