1.
Santa Clara County, California
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Santa Clara County, California, officially the County of Santa Clara, is a county in the U. S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,781,642, the county seat is San Jose, the tenth-most populous city in the United States. Santa Clara County is part of the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay, the highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area region, Santa Clara County is named after Mission Santa Clara, which was established in 1777, and is also named for Saint Clare of Assisi. Santa Clara County was one of the counties of California. The original inhabitants included the Ohlone, residing on Coyote Creek, part of the countys territory was given to Alameda County in 1853. In 1882, Santa Clara County tried to levy taxes upon property of the Southern Pacific Railroad within county boundaries. The result was the U. S. Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad,118 U. S.394, in which the Court extended Due Process rights to artificial legal entities. In the early 20th Century, the area was promoted as the Valley of the Hearts Delight due to its natural beauty, the first major technology company to be based in the area was Hewlett-Packard, founded in a garage in Palo Alto in 1939. IBM selected San Jose as its West Coast headquarters in 1943, varian Associates, Fairchild Semiconductor, and other early innovators were located in the county by the late 1940s and 1950s. The U. S. Navy had a presence in the area. The term Silicon Valley was coined in 1971, the trend accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, and agriculture has since then been nearly eliminated from the northern part of the county. And Hewlett-Packard, and internet companies eBay, Facebook, Google, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,304 square miles, of which 1,290 square miles is land and 14 square miles is water. The San Andreas Fault runs along the Santa Cruz Mountains in the south, as of 2012, an estimated 400 tule elk roam 1,875 square kilometres in northeastern Santa Clara County and southeastern Alameda County. The vast majority of these Superfund sites were caused by associated with the high tech sector located in Silicon Valley. As of 2013, Santa Clara County has the highest median income of any county in California at $84,741. The 2010 United States Census reported that Santa Clara County had a population of 1,781,642. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 479,210 persons,22. 5% Mexican,0. 4% Puerto Rican,0. 1% Cuban,3. 8% Other Hispanic
2.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, 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. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, 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 also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
U.S. state
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A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders. States range in population from just under 600,000 to over 39 million, four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names. States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, State governments are allocated power by the people through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in principles, and each provides for a government. States possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution, Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government. States and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a legislature consisting of the Senate. Each state is represented in the Senate by two senators, and is guaranteed at least one Representative in the House, members of the House are elected from single-member districts. Representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census, the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50, alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959. The Constitution is silent on the question of states have the power to secede from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U. S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, as a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance
5.
Municipal corporation
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A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which they are located, often, this event is marked by the award or declaration of a municipal charter. A city charter or town charter is a document establishing a municipality such as a city or town. The concept developed in Europe during the Middle Ages and is considered to be a version of a constitution. Traditionally the granting of a charter gave a settlement and its inhabitants the right to town privileges under the feudal system, townspeople who lived in chartered towns were burghers, as opposed to serfs who lived in villages. Towns were often free, in the sense that they were protected by the king or emperor. Today the process for granting charters is determined by the type of government of the state in question, in monarchies, charters are still often a royal charter given by the Crown or the state authorities acting on behalf of the Crown. In federations, the granting of charters may be within the jurisdiction of the level of government such as a state or province. In Brazil, municipal corporations are called municípios and are created by means of legislation at the state level. All municipal corporations must also abide by a municipal law which is passed and amended at the municipal level. In Canada charters are granted by provincial authorities, in Germany, municipal corporations existed since antiquity and through medieval times, until they became out of favour during the absolutism. In order to strengthen the spirit, the city law of Prussia dated 19 November 1808 picked up this concept. It is the basis of municipal law. In India, a Municipal Corporation is a local government body. This standard varies from state to state, according to laws passed by state legislatures, the Corporation of Chennai was the first Municipal Corporation in India. It was established on 29 September 1688 by the British East India Company, the second was Hyderabad Municipal Corporation established in 1869 by the Nizam rulers of Hyderabad State. The third was the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, established in 1876, the Bombay Municipal Corporation was established in 1888 by the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. The Delhi Municipal Council was established in 1911 during the Delhi Durbar when New Delhi was proclaimed to be the new Capital of India and it was elevated to Municipal Corporation level on 7 April 1958 by an Act of Parliament which established the Municipal Corporation of Delhi
6.
City manager
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A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a council–manager form of city government. Local officials serving in this position are sometimes referred to as the executive officer or chief administrative officer in some municipalities. Other small or middle sized American cities, especially in the West, in Europe, smaller cities in the Netherlands were specially attracted by the plan. Most sources trace the first city manager to Staunton, Virginia in 1908, some of the other cities that were among the first to employ a manager were Sumter, South Carolina and Dayton, Ohio, Dayton was featured in the national media, and became a national standard. The first City Managers Association meeting of eight city managers was in December 1914, by 1930200 American cities used a city manager form of government. In addition, many states, such as the states of New Hampshire, the City Manager position focuses on efficiency and providing a certain level of service for the lowest possible cost. The competence of a city manager can be assessed using composite indicators, Manager members of the ICMA are bound by a rather rigid and strongly enforced code of ethics that was originally established in 1924. Since that time the code had been up-dated/revised on seven occasions, in the early years of the profession, most managers came from the ranks of the engineering professions. As of 2005 more than 60% of those in the profession had a MPA, MBA, the average tenure of a manager is now 7–8 years and has risen gradually over the years. Tenures tend to be less in smaller communities and higher in larger ones, educational Level of Local Government Managers, Local government Local government in the United States council-manager government Clerk Kemp, Roger L. Managing Americas Cities, A Handbook for Local Government Productivity, McFarland, jefferson, NC, USA, and London, Eng. UK1998. _______, Model Government Charters, A City, County, Regional, State, jefferson, NC, USA, and London, Eng. UK,2003 _______, Forms of Local Government, A Handbook on City, County and Regional Options, McFarland, jefferson, NC, USA, and London, Eng. The rise of the city manager, A public professional in local government, organized business and the city commission and manager movements. In JSTOR White, Leonard D. Staunton, Virginia, Birthplace Of City Manager Form Of Government, a history on the city manager system of government
7.
2010 United States Census
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The 2010 United States Census, is the twenty-third and currently most recent United States national census. National Census Day, the day used for the census, was April 1,2010. As part of a drive to increase the accuracy,635,000 temporary enumerators were hired. The population of the United States was counted as 308,745,538, as required by the United States Constitution, the U. S. census has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. The 2000 U. S. Census was the previous census completed, participation in the U. S. Census is required by law in Title 13 of the United States Code. On January 25,2010, Census Bureau Director Robert Groves personally inaugurated the 2010 Census enumeration by counting World War II veteran Clifton Jackson, more than 120 million census forms were delivered by the U. S. Post Office beginning March 15,2010, the number of forms mailed out or hand-delivered by the Census Bureau was approximately 134 million on April 1,2010. The 2010 Census national mail participation rate was 74%, from April through July 2010, census takers visited households that did not return a form, an operation called non-response follow-up. In December 2010, the Census Bureau delivered population information to the president for apportionment, personally identifiable information will be available in 2082. The Census Bureau did not use a form for the 2010 Census. In several previous censuses, one in six households received this long form, the 2010 Census used only a short form asking ten basic questions, How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1,2010. Were there any additional people staying here on April 1,2010 that you did not include in Question 1, mark all that apply, Is this house, apartment, or mobile home – What is your telephone number. What is Person 1s age and Person 1s date of birth, is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else, the form included space to repeat some or all of these questions for up to twelve residents total. In contrast to the 2000 census, an Internet response option was not offered, detailed socioeconomic information collected during past censuses will continue to be collected through the American Community Survey. The survey provides data about communities in the United States on a 1-year or 3-year cycle, depending on the size of the community, rather than once every 10 years. A small percentage of the population on a basis will receive the survey each year. In June 2009, the U. S. Census Bureau announced that it would count same-sex married couples, however, the final form did not contain a separate same-sex married couple option
8.
Pacific Time Zone
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The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC−7 and is based on the mean solar time of the 105th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. In the United States and Canada, this zone is generically called the Pacific Time Zone. Specifically, it uses Pacific Standard Time when observing standard time, most of Canada uses daylight saving time. In Mexico, the UTC−8 time zone is known as the Northwest Zone, the largest city in the Pacific Time Zone is Los Angeles, the citys metropolitan area is the largest in the zone. The following states or areas are part of the Pacific Time Zone, California Washington Oregon – all, except for most of Malheur County, nevada Idaho Panhandle – the northern half of Idaho, north of the Salmon River. The town of Hyder, Alaska, is officially in the Alaska Time Zone, however, most of the town observes the Pacific Time because of strong connections with nearby Stewart, British Columbia, which is in the Pacific Time Zone. The United States Post Office in Hyder strictly adheres to Alaska Time, in Canada, the Pacific Time Zone includes most of British Columbia, all of Yukon, and the townsite of Tungsten. In Mexico, the state of Baja California lies completely within the Pacific Time Zone and this does not include the state of Baja California Sur, which is south of Baja California. Through 2006, the time changed to daylight time at 02,00 LST to 03,00 LDT on the first Sunday in April. The Canadian provinces and territories that use daylight time each adopted these dates between October 2005 and February 2007, in Mexico, beginning in 2010, the portion of the country in this time zone uses the extended dates, as do some other parts. The vast majority of Mexico, however, still uses the old dates
9.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
10.
ZIP Code
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ZIP Codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, was chosen to suggest that the travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly. The basic format consists of five numerical digits, an extended ZIP+4 code, introduced in 1983, includes the five digits of the ZIP Code, a hyphen, and four additional digits that determine a more specific location within a given ZIP Code. The term ZIP Code was originally registered as a servicemark by the U. S. Postal Service, USPS style for ZIP is all caps and the c in code is also capitalized, although style sheets for some publications use sentence case or lowercase. The early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers, the United States Post Office Department implemented postal zones for numerous large cities in 1943. For example, Mr. John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis 16, by the early 1960s a more organized system was needed, and on July 1,1963, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide. Three months later, on October 1,1963, the U. S, an earlier list in June had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with one exception, according to the historian of the U. S. Robert Moon, an employee of the post office, is considered the father of the ZIP Code, he submitted his proposal in 1944 while working as a postal inspector. The post office gives credit to Moon only for the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility or sec center, an SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes, the mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, Mail picked up at post offices is sent to their own SCF in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. The United States Post Office used a character, which it called Mr. ZIP. He was often depicted with a such as USE ZIP CODE in the selvage of panes of stamps or on labels contained in, or the covers of. In 1983, the U. S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it called ZIP+4, often called plus-four codes, add-on codes, or add ons. But initial attempts to promote use of the new format met with public resistance. For Post Office Boxes, the rule is that each box has its own ZIP+4 code. However, there is no rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box. It is common to use add-on code 9998 for mail addressed to the postmaster,9999 for general delivery, for a unique ZIP Code, the add-on code is typically 0001
11.
North American Numbering Plan
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The North American Numbering Plan is a telephone numbering plan that encompasses 25 distinct regions in twenty countries primarily in North America, including the Caribbean and the U. S. territories. Not all North American countries participate in the NANP, each participating country forms a regulatory authority that has plenary control over local numbering resources. The FCC also serves as the U. S. regulator, Canadian numbering decisions are made by the Canadian Numbering Administration Consortium. The NANP divides the territories of its members into numbering plan areas which are encoded numerically with a telephone number prefix. Each telephone is assigned a telephone number unique only within its respective plan area. The telephone number consists of a central office code and a four-digit station number. The combination of a code and the telephone number serves as a destination routing address in the public switched telephone network. For international call routing, the NANP has been assigned the calling code 1 by the International Telecommunications Union. The North American Numbering Plan conforms with ITU Recommendation E.164, from its beginnings in 1876 and throughout the first part of the 20th century, the Bell System grew from essentially local or regional telephone systems. These systems expanded by growing their subscriber bases, as well as increasing their service areas by implementing additional local exchanges that were interconnected with tie trunks and it was the responsibility of each local administration to design telephone numbering plans that accommodated the local requirements and growth. As a result, the Bell System as a developed into an unorganized system of many differing local numbering systems. The diversity impeded the efficient operation and interconnection of exchanges into a system for long-distance telephone communication. The new numbering plan was accepted in October 1947, dividing most of North America into 86 Numbering Plan Areas. Each NPA was assigned a Numbering Plan Area code, often abbreviated as area code and these codes were first used by long-distance operators to establish long-distance calls between toll offices. The first customer-dialed direct call using area codes was made on November 10,1951, from Englewood, New Jersey, to Alameda, California. Direct distance dialing was introduced across the country and by the early 1960s most areas of the Bell System had been converted and it was commonplace in cities. In the following decades, the system expanded to all of the United States and its territories, Canada, Bermuda. By 1967,129 area codes had been assigned, mexican participation was planned, but implementation stopped after two area codes had been assigned and Mexico opted for an international numbering format, using country code 52
12.
Area codes 408 and 669
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Area code 408 is a California telephone area code that was split from area code 415 as a flash-cut in 1959. Area code 669 is an overlay of 408 that became effective on November 20,2012. It covers most of Santa Clara County and Northern Santa Cruz County and includes Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino, and San Jose. On July 11,1998, it was again, with area code 831 having been created for the counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey. Despite this split, the 408 area code is used in northern Santa Cruz County. On November 20,2012, numbers in a new area code 669 began to be assigned to new customers. Los Gatos is one of three cities in Santa Clara County that was not served by the Bell System, Gilroy and Morgan Hill were also outside the Regional Bell Operating Company service area. These communities were served by what was referred to, in Bell System circles, peck, the Los Gatos Telephone Company was the first company to offer telephone service in town. Later, the Western California Telephone Company provided service to Los Gatos and to Novato, Morgan Hill, in the 1970s, the utility was acquired by General Telephone and Electronics, which changed its name to GTE, and merged with Bell Atlantic in 2000 to become Verizon Communications. Verizon still serves these four areas, Los Gatos is served by three central offices. Historically, these were called the Six Office, the Four Office, the first two of these designations come from the historic exchange names when the town converted from manual to dial service. Phone numbers in two offices were ELgato-6 and ELgato-4 numbers, respectively As the area migrated to seven-digit numbers. In their earlier life, all numbers for the segment of town served by each office had the prefix or office code related to that office. As the tapes were processed, the charges found their way to subscribers bills, the Mountain Office served the Summit Road community and areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains west of town. Although the office code or prefix for service from this switch was ELgato-3, during the 1970s and early 1980s, the area was served by Automatic Electric step-by-step electromechanical switching equipment. The step office was a headache, it being in a rural area made the problem more difficult. Users noticed crosstalk, and dial pulsing was audible during at least some of their calls, outside the plant in the mountain area was subject to a variety of tough environmental factors, including long loop lengths and the high humidity of the redwood forest. The area is now served by remote equipment on Summit Road connected to the office on Los Gatos Boulevard
13.
Geographic Names Information System
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It is a type of gazetteer. GNIS was developed by the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with the United States Board on Geographic Names to promote the standardization of feature names, the database is part of a system that includes topographic map names and bibliographic references. The names of books and historic maps that confirm the feature or place name are cited, variant names, alternatives to official federal names for a feature, are also recorded. Each feature receives a permanent, unique feature record identifier, sometimes called the GNIS identifier, the database never removes an entry, except in cases of obvious duplication. The GNIS accepts proposals for new or changed names for U. S. geographical features, the general public can make proposals at the GNIS web site and can review the justifications and supporters of the proposals. The Bureau of the Census defines Census Designated Places as a subset of locations in the National Geographic Names Database, U. S. Postal Service Publication 28 gives standards for addressing mail. In this publication, the postal service defines two-letter state abbreviations, street identifiers such as boulevard and street, department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey, National Mapping Division, Digital Gazeteer, Users Manual. Least Heat Moon, William, Blue Highways, A Journey Into America, standard was withdrawn in September 2008, See Federal Register Notice, Vol.73, No. 170, page 51276 Report, Principles, Policies, and Procedures, Domestic Geographic Names, U. S. Postal Service Publication 28, November 2000. Board on Geographic Names website Geographic Names Information System Proposals from the general public Meeting minutes
14.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
15.
United States Census Bureau
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The United States Census Bureau is a principal agency of the U. S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureaus primary mission is conducting the U. S. Census every ten years, in addition to the decennial census, the Census Bureau continually conducts dozens of other censuses and surveys, including the American Community Survey, the U. S. Economic Census, and the Current Population Survey, furthermore, economic and foreign trade indicators released by the federal government typically contain data produced by the Census Bureau. The Bureaus various censuses and surveys help allocate over $400 billion in federal funds every year and help states, local communities, the Census Bureau is part of the U. S. Department of Commerce and its director is appointed by the President of the United States. The Census Bureau now conducts a population count every 10 years in years ending with a 0. Between censuses, the Census Bureau makes population estimates and projections, the Census Bureau is mandated with fulfilling these obligations, the collecting of statistics about the nation, its people, and economy. The Census Bureaus legal authority is codified in Title 13 of the United States Code, the Census Bureau also conducts surveys on behalf of various federal government and local government agencies on topics such as employment, crime, health, consumer expenditures, and housing. Within the bureau, these are known as surveys and are conducted perpetually between and during decennial population counts. The Census Bureau also conducts surveys of manufacturing, retail, service. Between 1790 and 1840, the census was taken by marshals of the judicial districts, the Census Act of 1840 established a central office which became known as the Census Office. Several acts followed that revised and authorized new censuses, typically at the 10-year intervals, in 1902, the temporary Census Office was moved under the Department of Interior, and in 1903 it was renamed the Census Bureau under the new Department of Commerce and Labor. The department was intended to consolidate overlapping statistical agencies, but Census Bureau officials were hindered by their role in the department. An act in 1920 changed the date and authorized manufacturing censuses every 2 years, in 1929, a bill was passed mandating the House of Representatives be reapportioned based on the results of the 1930 Census. In 1954, various acts were codified into Title 13 of the US Code, by law, the Census Bureau must count everyone and submit state population totals to the U. S. President by December 31 of any year ending in a zero. States within the Union receive the results in the spring of the following year, the United States Census Bureau defines four statistical regions, with nine divisions. The Census Bureau regions are widely used. for data collection, the Census Bureau definition is pervasive. Title 13 of the U. S. Code establishes penalties for the disclosure of this information, all Census employees must sign an affidavit of non-disclosure prior to employment. The Bureau cannot share responses, addresses or personal information with anyone including United States or foreign government, only after 72 years does the information collected become available to other agencies or the general public
16.
San Francisco Bay Area
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The San Francisco Bay Area is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco. The Bay Areas nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California, the fifth-largest in the United States, the Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 Companies in the United States, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The eastern side of the bay, consisting of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, is known locally as the East Bay, the inner East Bay is more densely populated, with generally older buildings, and a more ethnically diverse population. The word Lamorinda was coined by combining the names of the cities it includes, Lafayette, Moraga, walnut Creek is situated east of Lamorinda and north of the San Ramon Valley and, together with Concord, Martinez, and Pleasant Hill comprises Central Contra Costa County. The cities of Antioch, Pittsburg, Brentwood, Oakley and the areas surrounding them comprise East Contra Costa County. The Tri-Valley consists of the Amador, the Livermore, and the San Ramon Valleys, dublin and Pleasanton comprise the Amador Valley, Livermore lies in the Livermore Valley, and the San Ramon Valley consists of Alamo, Danville, Diablo and its namesake, San Ramon. The outer East Bay is connected to the inner East Bay by BART, Interstate 580 to the south, and State Routes State Route 4 to the north, the outer East Bays infrastructure was mostly built up after World War II. This area remains largely white demographically, although the Hispanic and Filipino populations have grown significantly over the past 2–3 decades, the region north of the Golden Gate Bridge is known locally as the North Bay. This area encompasses Marin County, Sonoma County, Napa County, the city of Fairfield, being part of Solano County, is often considered the easternmost city of the North Bay. With few exceptions, this region is affluent, Marin County is ranked as the wealthiest in the state. The North Bay is relatively rural compared to the remainder of the Bay Area, with areas of undeveloped open space, farmland. Santa Rosa in Sonoma County is the North Bays largest city, with a population of 167,815 and a Metropolitan Statistical Area population of 466,891, making it the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area. The North Bay is the section of the Bay Area that is not currently served by a commuter rail service. The area from San Francisco to the Silicon Valley, geographically part of the San Francisco Peninsula, is known locally as The Peninsula, many of these families are of foreign background and have significantly contributed to the diversity of the area. Whereas the term peninsula technically refers to the entire geographical San Franciscan Peninsula, in local terms, San Francisco is surrounded by water on three sides, the north, east, and west. The city squeezes roughly 870,000 people in under 47 square miles, on any given day, there can be as many as 1 million people in the city because of the commuting population and tourism
17.
San Jose, California
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San Jose, officially the City of San José, is the economic, cultural, and political center of Silicon Valley and the largest city in Northern California. With an estimated 2015 population of 1,026,908, it is the third most populous city in California and the tenth most populous in United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley, on the shore of San Francisco Bay. San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County, the most affluent county in California. San Jose is the largest city in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 8.7 million people respectively. Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was inhabited by the Ohlone people, San Jose was founded on November 29,1777, as the Pueblo of San José de Guadalupe, the first civilian town founded in Spanish Alta California. When California gained statehood in 1850, San Jose became the states first capital, following World War II, San Jose experienced an economic boom, with a rapid population growth and aggressive annexation of nearby cities and communities carried out in the 1950s and 60s. The rapid growth of the high-technology and electronics industries further accelerated the transition from a center to an urbanized metropolitan area. Results of the 1990 U. S. Census indicated that San Jose had officially surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California, by the 1990s, San Jose and the rest of Silicon Valley had become the global center for the high tech and internet industries. San Jose is considered to be a city, notable for its affluence. San Joses location within the high tech industry, as a cultural, political. San Jose is one of the wealthiest major cities in the United States and the world, and has the third highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institute. Major global tech companies including Cisco Systems, eBay, Adobe Systems, PayPal, Brocade, Samsung, Acer, Prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by several groups of Ohlone Native Americans. The first lasting European presence began with a series of Franciscan missions established from 1769 by Junípero Serra, San Jose came under Mexican rule in 1821 after Mexico broke with the Spanish crown. It then became part of the United States, after it capitulated in 1846, on March 27,1850, San Jose became the second incorporated city in the state, with Josiah Belden its first mayor. San Jose was Californias first state capital, and hosted the first, today the Circle of Palms Plaza in downtown is the historical marker for the first state capital. The city was a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, in the period 1900 through 1910, San Jose served as a center for pioneering invention, innovation, and impact in both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air flight. These activities were led principally by John Montgomery and his peers, the City of San Jose has established Montgomery Park, a Monument at San Felipe and Yerba Buena Roads, and John J. Montgomery Elementary School in his honor
18.
Santa Cruz Mountains
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The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and northern California, United States. The range passes through San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, the highest point in the range is Loma Prieta Peak 3,786 feet, near which is the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Other major peaks include Mount Umunhum 3,486 feet, Mount Bielawski 3,231 feet, El Sombroso 2,999 feet, Eagle Rock 2,488 feet, Black Mountain 2,800 feet, and Sierra Morena 2,417 feet. The San Andreas Fault runs along or near the line throughout the range. The east side of the mountains drops abruptly towards this fault line especially near Woodside, for much of the length of the range on the San Francisco Peninsula, State Route 35 runs along its ridge, and is known as Skyline Boulevard. The Santa Cruz Mountains have been a legally defined American Viticultural Area since 1981, wine has been produced here since at least the 1840s. The Santa Cruz Mountain AVA has emerged as premier producer of top wines, there are over 30 wineries located in this area. The Santa Cruz Mountains are largely the result of uplift caused by a leftward bend of the San Andreas Fault. The Salinian Block basement rocks are overlain by Miocene rock strata of the Lompico Sandstone, the Vaqueros Sandstone, the Santa Cruz Mountains are a region of large biological diversity, encompassing cool, moist coastal ecosystems as well as warm, dry chaparral. Much of the area in the Santa Cruz mountains is considered temperate rainforest, there do exist several small and isolated stands of old-growth forest, most notably at Henry Cowell Redwoods and Portola Redwoods State Parks and one sizeable old-growth redwood forest at Big Basin. At higher elevations and on sunny south slopes a more drought-resistant chaparral vegetation dominates, manzanita, California scrub oak, chamise, spring wildflowers are also widespread throughout the range. The area welcomes a number of species of birds. Black-tailed deer, a subspecies of deer are common, as are western gray squirrels, chipmunks. Periodic sightings of black bears indicate they frequent the mountains or wander north from Big Sur, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, cougars and human-introduced Virginia opossums also inhabit the region but are rarely seen. Rattlesnakes are also inhabitants, mostly in the high, dry chaparral, the Santa Cruz Mountains have a Mediterranean type climate typical of most of California, with the majority of the annual precipitation falling between November and April. According to the National Weather Service, this more than 50 inches annually. Due to a shadow effect, precipitation on the eastern side of the range is significantly less. Snow falls a few times a year on the highest ridges, no temperature records were kept at these stations
19.
Silicon Valley
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Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the northern part of the U. S. state of California. The valley in its name refers to the Santa Clara Valley in Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and surrounding cities and towns, where the region has been traditionally centered. The region has expanded to include the half of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County. It was in the Valley that the integrated circuit, the microprocessor. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of an information technology workers. The term is now used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The first published use of Silicon Valley is credited to Don Hoefler, hostler used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News. The series, entitled Silicon Valley in the USA, began in the papers January 11,1971, the term gained widespread use in the early 1980s, at the time of the introduction of the IBM PC and numerous related hardware and software products to the consumer market. The silicon part of the name refers to the concentration of companies involved in the making of semiconductors. These firms slowly replaced the orchards and the fruits which gave the area its initial nickname — the Valley of Hearts Delight, Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valleys early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success, the ship had been outfitted with a wireless telegraph transmitter by a local newspaper, so that they could prepare a celebration on the return of the American sailors. Local historian Clyde Arbuckle states in Clyde Arbuckles History of San Jose that California first heard the click of a key on September 11,1853. It marked completion of an enterprise begun by a couple of San Francisco Merchants Exchange members named George Sweeney and it was known as the Inner Station, the second, as the Outer Station. Both used their primitive mode of communication until Messrs, Sweeney and Baugh connected the Outer Station directly with the Merchantss Exchange by electric telegraph Wire. According to Arbuckle Sweeney and Baughs line was strictly an intra-city, San Francisco-based service, allen and C. Burnham led the way to build a line from San Francisco to Marysville via San Jose, Stockton, and Sacramento. Delays to construction occurred until September 1853, but, …San Jose became the first station on the line when the wire arrived here on October 15, the line was completed when Gambles northbound crew met a similar crew working southward from Marysville on October 24. The Bay Area had long been a site of United States Navy research. In 1909, Charles Herrold started the first radio station in the United States with regularly scheduled programming in San Jose
20.
High tech
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High technology, often abbreviated to high tech is technology that is at the cutting edge, the most advanced technology available. As of the onset of the 21st century, products considered high tech are often those that incorporate advanced computer electronics, the opposite of high tech is low technology, referring to simple, often traditional or mechanical technology, for example, a calculator is a low-tech calculating device. Perhaps the first occurrence of the phrase is in a 1958 The New York Times story advocating atomic energy for Europe, western Europe, with its dense population and its high technology. By 1969, Robert Metz was using it in a financial column, Metz used the term frequently thereafter, a few months later he was using it with a hyphen, saying that a fund holds computer peripheral. Business equipment, and high-technology stocks, and in a 1971 article in its first occurrence in the abbreviated form high tech, because the high-tech sector of the economy develops or uses the most advanced technology known, it is often seen as having the most potential for future growth. This perception has led to investment in high-tech sectors of the economy. High tech is often viewed as high risk, but offering the opportunity for high profits, like Big Science, high technology is an international phenomenon, spanning continents, epitomized by the worldwide communication of the Internet. There are several high technology definitions that can be found, moreover, there are many problems with identifying high technology. There are large diversity of definitions that are used, here is a short overview of a number of different techniques to define high technology. OECD has two different approaches, sector and product, the sector approach classifies industries according their technology intensity, product approach according to finished products. The OECD does not only take the manufacturing but also the rate of technology into account. The OECDs classification is as follows, Furthermore, OECD’s product-based classification supports the technology intensity approach and it can be concluded that companies in a high-tech industry do not necessarily produce high-tech products and vice versa. When speaking of a society in a non-literal way, it is usually in reference to an overall society based in high-tech. However, this is something generally unattainable by the definition comprising its scarcity among every technology available, one website, belonging to Carver Networks, owned by entrepreneur and founder Kimberly Carver, adopted the term as a legal name in June 2012. An organizations department dealing with the latest technology in their projects, may also be considered a high-tech microsociety within the organizations, students and faculty related with ENAEE or ABET accredited programs might be considered high-tech society members, regarding other traditional degrees. In industry, companies working in the edge may be considered high-tech societies along with its main competitors. Low technology Intermediate technology - sometimes used to technology between low and high technology Industrial design List of emerging technologies
21.
Netflix
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Netflix is an American entertainment company founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph on August 29,1997, in Scotts Valley, California. It specializes in and provides streaming media and video-on-demand online and DVD by mail, in 2013, Netflix expanded into film and television production, as well as online distribution. As of 2017 the company has its headquarters in Los Gatos, Netflixs initial business model included DVD sales and rental, although Hastings jettisoned DVD sales about a year after Netflixs founding to focus on the DVD rental by mail business. In 2007, Netflix expanded its business with the introduction of streaming media, while retaining the DVD, Netflix entered the content-production industry in 2013, debuting its first series, House of Cards. It has greatly expanded the production of film and television series since then, offering Netflix Original content through its online library of films. Netflix released an estimated 126 original series or films in 2016, in January 2017, Netflix reported having over 93 million subscribers worldwide, including more than 49 million in the United States. Netflix was founded on August 29,1997, in Scotts Valley, California, by Marc Randolph, Randolph worked as marketing director for Hastings company, Pure Atria Corporation. Randolph was a co-founder of MicroWarehouse, a mail order company. Hastings, a computer scientist and mathematician, sold Pure Atria to Rational Software Corporation in 1997 for $700 million in what was then the richest acquisition in Silicon Valley history. Hastings, Randolphs mother and Integrity QA founder Steve Kahn invested $2.5 million in cash for Netflix. Randolph admired the fledgling e-commerce company Amazon and wanted to find a category of portable items to sell over the internet using a similar model. He and Hastings considered and rejected VHS tapes as too expensive to stock and too delicate to ship. When they heard about DVDs, which were available in only a few markets in 1997, when the disc arrived intact, they decided to take on the $16 billion home video sales and rental industry. Netflix introduced the monthly subscription concept in September 1999, and then dropped the model in early 2000. Since that time, the company has built its reputation on the model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, shipping and handling fees. In 2000, Netflix offered to be acquired by Blockbuster for $50 million, Netflix initiated an initial public offering on May 29,2002, selling 5.5 million shares of common stock at the price of US$15.00 per share. On June 14,2002, the company sold an additional 825,000 shares of stock at the same price. After incurring substantial losses during its first few years, Netflix posted its first profit during fiscal year 2003, in 2005,35,000 different films were available, and Netflix shipped 1 million DVDs out every day
22.
Alta California
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Alta California, founded in 1769 by Gaspar de Portolà, was a polity of New Spain and after the Mexican War of Independence in 1822, a territory of Mexico. The region included all of the states of California, Nevada, and Utah. Large areas east of the Sierra Nevada and San Gabriel Mountains were claimed to be part of Alta California, to the southeast, beyond the deserts and the Colorado River, lay the Spanish settlements in Arizona. The areas formerly comprising Alta California were ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican–American War in 1848, two years later, California joined the union as the 31st state. Other parts of Alta California became all or part of the later U. S. states of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. The Spanish explored the area of Alta California by sea beginning in the 16th century. During the following two centuries there were plans to settle the area, none of which were effectively carried out. Ultimately, New Spain did not have the resources nor population to settle such a far northern outpost. To ascertain the Russian threat a number of Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest were launched, the Spanish Crown funded the construction and subsidized the operation of the missions, with the goal that the relocation, conversion and enforced labor of Native people would bolster Spanish rule. The first Alta California mission and presidio were established by the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra, the following year,1770, the second mission and presidio were founded in Monterey. In 1773 a boundary between the Baja California missions and the Franciscan missions of Alta California was set by Francisco Palóu, the missionary effort coincided with the construction of presidios and pueblos, which were to be manned and populated by Hispanic people. The first pueblo founded was San José in 1777, followed by Los Ángeles in 1781, by law, mission land and property were to pass to the indigenous population after a period of about ten years, when the natives would become Spanish subjects. In the interim period, the Franciscans were to act as mission administrators who held the land in trust for the Native residents, the transfer of property never occurred under the Franciscans. As the number of Spanish settlers grew in Alta California, the boundaries, conflicts between the Crown and the Church and between Natives and settlers arose. State and ecclesiastical bureaucrats debated over authority of the missions and they advocated that the Natives owned property and had the right to defend it. Governor Diego de Borica is credited with defining Alta and Baja Californias official borders, Mexico won independence in 1822, and Alta California became a territory of Mexico. The Spanish and later Mexican governments rewarded retired soldados de cuera with large grants, known as ranchos, for the raising of cattle. Hides and tallow from the livestock were the primary exports of California until the mid-19th century, the construction, ranching and domestic work on these vast estates was primarily done by Native Americans, who had learned to speak Spanish and ride horses
23.
Cougar
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The cougar, also commonly known as the mountain lion, puma, panther, or catamount, is a large felid of the subfamily Felinae native to the Americas. Its range, from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes of South America, is the greatest of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, an adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in most American habitat types. It is the second-heaviest cat in the New World, after the jaguar, secretive and largely solitary by nature, the cougar is properly considered both nocturnal and crepuscular, although there are daytime sightings. The cougar is more related to smaller felines, including the domestic cat, than to any species of subfamily Pantherinae. The cougar is a predator and pursues a wide variety of prey. Primary food sources are ungulates, particularly deer, but also livestock and it also hunts species as small as insects and rodents. This cat prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking, the cougar is territorial and survives at low population densities. Individual territory sizes depend on terrain, vegetation, and abundance of prey, while large, it is not always the apex predator in its range, yielding to the jaguar, gray wolf, American black bear, and grizzly bear. It is reclusive and mostly avoids people, fatal attacks on humans are rare, but have recently been increasing in North America as more people enter their territories. Intensive hunting following European colonization of the Americas and the human development of cougar habitat has caused populations to drop in most parts of its historical range. In particular, the cougar was extirpated in eastern North America in the beginning of the 20th century, reports of eastern cougars still surface, although it was declared extirpated in 2011. With its vast range across the length of the Americas, P. concolor has dozens of names and various references in the mythology of the indigenous Americans and in contemporary culture. Currently, it is referred to as puma by most scientists, Mountain lion was a term first used in writing in 1858 from the diary of George A. Jackson of Colorado. Other names include catamount, mountain screamer, and painter, lexicographers regard painter as a primarily upper-Southern US regional variant on panther. The word panther is used to specifically designate the black panther, a melanistic jaguar or leopard, and the Florida panther. P. concolor holds the Guinness record for the animal with the greatest number of names, Cougar may be borrowed from the archaic Portuguese çuçuarana, the term was originally derived from the Tupi language susuarana, meaning similar to deer. A current form in Brazil is suçuarana and it may also be borrowed from the Guaraní language term guaçu ara or guazu ara. Less common Portuguese terms are onça-parda or leão-baio, or unusually non-native puma or leão-da-montanha, people in rural regions often refer to both the cougar and the jaguar as simply gata, and outside of the Amazon, both are colloquially referred to as simply onça by many people
24.
Bobcat
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The bobcat is a North American cat that appeared during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago. Containing 12 recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to central Mexico, the bobcat is an adaptable predator that inhabits wooded areas, as well as semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland environments. It remains in some of its range, but populations are vulnerable to local extinction by coyotes. With a gray to brown coat, whiskered face, and black-tufted ears and it is smaller on average than the Canada lynx, with which it shares parts of its range, but is about twice as large as the domestic cat. It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby tail, though the bobcat prefers rabbits and hares, it hunts insects, chickens, geese and other birds, small rodents, and deer. Prey selection depends on location and habitat, season, and abundance, like most cats, the bobcat is territorial and largely solitary, although with some overlap in home ranges. It uses several methods to mark its boundaries, including claw marks. The bobcat breeds from winter into spring and has a period of about two months. Although bobcats have been hunted extensively by humans, both for sport and fur, their population has proven resilient though declining in some areas, the elusive predator features in Native American mythology and the folklore of European settlers. The Lynx genus is now accepted, and the bobcat is listed as Lynx rufus in modern taxonomic sources. Johnson et al. reported Lynx shared a clade with the puma, leopard cat, the first wave moved into the southern portion of North America, which was soon cut off from the north by glaciers. This population evolved into modern bobcats around 20,000 years ago, a second population arrived from Asia and settled in the north, developing into the modern Canada lynx. Hybridization between the bobcat and the Canada lynx may sometimes occur, the bobcat resembles other species of the Lynx genus, but is on average the smallest of the four. Its coat is variable, though generally tan to grayish-brown, with streaks on the body and dark bars on the forelegs. Its spotted patterning acts as camouflage, the ears are black-tipped and pointed, with short, black tufts. Generally, a color is seen on the lips, chin. Bobcats in the regions of the southwest have the lightest-colored coats, while those in the northern. Kittens are born well-furred and already have their spots, a few melanistic bobcats have been sighted and captured in Florida
25.
Endemism
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The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, native. Endēmos is formed of en meaning in, and dēmos meaning the people, the term, precinctive, has been suggested by some scientists, and was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of endemism, precinction was perhaps first used by Frank and McCoy. That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks, physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa. The glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska, political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or actively hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism, paleoendemism and neoendemism, paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization. Endemics can easily become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, there were millions of both Bermuda petrels and Bermuda cedars in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct, cedars, already ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare, as are species endemic to Bermuda
26.
Forbes Mill
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Forbes Mill is a now-defunct flour mill originally built in 1854 located in Los Gatos, California, which served as the History Museum of Los Gatos after having been saved from destruction in 1982. The museum closed in 2014, and its collections are now part of New Museum Los Gatos, the building is currently owned by the City. The mill is the first commercial building to be established in the city of Los Gatos, the existing two-story building is actually a storage annex, which was added to the original four-story stone mill building in the fall of 1880. Forbes Mill was built as the Santa Rosa Flour Mill by James Alexander Forbes and he came to California in about 1831 and served as Vice-Consul in San Francisco for the British government. The California Gold Rush gave James the idea to put up a flour mill there were none in California at the time. He found a location on Los Gatos Creek that he thought would provide sufficient water power, in 1850, he purchased 2,000 acres in the area of the Los Gatos Creek and proceeded to build a mill. In 1853, he raised the money for the construction, borrowing $130,000 from two lenders, and in 1854, the mill was built, however, the milling machinery had to be shipped from New York around Cape Horn. Once it arrived, Forbes had trouble installing it, but eventually, the opening of Forbes Mill was an auspicious moment in the history of the Santa Clara Valley. Built on the site of a Mexican ranch, the mill represented the shift of ownership from the Californio Dons to the new settlers arriving after the Mexican-American War. The first three stories of the mill were built of stone quarried from the Los Gatos Canyon, the top story was wood, cut from trees in the mountains above Los Gatos. In 1880, an annex was attached to the wall of the mill building. The town that grew around this building was first called Forbes Mill, then Forbestown, unfortunately, Forbes knew nothing about flour milling. He had built a dam 0.5 miles upstream on the creek, however, a 20-foot high water drop proved to be inefficient, so he had to keep raising the water level. Not only that, but there was only enough water in the creek to power the mill during the winter months. Furthermore, by the time the mill was in operation, competing mills had been constructed, besides his outstanding loans, Forbes had also lost a lot of money speculating on wheat and flour and was forced into bankruptcy. He eventually defaulted on his loans, and the mill and land were sold in 1857 to Gustave Touchard, Forbes continued to operate the mill for Touchard but ultimately was evicted from the property in 1858. Touchard hired others to run the mill, but they did not have success with it either. In 1866, he sold the mill to William H. Rogers and he had sold his interest in his company in 1860 and served as postmaster of Placerville and sheriff of El Dorado County until his purchase of now-named Clifton Mill
27.
Apricot
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An apricot is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus Prunus. The apricot is a tree, 8–12 m tall, with a trunk up to 40 cm in diameter. The leaves are ovate, 5–9 cm long and 4–8 cm wide, with a base, a pointed tip. The flowers are 2–4.5 cm in diameter, with five white to pinkish petals, the flesh is usually firm and not very juicy. Its taste can range from sweet to tart, the single seed is enclosed in a hard, stony shell, often called a stone, with a grainy, smooth texture except for three ridges running down one side. The origin of the apricot is disputed and it was known in Armenia during ancient times, and has been cultivated there for so long that it is often thought to have originated there. Its scientific name Prunus armeniaca derives from that assumption, for example, the Belgian arborist baron de Poerderlé, writing in the 1770s, asserted, Cet arbre tire son nom de lArménie, province dAsie, doù il est originaire et doù il fut porté en Europe. An archaeological excavation at Garni in Armenia found apricot seeds in an Eneolithic-era site, other sources say that the apricot was first cultivated in India in about 3000 BC. Subsequent sources were often confused about the origin of the species, john Claudius Loudon believed it had a wide native range including Armenia, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, China, and Japan. Apricots have been cultivated in Persia since antiquity, and dried ones were an important commodity on Persian trade routes, apricots remain an important fruit in modern-day Iran, where they are known under the common name of zard-ālū. Egyptians usually dry apricots, add sweetener, and then use them to make a drink called amar al-dīn, in the 17th century, English settlers brought the apricot to the English colonies in the New World. Most of modern American production of apricots comes from the seedlings carried to the west coast by Spanish missionaries, almost all U. S. commercial production is in California, with some in Washington and Utah. In states other than South Australia, apricots are still grown, particularly in Tasmania and western Victoria and southwest New South Wales, today, apricot cultivation has spread to all parts of the globe with climates that support it. Although the apricot is native to a climate region with cold winters. A dry climate is good for fruit maturation, the tree is slightly more cold-hardy than the peach, tolerating winter temperatures as cold as −30 °C or lower if healthy. A limiting factor in culture is spring frosts, They tend to flower very early. Furthermore, the trees are sensitive to changes during the winter season. In China, winters can be cold, but temperatures tend to be more stable than in Europe and especially North America
28.
Grape
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A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus Vitis. Grapes can be fresh as table grapes or they can be used for making wine, jam, juice, jelly, grape seed extract, raisins, vinegar. Grapes are a type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of the grape began 6, 000–8,000 years ago in the Near East. Yeast, one of the earliest domesticated microorganisms, occurs naturally on the skins of grapes, the earliest archeological evidence for a dominant position of wine-making in human culture dates from 8,000 years ago in Georgia. The oldest known winery was found in Armenia, dating to around 4000 BC, by the 9th century AD the city of Shiraz was known to produce some of the finest wines in the Middle East. Thus it has proposed that Syrah red wine is named after Shiraz. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics record the cultivation of grapes, and history attests to the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians. The growing of grapes would later spread to regions in Europe, as well as North Africa. Vitis vinifera cultivars were imported for that purpose, Grapes are a type of fruit that grow in clusters of 15 to 300, and can be crimson, black, dark blue, yellow, green, orange, and pink. White grapes are actually green in color, and are derived from the purple grape. Mutations in two genes of white grapes turn off production of anthocyanins, which are responsible for the color of purple grapes. Anthocyanins and other pigment chemicals of the family of polyphenols in purple grapes are responsible for the varying shades of purple in red wines. Grapes are typically an ellipsoid shape resembling a prolate spheroid, most grapes come from cultivars of Vitis vinifera, the European grapevine native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Vitis riparia, a vine of North America, is sometimes used for winemaking. It is native to the entire Eastern U. S. Vitis rotundifolia, the muscadines, used for jams and wine, are native to the Southeastern United States from Delaware to the Gulf of Mexico. Vitis amurensis is the most important Asian species, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization,75,866 square kilometers of the world are dedicated to grapes. Approximately 71% of world production is used for wine, 27% as fresh fruit
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Prune
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A prune is a dried plum of any cultivar, mostly Prunus domestica or European Plum. The use of the term for fresh fruit is obsolete except when applied to varieties grown for drying, most prunes are freestone cultivars, whereas most other plums grown for fresh consumption are clingstone. More than 1,000 plum cultivars are grown for drying, the main cultivar grown in the United States is the Improved French prune. Other varieties include Sutter, Tulare Giant, Moyer, Imperial, Italian, fresh prunes reach the market earlier than fresh plums and are usually smaller in size. In 2001, plum growers in the United States were authorised by the government to call prunes dried plums, prunes are used in cooking both sweet and savory dishes. Stewed prunes, a compote, are a dessert, prunes are a frequent ingredient in North African tagines. Perhaps the best-known gastronomic prunes are those of Agen, prunes have also been included in other holiday dishes, such as stuffing, cake, and to make sugar plums. Prune-filled Danish pastries are popular primarily in New York and other parts of the U. S, Prune ice cream is popular in the Dominican Republic. Chocolate-covered prunes are a traditional confectionery in Eastern Europe, prunes are also used to make juice and kompot, a traditional drink in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. In the Cotswolds, prunes were fermented to form a cider-like drink called jerkum, due to the high sugar content of prunes, it was considered particularly potent as compared to contemporary ciders and beers. Prunes and their juice contain mild laxatives including phenolic compounds and sorbitol, prunes also have a high antioxidant content. Prunes have been found to contain surprising amounts of acrylamide, a known neurotoxin, acrylamide does not occur naturally in foods but is formed during the cooking process at temperatures in excess of 100 °C. Although the common drying mechanism of prunes does not involve high temperatures, for effects on fertility, the level is 2,000 times higher than the average intake. From this, they concluded acrylamide levels in food were safe in terms of neuropathy, zwetschge List of dried foods List of plum dishes 11. Http, //cheatdeath. news/prunes-healthy-diet/ INC, International Nut and Dried Fruit Council Foundation California Prune Board
30.
Yehudi Menuhin
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Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM KBE was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Belorussian Jews. Through his father Moshe, a rabbinical student and anti-Zionist. In late 1919 Moshe and his wife Marutha became American citizens, yehudis sisters were concert pianist and human rights activist Hephzibah, and pianist, painter and poet Yaltah. Menuhins first violin instruction was at age four by Sigmund Anker, his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to teach him, Menuhin displayed exceptional talent at an early age. His first public appearance, when only seven, was as solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923, Persinger then agreed to teach him, and accompanied him on the piano for his first few solo recordings in 1928–29. When the Menuhins went to Paris, Persinger suggested Yehudi go to his old teacher, Belgian virtuoso and he did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but disliked his teaching method and his advanced age. Instead, he went to the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, under whose tutelage he made recordings with several piano accompanists and he was also a student of Adolf Busch. In 1929 he played in Berlin, under Bruno Walters baton, according to Henry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote, Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to retire in this way, I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice. His first concerto recording was made in 1931, Bruchs G minor, under Sir Landon Ronald in London, between 1934 and 1936, he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bachs sonatas and partitas for solo violin, although his Sonata No. 2, in A minor, was not released until all six were transferred to CD and he and Louis Kentner gave the first performance of William Waltons Violin Sonata, in Zürich on 30 September 1949. He continued performing, and conducting, to an advanced age, Menuhin credited German philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life. Menuhin made Lysy his only student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe. The young protégé later established the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany, in 1957, he founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In 1962, he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke dAbernon and he also established the music program at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, sometime around then. In 1965 he received a knighthood from the British monarchy
31.
Joan Fontaine
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Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland known by the stage name Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress, best known for her starring roles in classic Hollywood films. Fontaine appeared in over 45 feature films in a career spanned five decades. Born in Tokyo to British parents, Fontaine moved with her mother and sister, actress Olivia de Havilland and she was an anaemic child and her childhood was subsequently marred by poor health, which did, however, improve by her teen years. After living and attending school in Japan for a short while, she began her career in 1935. After some minor roles, she received her first starring role in The Man Who Found Himself, however, she failed to make a significant impression, a third Oscar nomination came with the film The Constant Nymph. She appeared mostly in films through the 1940s- including the film Letter from an Unknown Woman. By the next decade, her career began to decline and she moved into stage and she appeared in fewer films into the 1960s, her final feature film being The Witches. Fontaine was active in radio, television, and the stage for most of her middle to later life and she released an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, she continued to act until her last performance in 1994. Fontaine lived in Carmel Highlands, California, where she owned a home and she died there of natural causes at the age of 96 in 2013. Having won an Academy Award for her role in Suspicion, Fontaine is the actor to have won an Academy Award for acting in a Hitchcock film. Furthermore, her sister and she remain the only siblings to have won major acting Academy Awards, married four times, she had one child by birth and one child by adoption, from whom she was later estranged. Her relationship with her sister was long known to be acrimonious, Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan, to English parents. Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland, was educated at the University of Cambridge and served as an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo before becoming a patent attorney. Her mother, Lilian Augusta de Havilland Fontaine, was educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and her mother returned to work with the stage name Lillian Fontaine after her daughters achieved prominence in the 1940s. Joans paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, an aircraft known for the De Havilland Mosquito. Her paternal grandfather, the Reverend Charles Richard de Havilland, was from a family from Guernsey, the family settled in Saratoga, California, and Fontaines health improved dramatically. She was educated at nearby Los Gatos High School, and was soon taking diction lessons alongside her elder sister, when she was 16 years old, de Havilland returned to Japan to live with her father. There she attended the Tokyo School for Foreign Children, graduating in 1935, Fontaine made her stage debut in the West Coast production of Call It a Day and was soon signed to an RKO contract
32.
Olivia de Havilland
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Olivia Mary de Havilland is a retired American actress whose career spanned from 1935 to 1990. She appeared in 49 feature films, and was one of the movie stars during the golden age of Classical Hollywood. Born in Tokyo to British parents, de Havilland and her younger sister Joan moved to California in 1919 and they were brought up by their mother Lilian, a former stage actress who taught them dramatic art, music, and elocution. De Havilland made her debut in amateur theatre in Alice in Wonderland. Olivia de Havilland made her debut in Reinhardts A Midsummer Nights Dream in 1935. She began her career playing demure ingénues opposite popular leading men, including Errol Flynn and they became one of Hollywoods most popular romantic on-screen pairings. She achieved her initial popularity in romantic films, such as The Great Garrick. Her natural beauty and refined acting style made her particularly effective in historical dramas, such as Anthony Adverse. In her later career, she was most successful in films, such as Light in the Piazza. In addition to her career, de Havilland continued her work in the theatre. For her contributions to the picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After romantic relationships with Howard Hughes, James Stewart, and John Huston, de Havilland married author Marcus Goodrich, with whom she had a son, Benjamin. Following her divorce from Goodrich in 1953, she moved to Paris and married Pierre Galante, in 1962, she published Every Frenchman Has One, an account of her life in France. De Havilland and Joan Fontaine are the siblings to have won Academy Awards in a lead acting category. A lifelong rivalry between the two resulted in an estrangement that lasted over three decades. She has lived in Paris since 1956, and celebrated her 100th birthday on July 1,2016, De Havilland was born on July 1,1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to English parents. Her father, Walter de Havilland, served as an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo before becoming a patent attorney and her mother, Lilian Fontaine, was educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a stage actress. Lilian also sang with the Master of the Kings Music, Sir Walter Parratt, Olivias paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, an aircraft designer and founder of the de Havilland aircraft company
33.
Los Gatos High School
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Los Gatos High School is a high school in Los Gatos, California, a small high income town near San Jose in the Silicon Valley. Los Gatos High School was founded in 1908 and is part of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District and is home to a number of Silicon Valley Executives teenagers. During the late 1880s up until the establishment of Los Gatos High School, high school age students were taught at Los Gatos Central School, a grammar school which was established in 1886. While the school is not labeled a feeder school or preparatory, in the 1970s, Los Gatos High School was listed among the top thirty high schools in the State of California. In a 2013 study Los Gatos High School ranked 86th in California, the school enrolls approximately 1,700 students and employs about 100 teachers. In 2004, 94% of graduating seniors went on to attend college, Los Gatos High School is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and has regularly received six-year accreditations, the highest possible. The school has been recognized twice as a National School for Excellence, LGHS is also notable for its sports programs and exceptional athletes, making it unique among academically distinguished public schools in the area. The Los Gatos Wildcats are part of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League of the CIF Central Coast Section. The school landscape is notable for its spacious extensive front lawn and neoclassical main building, which was designed by W. H. Weeks and his Greek Revival style was famous in the 1920s and 1930s. The main building was dedicated on January 17,1925, built using a $250,000 bond measure passed in 1923. Other buildings and various additions to the building were built in the period between the dedication of the main building in 1925 and 1970. The school underwent no major construction from 1970 until 2001, when the school passed an $79 million bond measure in the town of Los Gatos to renovate the aging buildings. Since then, several new buildings have been constructed, and all of the old buildings have been renovated, both are on the grounds of Los Gatos High School but are available for equal use by both schools. Until 2006, when the Los Gatos High School football team played Saratoga, the title of home team was switched each year when the two schools played each other. The front façade of the school was shown on The Amanda Show starring Amanda Bynes and it was used in the shows soap opera spoof segment called Moodys Point. The front exterior of the school was used on Saved by the Bell. The school was used as a filming location for several scenes in the 1996 made-for-TV movie Lying Eyes. The school, its stadium and track, and nearby Santa Cruz Avenue were also used for filming an episode of the 1986 television series Starman, the movie was actually filmed in Goose Creek, South Carolina at Stratford High School
34.
The Grapes of Wrath
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The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other Okies, they seek jobs, land, dignity, the Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940, the narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison, where he had been imprisoned after being convicted of homicide. On his return to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, when they arrive at Toms childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, Graves tells them that the banks have evicted all the farmers, but he refuses to leave the area. The next morning, Tom and Casy go to Uncle Johns, consequently, the Joads have no option but to seek work in California, described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay. The Joads put everything they have into making the journey, although leaving Oklahoma would violate his parole, Tom decides it is worth the risk, and invites Casy to join him and his family. Traveling west on Route 66, the Joad family find the road crowded with other migrants, in makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some returning from California, and the group worries about lessening prospects. The family unit dwindles, too, Granpa dies along the road, and they bury him in a field, Granma dies close to the California state line, led by Ma, the remaining members realize they can only continue, as nothing is left for them in Oklahoma. Reaching California, they find the state oversupplied with labor, so wages are low, the big corporate farmers are in collusion, and smaller farmers suffer from collapsing prices. Nonetheless, as a Federal facility, the camp protects the migrants from harassment by California deputies, in response to the exploitation, Casy becomes a labor organizer and tries to recruit for a labor union. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers in an orchard, where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. When Tom Joad witnesses Casys fatal beating, he kills the attacker, the Joads later leave the orchard for a cotton farm, where Tom is at risk of being arrested for the homicide. Tom bids his farewell and promises to work for the oppressed. Rose of Sharons baby is stillborn, Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. With rain, the Joads dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground, in the final chapter of the book, the family takes shelter from the flood in an old barn. Inside, they find a boy and his father, who is dying of starvation
35.
Monte Sereno, California
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Monte Sereno is a city in Santa Clara County, California, USA. The population was 3,341 at the 2010 census, the city is located in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 10 miles southwest of San Jose, immediately northwest of Los Gatos, and southeast of Saratoga. The city is named for the 2, 580-foot El Sereno Mountain, the community is entirely residential, with no commercial zoning and 99% single-family housing, and is an upscale Silicon Valley bedroom community. Monte Sereno shares the 95030 ZIP code with the town of Los Gatos, many municipal services are provided under contract by Los Gatos. The Monte Sereno area was part of the 1839 Alta California land grant of Rancho Rinconada de Los Gatos, the city incorporated on May 14,1957, to protect its semi-rural atmosphere. Its first Mayor was Retired Vice Admiral and former U. S, director of Naval Intelligence, Thomas B. John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men in a home at 16250 Greenwood Lane in what is now Monte Sereno. Beat generation figure Neal Cassady lived in a Monte Sereno ranch house in the 1950s, painter Thomas Kinkade lived in Monte Sereno in the later years of his life, which is also where he died. Monte Sereno is located at 37°14′17″N 121°59′22″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.6 square miles, all of it land. Saratoga-Los Gatos Road runs through the city, the El Sereno Open Space Preserve is immediately south of the city and covers the top and portions of the flanks of El Sereno mountain. The 2010 United States Census reported that Monte Sereno had a population of 3,341, the population density was 2,068.4 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Monte Sereno was 2,698 White,14 African American,12 Native American,464 Asian,0 Pacific Islander,28 from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 162 persons. The Census reported that 100% of the lived in households. There were 14 unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 8 same-sex married couples or partnerships,178 households were made up of individuals and 87 had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.76, There were 1,002 families, the average family size was 3.05. The median age was 48.3 years, for every 100 females there were 96.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.2 males, the medi There were 1,287 housing units at an average density of 796.8 per square mile, of which 1,090 were owner-occupied, and 121 were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1. 3%, the vacancy rate was 5. 4%
36.
Neal Cassady
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Neal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. He was prominently featured as himself in the original version of Jack Kerouacs novel On the Road. He also served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in the 1957 version of that book, in many of Kerouacs later books, Cassady is represented by the character Cody Pomeray. Cassady was born to Maude Jean and Neal Marshall Cassady in Salt Lake City and his mother died when he was 10, and he was raised by his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado. Cassady spent much of his youth living on the streets of skid row with his father or in reform school. As a youth, Cassady was repeatedly involved in petty crime and he was arrested for car theft when he was 14, for shoplifting and car theft when he was 15, and for car theft and fencing stolen property when he was 16. In 1941, the 15-year-old Cassady met Justin W. Brierly, Brierly was well known as a mentor of promising young men and was impressed by Cassadys intelligence. Over the next few years, Brierly took a role in Cassadys life. Brierly helped admit Cassady to East High School where he taught Cassady as a student, encouraged and supervised his reading, and found employment for him. Cassady continued his activities, however, and was repeatedly arrested from 1942 to 1944, on at least one of these occasions. In June 1944, Cassady was arrested for possession of stolen goods and he and Brierly actively exchanged letters during this period, even through Cassadys intermittent incarcerations, this correspondence represents Cassadys earliest surviving letters. Brierly, a homosexual, is also believed to have been responsible for Cassadys first homosexual experience. In October 1945, after being released from prison, Cassady married the 16-year-old LuAnne Henderson, in 1946, the couple traveled to New York City to visit their friend, Hal Chase, another protégé of Brierlys. It was while visiting Chase at Columbia University that Cassady met Jack Kerouac, although Cassady did not attend Columbia, he soon became friends with them and their acquaintances, some of whom later became members of the Beat Generation. While in New York, Cassady persuaded Kerouac to teach him to write fiction and his genius mind absorbed every book he could find, whether literature, philosophy or science. Jack had had an education, which Neal envied, but intellectually he was more than a match for Jack. Carolyn Robinson met Cassady in 1946, while she worked in Denver, Carolyn would leave the Beat group shortly after walking in on Neal, his wife LuAnne, and Allen Ginsberg in bed together. Five weeks after Carolyns departure, Neal got an annulment from LuAnne and married Carolyn, Carolyns book, Off the Road, Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg, details her marriage to Cassady and recalls him as, the archetype of the American Man
37.
Santa Clara Valley
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The Santa Clara Valley runs south-southeast from the southern end of San Francisco Bay in Northern California in the United States. The northern, urbanized end of the valley is part of a locally known as the South Bay and also part of the electronics, research. Most of the Santa Clara Valley is in Santa Clara County, including its county seat, the valley, named after the Spanish Mission Santa Clara, was for a time known as the Valley of Hearts Delight for its high concentration of orchards, flowering trees, and plants. Until the 1960s it was the largest fruit production and packing region in the world with 39 canneries, once primarily agricultural because of its highly fertile soil, Santa Clara Valley is now largely urbanized, although its far southern reaches south of Gilroy remain agrarian. The most northern areas are considered part of Silicon Valley. As Silicon Valley is not a valley, parts of the San Francisco Peninsula farther north are included in the Silicon Valley region as well. Locally, the areas of Santa Clara Valley are also referred to as part of the South Bay. Few traces of its agricultural past can still be found, and it was one of the first commercial wine-producing regions in California, utilizing high-quality French varietal vines imported from France. The northern end of the Santa Clara Valley is at the tip of the San Francisco Bay. The valley is bounded by the Santa Cruz Mountains on the southwest, which separate Santa Clara Valley from the Pacific Ocean, the valley is approximately 30 miles long by 15 miles wide. Its largest city, by an 86. 7% margin, is San Jose, the population of the valley is 1.81 million people along with approximately 865,700 wage and salary jobs. Santa Clara Valley has a Mediterranean semi-arid climate, Mission Santa Clara de Asís with control over a vast tract of land stretching from Palo Alto to Gilroy was founded by Franciscans in 1777. San Jose was also founded in 1777 by Spain as an agricultural pueblo and it is the oldest town in California. In Spanish and Mexican times the land was devoted to cattle, following the Mexican–American War San Jose was briefly the Capital of California. In 1860, as an American town, the population of San Jose was 4,579, for a time wheat became the main crop, but in the 1870s fruit gradually became the main crop and processing of fruit by drying or canning the predominant industry. The railroad reached San Jose in 1860, the valley with its scenic beauty, mild climate, and thousands of acres of blooming fruit trees was known as The Valley of Hearts Delight. Prunes were the crop and were shipped internationally. Water was supplied from an artesian aquifer, when the water table dropped wells were pumped
38.
Victorian architecture
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Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. Victorian refers to the reign of Queen Victoria, called the Victorian era, however, many elements of what is typically termed Victorian architecture did not become popular until later in Victorias reign. The styles often included interpretations and eclectic revivals of historic styles mixed with the introduction of middle east, the name represents the British and French custom of naming architectural styles for a reigning monarch. Within this naming and classification scheme, it follows Georgian architecture and later Regency architecture, during the early 19th century, the romantic medieval Gothic revival style was developed as a reaction to the symmetry of Palladianism, and such buildings as Fonthill Abbey were built. Paxton also continued to build houses as Mentmore Towers, in the still popular English Renaissance styles. In this era of prosperity new methods of construction were developed, other notable Scottish architects of this period are Archibald Simpson and Alexander Marshall Mackenzie whose stylistically varied work can be seen in the architecture of Aberdeen. Victorian architecture usually has many intricate window frames inspired by the famous architect Elliot Rae, some chose the United States, and others went to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Normally, they applied architectural styles that were fashionable when they left England, thus, the influence of English architecture spread across the world. Several prominent architects produced English-derived designs around the world, including William Butterfield, the Victorian period flourished in Australia and is generally recognised as being from 1840 to 1890, which saw a gold rush and population boom during the 1880s in the state of Victoria. There were fifteen styles that predominated, The Arts and Crafts style and Queen Anne style are considered to be part of the Federation Period, during the British colonial period of British Ceylon, Sri Lanka Law College, Sri Lanka College of Technology and the Galle Face Hotel. In the United States, Victorian architecture generally describes styles that were most popular between 1860 and 1900, a list of these styles most commonly includes Second Empire, Stick-Eastlake, Folk Victorian, Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque, and Shingle. As in the United Kingdom, examples of Gothic Revival and Italianate continued to be constructed during this period, some historians classify the later years of Gothic Revival as a distinctive Victorian style named High Victorian Gothic. Stick-Eastlake, a manner of geometric, machine-cut decorating derived from Stick, on the other hand, terms such as Painted Ladies or gingerbread may be used to describe certain Victorian buildings, but do not constitute a specific style. The names of architectural styles varied between countries, many homes combined the elements of several different styles and are not easily distinguishable as one particular style or another. San Francisco is well known for its extensive Victorian architecture, particularly in the Haight-Ashbury, Lower Haight, Alamo Square, Noe Valley, Castro, Nob Hill, the extent to which any one is the largest surviving example is debated, with numerous qualifications. The Distillery District in Toronto, Ontario contains the largest and best preserved collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America, cabbagetown is the largest and most continuous Victorian residential area in North America. Other Toronto Victorian neighbourhoods include The Annex, Parkdale, and Rosedale, in the USA, the South End of Boston is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest and largest Victorian neighborhood in the country. Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky also claims to be the nations largest Victorian neighborhood, richmond, Virginia is home to several large Victorian neighborhoods, the most prominent being The Fan
39.
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
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The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred in Northern California on October 17 at 5,04 p. m. local time. With a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX, no surface faulting occurred, though a large number of other ground failures and landslides were present, especially in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Due to the coverage of the 1989 World Series, it became the first major earthquake in the United States that was broadcast live on national television. Andrew Lawson, a geologist from the University of California, Berkeley, had named the fault after the San Andreas Lake and later led an investigation into that event. The San Andreas Fault ruptured for a length of 290 mi during the 1906 shock, several long term forecasts for a large shock along the San Andreas Fault in that area had been made public prior to 1989 but the earthquake that transpired was not what had been anticipated. The 1989 Loma Prieta event originated on an undiscovered oblique-slip reverse fault that is located adjacent to the San Andreas Fault, since many forecasts had been presented for the region near Loma Prieta, seismologists were not taken by surprise by the October 1989 event. Two moderate shocks, referred to as the Lake Elsman earthquakes by the USGS, occurred in the Santa Cruz Mountains region in June 1988, each events aftershock sequence and effect on stress drop was closely examined, and their study indicated that the shocks affected the mainshocks rupture process. The June 27,1988, shock occurred with an intensity of VI. Its effects included broken windows in Los Gatos, and other damage in Holy City. Farther away from the Santa Cruz Mountains, pieces of concrete fell from a structure at the Sunnyvale Town Center. More moderate damage resulted from the August 8,1989, shock when chimneys were toppled in Cupertino, Los Gatos, other damage included cracked walls and foundations and broken underground pipes. At the office of the Los Gatos City Manager, a window that was cracked had also broken in the earlier shock. Also in Los Gatos, one man died when he exited a building through a window, the Loma Prieta earthquake was named for Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which lies just to the east of the mainshock epicenter. At sites with rocky terrain, the duration was shorter and the shaking was much less intense, the strong motion records also allowed for the causative fault to be determined – the rupture was related to the San Andreas Fault System. While a Mercalli Intensity of VIII covered a large swath of territory relatively close to the further to the north. At more than 44 miles distant, the San Francisco Bay Area recorded peak horizontal accelerations that were as high as 0. 26g, in a general way, the location of aftershocks of the event delineated the extent of the faulting, which extended about 24 miles in length. Because the rupture took place bilaterally, the duration of strong shaking was about half of what it would have been had it ruptured in one direction only, the duration of a typical M6.9 shock with a comparable rupture length would have been about twice as long. Gregory Beroza, a seismologist with Stanford University, made several distinctions regarding the 1906 and 1989 events, near Loma Prieta, the 1906 rupture was more shallow, had more strike-slip, and occurred on a fault that was near vertical
40.
South Pacific Coast Railroad
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The South Pacific Coast Railroad was a 3 ft narrow gauge steam railroad running between Santa Cruz, California and Alameda, with a ferry connection in Alameda to San Francisco. In 1876, James Graham Fair, a Comstock Lode silver baron, bought the line, the line was originally laid with 52-pound rail on 8-foot redwood ties, and was later acquired by the Southern Pacific and converted to standard gauge. SPC was incorporated in 1876 to purchase the unfinished Santa Clara Valley Company railroad at Dumbarton Point, Dumbarton Point was then a landing to transfer agricultural produce from the Santa Clara Valley onto sailboats for transport to San Francisco. Railway shops were built in Newark and a 3 ft narrow gauge line to San Jose was completed in 1876, the SPC ferry Newark offered connecting service from Newark to San Francisco in 1877. The ferry connection to San Francisco shifted to Alameda as SPC ferrys Bay City and Garden City increased the frequency, two years and eight tunnels were required to extend the SPC through the Santa Cruz Mountains from Los Gatos to Californias third busiest seaport at Santa Cruz in 1880. SPC leased the San Lorenzo Flume and Transportation Company to acquire their subsidiary Santa Cruz, the big lumber transport flume was replaced by a 7 miles logging branch in 1883. In 1886 another branch line was built to the New Almaden mercury mine, additional horsedrawn branch lines served Centerville and Agnews State Hospital. Commuter trains fed the San Francisco ferries from east bay communities, excursion trains ran from the ferries to resorts of the south bay and Santa Cruz Mountains. Freight trains carried redwood lumber, mercury, sacked lime, gunpowder from the California Powder Works, by 1887 SPC was a major California transportation concern, and Southern Pacific paid six million dollars to merge it into their California transportation system. An 1893 winter storm caused a landslide in the Santa Cruz Mountains requiring major reconstruction to restore service, the Alameda ferry terminal burned in 1902 and was replaced with the modern terminal which survived until ferry service was discontinued by the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 1939. The 3 ft gauge line had 23 locomotives,85 passenger cars and 500 freight cars before the conversion to standard gauge began, the transition to standard gauge was interrupted by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The line through the Santa Cruz Mountains suffered major damage including a lateral slip of 5 feet in the tunnel where it crossed the San Andreas fault, the bridge across San Leandro Bay was damaged and abandoned. Conversion to standard gauge was completed in 1909,3 ft narrow gauge locomotives numbered 9,23, and 26 were eventually acquired by the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company. The track in Alameda could only be used for service after being isolated by the 1906 earthquake. It was electrified in 1911 and operated as part of the SPs East Bay Electric Lines until 1941 and it was used by SPs Suntan Special which came down the San Francisco Peninsula and took passengers right to the beach and boardwalk in Santa Cruz. The Boulder Creek branch was dismantled in 1934 after a few years of service by a McKeen railmotor, the tracks through the Santa Cruz Mountains suffered major damage during a storm in the winter of 1940, and the line was abandoned the same year. The longest, at 6,200 feet, ran from Wrights Station to Burns Creak near Laurel, the second longest tunnel, at about a mile long, went from Laurel to Glenwood, crossing underneath the present location of California State Route 17. The third tunnel, about 900 feet long, went from Clems, under a ridge, the shortest of the abandoned tunnels is in Zayante
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Narrow-gauge railway
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A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than the 1,435 mm of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm and 1,067 mm, narrow-gauge railways also have specialized use in mines and other environments where a very small structure gauge makes a very small loading gauge necessary. Narrow-gauge railways also have general applications. Many narrow-gauge street tramways are used, particularly in Europe, where 1,000 mm metre gauge tramways are common, the earliest recorded railway is shown in the De re metallica of 1556, which shows a mine in Bohemia with a railway of about 2 ft gauge. During the 16th century, railways were mainly restricted to hand-pushed narrow-gauge lines in mines throughout Europe, during the 17th century, mine railways were extended to provide transportation above ground. These lines were industrial, connecting mines with nearby transportation points and these railways were usually built to the same narrow gauge as the mine railways from which they developed. The worlds first steam locomotive on rails, built in 1802 by Richard Trevithick for the Coalbrookdale Company, during the 1820s and 1830s, a number of industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom used steam locomotives. In 1842, the first narrow-gauge steam locomotive outside the UK was built for the 1,100 mm gauge Antwerp-Ghent Railway in Belgium, historically, many narrow-gauge railways were built as part of specific industrial enterprises and were primarily industrial railways rather than general carriers. Some common uses for these industrial narrow-gauge railways were mining, logging, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, extensive narrow-gauge networks were constructed in many parts of the world for these purposes. For example, mountain logging operations in the 19th century often used narrow-gauge railways to transport logs from mill sites to market, significant sugarcane railways still operate in Cuba, Fiji, Java, the Philippines, and Queensland. Narrow-gauge railway equipment remains in use for the construction of tunnels. Extensive narrow-gauge railway systems served the front-line trenches of both sides in World War I and they were a short-lived military application, and after the end of the war, the surplus equipment from these created a small boom in narrow gauge railway building in Europe. Narrow-gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. It is also used in populated areas where the potential demand is too low for broader gauge railways to be economically viable. This is the case in some of Australia and most of Southern Africa, the use of such railways has almost vanished due to the capabilities of modern trucks. In many countries, narrow gauge railways were built as feeder or branch lines to feed traffic to more important standard gauge lines, the choice was often not between a narrow-gauge railway and a standard gauge one, but between a narrow-gauge railway and none at all. Some bulk commodities, such as coal, ore, and gravel, can be transshipped, but this still incurs time penalties
United States of America
California
Santa Clara
Jhonghe City, Taiwan
Liaoyang, People's Republic of China
Listowel, Co. Kerry, Ireland
Tallinn, Estonia
Zihuatanejo, Mexico
Media related to Los Gatos, California at Wikimedia Commons
