1.
Richmond, California
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Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7,1905, under the McLaughlin Administration, Richmond was the largest city in the United States served by a Green Party mayor. As of the 2010 U. S. Census, the population is at 103,710. The largest, Richmond, Virginia, is the namesake of the California city, the Ohlone Indians were the first inhabitants of the Richmond area, settling an estimated 5,000 years ago. The name Richmond appears to predate actual incorporation by more than fifty years, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad had its terminus at Richmond. The first post office opened in 1900, Richmond was founded and incorporated in 1905, carved out of Rancho San Pablo, from which the nearby town of San Pablo inherited its name. Until the enactment of prohibition in 1919, the city had the largest winery in the world, in the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan was active in the city. In 1930 the Ford Motor Company opened a plant called Richmond Assembly Plant which moved to Milpitas in the 1960s. The old Ford plant has been a National Historic Place since 1988, the city was a small town at that time, until the onset of World War II which brought on a rush of migrants and a boom in the industrial sector. Standard Oil set up here in 1901, including a what is now the Chevron Richmond Refinery and tank farm. There is a pier into San Francisco Bay south of Point Molate for oil tankers, the western terminus of the Santa Fe Railroad was established in Richmond with ferry connections at Ferry Point in the Brickyard Cove area of Point Richmond to San Francisco. Many of these lived in specially constructed houses scattered throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including Richmond, Berkeley. A specially built rail line, the Shipyard Railway, transported workers to the shipyards, kaisers Richmond shipyards built 747 Victory and Liberty ships for the war effort, more than any other site in the U. S. The city broke many records and even built one Liberty ship in a five days. On average the yards could build a ship in thirty days, the medical system established for the shipyard workers at the Richmond Field Hospital eventually became todays Kaiser Permanente HMO. It remained in operation until 1993 when it was replaced by the modern Richmond Medical Center hospital, Point Richmond was originally the commercial hub of the city, but a new downtown arose in the center of the city. It was populated by many department stores such as Kress, J. C. Penney, Sears, Macys, during the war the population increased dramatically and peaked at around 120,000 by the end of the war. Once the war ended the workers were no longer needed
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.
Interstate 580 (California)
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Interstate 580 is an 80-mile east–west Interstate Highway in Northern California. The heavily traveled spur route of Interstate 80 runs from San Rafael in the San Francisco Bay Area to Interstate 5 near Tracy in the Central Valley. It provides a connection from the Bay Area to the southern San Joaquin Valley and Southern California via Interstate 5, a portion of I-580 is called the MacArthur Freeway, after General Douglas MacArthur. Other portions are named the John T. Knox Freeway, the Eastshore Freeway, the Arthur H. Breed Jr. Freeway, the William Elton Brownie Brown Freeway, daniel Sakai Memorial Highway, and the John P. Miller Memorial Highway. This route is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System and is eligible for the State Scenic Highway System, the western terminus of I-580 is roughly 10 miles north of San Francisco in the city of San Rafael, at the junction with U. S. Route 101. The interchange with US101 is incomplete, only allowing continuous travel from southbound US101 to eastbound I-580, I-580 enters the city of Richmond in Contra Costa County mid-span, then continues through Richmond to join Interstate 80 in Albany at the Hoffman Split. After joining I-80, I-580 runs directly south for several miles along the shore of San Francisco Bay in the segment known as the Eastshore Freeway. The segment between the Hoffman Split and the MacArthur Maze is a concurrency, meaning I-580 east is signed as I-80 west. From the MacArthur Maze, I-580 is known as the MacArthur Freeway, about halfway to Castro Valley from the Maze, is an interchange with the Warren Freeway. Between this interchange and Castro Valley, I-580 runs near or along the trace of the Hayward Fault, in Castro Valley, I-580 turns eastward toward Dublin Canyon before descending into Dublin and Pleasanton. After passing through Livermore, the freeway enters the Altamont Pass, I-580 provides Interstate Highway access between San Francisco and Los Angeles since I-5 runs east of the Bay Area. However, the control city listed on freeway signs along eastbound I-580 between I-80 and I-205 is instead Stockton, a vestige of when this segment used to be part of US50. Trucks over 4.5 tons are prohibited through Oakland between Grand Avenue and the San Leandro border, specifically, eastbound trucks cannot travel beyond Grand Avenue/Lakeshore Avenue, and those going westbound must get off at MacArthur Boulevard/Foothill Boulevard. They are instead instructed to take I-238 in Castro Valley and then I-880 through Oakland as an alternative route, the truck prohibition has been in effect since the freeway was built in 1963 as part of US50. Since then, the restriction was grandfathered in when the freeway was renumbered and added to the Interstate Highway System. As a result, it is the segment of Interstate Highway in California that is not part of the National Truck Network. With trucks normally rerouted onto I-880 instead of I-580 through Oakland, for decades, the trucking industry lobbied to have the ban removed, but was unsuccessful due to local opposition. In 2000, the California State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 500, the ban is temporarily lifted by the California Highway Patrol for short periods to reduce traffic congestion when major accidents occur on I-880 or I-238
4.
San Francisco Bay
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San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary in the U. S. state of California. It is surrounded by a region known as the San Francisco Bay Area, dominated by the large cities San Francisco, Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California and it then connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this group of interconnected bays is often called the San Francisco Bay. The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2,2013, the bay covers somewhere between 400 and 1,600 square miles, depending on which sub-bays, estuaries, wetlands, and so on are included in the measurement. The main part of the bay measures 3 to 12 miles wide east-to-west and it is the largest Pacific estuary in the Americas. Later, wetlands and inlets were filled in, reducing the Bays size since the mid-19th century by as much as one third. Recently, large areas of wetlands have been restored, further confusing the issue of the Bays size, despite its value as a waterway and harbor, many thousands of acres of marshy wetlands at the edges of the bay were, for many years, considered wasted space. As a result, soil excavated for building projects or dredged from channels was often dumped onto the wetlands, from the mid-19th century through the late 20th century, more than a third of the original bay was filled and often built on. The idea was, and remains, controversial, there are five large islands in San Francisco Bay. Alameda, the largest island, was created when a shipping lane was cut in 1901 and it is now predominantly a bedroom community. Angel Island was known as Ellis Island West because it served as the point for immigrants from East Asia. It is now a park accessible by ferry. Mountainous Yerba Buena Island is pierced by a tunnel linking the east and west spans of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, attached to the north is the artificial and flat Treasure Island, site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. From the Second World War until the 1990s, both served as military bases and are now being redeveloped. Isolated in the center of the Bay is Alcatraz, the site of the federal penitentiary. The federal prison on Alcatraz Island no longer functions, but the complex is a popular tourist site, despite its name, Mare Island in the northern part of the bay is a peninsula rather than an island. During the last ice age, the now filled by the bay was a large linear valley with small hills
5.
Small business
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Small businesses are privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships that have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as small in terms of being able to apply for government support, some professionals operate as small businesses, such as lawyers, accountants, dentists and medical doctors. Small businesses vary a great deal in terms of size, revenues and regulatory authorization, some small businesses, such as a home accounting business, may only require a business license. However, owner-managers often do not delineate their behavior to accord with the separation between their personal and business interests. Lenders also often contract around organizational boundaries by seeking personal guarantees or accepting privately held assets as collateral, because of this behavior, researchers and analysts may wish to be cautious in the way they assess the organizational types and implied boundaries in contexts relating to owner-managed firms. These include analyses that use traditional accounting disclosures, and studies that view the firm as defined by some formal organizational structure, the term entrepreneur is often conflated with the term small business or used interchangeably with this term. While most entrepreneurial ventures start out as a business, not all small businesses are entrepreneurial in the strict sense of the term. Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to lead a business in a direction by proper planning, to adapt to changing environments and understand their own strengths. The legal definition of small business varies by country and by industry.5 million in receipts for most non manufacturing businesses. The European Union generally defines a business as one that has fewer than fifty employees. However, in Australia, a business is defined by the Fair Work Act 2009 as one with fewer than fifteen employees. By comparison, a business or mid-sized business has fewer than five hundred employees in the US. In addition to number of employees, other methods used to small companies include annual sales, value of assets and net profit. These criteria are followed by the European Union, for instance, Small businesses are usually not dominant in their field of operation. The table below serves as a guide to business size nomenclature. 9.9 million of these businesses in the United States were owned or led by a woman, African Americans have a long tradition of business ownership in the United States. Franchising is a way for business owners to benefit from the economies of scale of the big corporation. McDonalds and Subway are examples of a franchise, the small business owner can leverage a strong brand name and purchasing power of the larger company while keeping their own investment affordable
6.
Wigwag (railroad)
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Wigwag is the nickname given to a type of railroad grade crossing signal once common in North America, named for the pendulum-like motion it used to signal the approach of a train. It is generally credited to Albert Hunt, an engineer at Southern Californias Pacific Electric interurban streetcar railroad. The term should not be confused with its usage in Britain, soon after the advent of the automobile, speeds were increasing and the popularity of enclosed cars made the concept of stop, look, and listen at railroad crossings difficult. Though the idea of automatic grade crossing protection was not new, no one had invented a fail-safe, universally recognized system. In those days, many crossings were protected by a watchman who warned of a train by swinging a red lantern in a side-to-side arc. This motion is used today by railroad workers to indicate stop per the General Code of Operating Rules Rule 5.3.1. It was presumed that a device that mimicked that movement would catch the eye of approaching motorists. PEs earliest wigwags were gear-driven, but proved difficult to maintain and they were originally built in the railroads shops. The final design, first installed at a crossing near Long Beach, California, in 1914. A red steel target disc, slightly less than two feet in diameter, serving as a pendulum was attached, a red light in the center of the target illuminated, and with each swing of the target a mechanical gong sounded. Three mechanically identical versions were produced, The upper-quadrant signal was mounted atop a steel pole. It was intended for use where space was limited, since the target no longer served as the pendulum, a cast iron counterweight opposite the target was used. Accurate computer-generated animation of this type of signal can be seen in the 2006 theatrical release, the lower-quadrant version waved the target below the motor box and was intended to be above traffic on a pole mounted cantilever. Some railroads, especially in the northwestern US, mounted their lower quadrant versions directly on top of a steel pole similar to the upper quadrant signal. They were placed on one side of the road or the other or on an island in the center of the road and they often had crossbucks fastened on top of the motor box. A lower quadrant signal of this kind is seen in the 2004 film Lemony Snickets A Series of Unfortunate Events and this rendered batteries unnecessary, since failure of PEs generators resulted in a shutdown of the railway. This also permitted the relays to be housed in a separate inexpensive cabinet, dubbed the peach basket because of the protective framework, the apparatus was crowned by another visual warning, the traditional X-shaped RAILROAD CROSSING sign, or crossbucks. The majority of peach baskets were used by the Union Pacific Railroad, one version of this signal had the lower stripe on the banner replaced with the word stop that was lighted
7.
Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
8.
The Plunge
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The Richmond Municipal Natatorium, commonly known as The Plunge or The Richmond Plunge, is a historic swim center in the Point Richmond neighborhood of Richmond, California. It was closed in August 2001 for seismic retrofitting and reopened in August 2010 and it now is back to a regular schedule. Promoted by the citizens of Richmond, The Plunge was created through an issue in 1926. Richmonds population was about 20,000 then, grew to over 200,000 during the war years and is now about 80,000, over the years, the masonry building deteriorated, the hollow-clay-tile walls cracking after 76 years of deferred maintenance. The Plunge was further damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, City voters rejected a bond measure to reinforce it in 1997. In November 1997, the City Council realized they did not have the funds to retrofit the building and determined they had no option but to close the Plunge permanently. However, even though it was unsafe, people were allowed to swim in it until August 2001, the renovation planning process was complicated by the fact that the Plunge is located in the Point Richmond Historic District, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. This meant that officials had to ensure the renovation would not damage the historic value. It committed to a campaign of appeals to corporations, foundations, and individuals. Jersey raised a portion of the roof to add windows, improving ventilation, overall, the building has more than 170 windows,132 of which will be able to open and close. The first phase of reconstruction began in August 2008, the Plunge is accessible from Interstate 580 and AC Transit line 72M Macdonald
9.
Victory ship
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The Victory ship was a class of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace losses caused by German submarines. A total of 531 Victory ships were built, one of the first acts of the United States War Shipping Administration upon its formation in February 1942 was to commission the design of what came to be known as the Victory class. The design was an enhancement of the Liberty ship, which had successfully produced in extraordinary numbers. Victory ships were larger than Liberty ships,14 feet longer at 455 feet,6 feet wider at 62 ft. Displacement was up just under 1,000 tons, to 15,200, with a raised forecastle and a more sophisticated hull shape to help achieve the higher speed, they had a quite different appearance from Liberty ships. To make them vulnerable to U-boat attacks, Victory ships made 15 to 17 knots,4 to 6 knots faster than the Libertys. The extra speed was achieved through more modern, efficient engines, most used steam turbines, which had been in short supply earlier in the war and reserved for warships. All were oil-fired, but for a handful of Canadian vessels completed with both coal bunkers and oil tanks, another improvement was electrically powered auxiliary equipment, rather than steam-driven machinery. To prevent the hull fractures that a few Liberty ships developed and these were manned by United States Navy Armed Guard personnel. The VC2-S-AP5 Haskell-class attack transports were armed with the 5-inch stern gun, one quad 40 mm Bofors cannon, four dual 40 mm Bofors cannon, the Haskells were operated and crewed exclusively by U. S. Navy personnel. The Victory ship was noted for good proportion of cubic between holds for a ship of its day. A Victory ships cargo hold one, two and five hatches are a single rigged with a capacity of 70,400,76,700, and 69,500 bale cubic feet respectively. Victory ships hold three and four hatches are double rigged with a capacity of 136,100 and 100,300 bale cubic feet respectively. Victory ship have built in mast, booms and derrick cranes, the first vessel was SS United Victory launched at Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation on 12 January 1944 and completed on 28 February 1944, making her maiden voyage a month later. American vessels frequently had a name incorporating the word Victory, the British and Canadians used Fort and Park respectively. Although initial deliveries were slow—only 15 had been delivered by May 1944—by the end of the war 531 had been constructed, because the Atlantic battle had been won by the time that the first of the Victory ships appeared none were sunk by U-boats. Three were sunk by Japanese kamikaze attack in April of 1945, many Victory ships were converted to troopship to bring US soldiers home at the end of World War II as part of Operation Magic Carpet. A total of 97 Victory ships were converted to carry up to 1,600 soldiers
10.
Cetacean stranding
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Cetacean stranding, commonly known as beaching, is a phenomenon in which cetaceans strand themselves on land, usually on a beach. Beached whales often die due to dehydration, collapsing under their own weight, several explanations of the stranding have been proposed. Every year, up to 2,000 animals beach themselves, although the majority of strandings result in death, they pose no threat to any species as a whole. Only about 10 cetacean species frequently display mass beachings, with 10 more rarely doing so, all frequently involved species are toothed whales, rather than baleen whales. These species share some characteristics which may explain why they beach, body size does not normally affect the frequency, but both the animals normal habitat and social organization do appear to influence their chances of coming ashore in large numbers. Odontocetes that normally inhabit deep waters and live in large, tightly knit groups are the most susceptible and this includes the sperm whale, oceanic dolphins, usually pilot and killer whales, and a few beaked whale species. Solitary species naturally do not strand en masse, cetaceans that spend most of their time in shallow, coastal waters almost never mass strand. Strandings can be grouped into several types, the most obvious distinctions are between single and multiple strandings. The carcasses of deceased cetaceans are likely to float to the surface at some point, during this time, since thousands of cetaceans die every year, many become stranded posthumously. Most carcasses never reach the coast and are scavenged or decomposed enough to sink to the ocean bottom, single live strandings are often the result of illness or injury, which almost inevitably end in death in the absence of human intervention. Multiple strandings in one place are rare and often attract media coverage as well as rescue efforts, even multiple offshore deaths are unlikely to lead to multiple strandings due to variable winds and currents. A key factor in many of these appears to be the strong social cohesion of toothed whales. If one gets into trouble, its distress calls may prompt the rest of the pod to follow, many theories, some of them controversial, have been proposed to explain beaching, but the question remains unresolved. In some cases predators have been known to other whales. Their echolocation system can have difficulty picking up very gently-sloping coastlines and this theory accounts for mass beaching hot spots such as Ocean Beach, Tasmania and Geographe Bay, Western Australia where the slope is about half a degree. Stirred up sand as well as long-lived microbubbles formed by rain may further exacerbate the effect, some strandings may be caused by larger cetaceans following dolphins and porpoises into shallow coastal waters. The larger animals may habituate to following faster-moving dolphins, if they encounter an adverse combination of tidal flow and seabed topography, the larger species may become trapped. Sometimes following a dolphin can help a whale escape danger, in 2008, a local dolphin was followed out to open water by two Pygmy sperm whales that had become lost behind a sandbar at Mahia Beach, New Zealand
11.
Gray whale
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The gray whale, also known as the grey whale, gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, or California gray whale is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of 14.9 meters, a weight of 36 tonnes, the common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their behavior when hunted. The gray whale is the living species in the genus Eschrichtius. This mammal descended from filter-feeding whales that appeared at the beginning of the Oligocene, the gray whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific population and a critically endangered western North Pacific population. North Atlantic populations were extirpated on the European coast before 500 AD, in May and June 2013 a gray whale was sighted off the coast of Namibia – the first confirmed in the Southern Hemisphere. The round-trip journey of one whale has set a new record for the longest mammal migration. Her migration has shown new insight into how endangered species are making changes in their life style. The gray whale is traditionally placed as the living species in its genus. John Edward Gray placed it in its own genus in 1865, naming it in honour of physician, the common name of the whale comes from its coloration. The living Pacific species was described by Cope as Rhachianectes glaucus in 1869, skeletal comparisons showed the Pacific species to be identical to the Atlantic remains in the 1930s, and Grays naming has been generally accepted since. Although identity between the Atlantic and Pacific populations cannot be proven by data, its skeleton is distinctive. Many other names have been ascribed to the whale, including desert whale, devil fish, gray back, mussel digger. The name Eschrichtius gibbosus is sometimes seen, this is dependent on the acceptance of a 1777 description by Erxleben, the gray whale has a dark slate-gray color and is covered by characteristic gray-white patterns, scars left by parasites which drop off in its cold feeding grounds. Individual whales are typically identified using photographs of their surface and matching the scars. They have two blowholes on top of their head, which can create a distinctive heart-shaped blow at the surface in calm wind conditions, Gray whales measure from 4.9 m in length for newborns to 13–15 m for adults. Newborns are a gray to black in color. A mature gray whale can reach 40 t, with a range of 15–33 t
