X-Nico

52 unusual facts about Berkeley, California


'69 Newport

The song "Hedgecore" is a song about the local pastime in Berkeley which involves diving into and destroying bushes.

2008 Emerald Bowl

The Miami Hurricanes of the ACC were matched against the California Golden Bears (based in nearby Berkeley, California) of the Pac-10, the first appearance by either team in the seven-year history of the Emerald Bowl.

Adi Gevins

Much of her work has been done for the Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley, California, including "One Billion Seconds Later", which won the Ohio State Award and "Me and My Shadow", a documentary about Cointelpro's infiltration of the New Left.

Amir Bar-Lev

Amir Bar-Lev (born in 1972) is an American film director, producer and writer from Berkeley, California.

Andrew Sanger

Sanger also published a memoir or novel online through self-publisher Lulu.com, Love (2005), describing his life in Berkeley, California during the "Summer of Love" and travels during the hippy era, including the "hippie trail" to India.

Annalee Newitz

She graduated from Irvine High School, and in 1987 moved to Berkeley, California.

Antero Alli

Alli currently resides in Berkeley, California, where he conducts workshops and stages theatrical productions, some of which have been released as films.

Armstrong College

Armstrong College, formerly a private college in Berkeley, California, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in business and management; founded in 1914 and closed on June 11, 1986, located at 2222 Harold Way in the Ratcliff building (after Walter H. Ratcliff, Architect), a Berkeley landmark

Barbara Christian

Barbara Christian (b. December 12, 1943, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands; d. June 25, 2000 Berkeley, California) was an author and professor of African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

BeBe K'Roche

BeBe K' Roche was founded in 1973 by electric guitarist/singer-songwriter Tiik Pollet in Berkeley, California, while playing in a duo with bassist Peggy Mitchell.

Benson Mates

Benson Mates (May 19, 1919, Portland, Oregon – May 14, 2009, Berkeley, California) was an American philosopher, noted for his work in logic, the history of philosophy, and skepticism.

Charmian London

In 1877, after her mother died when she was six years old, Charmian's father sent her to Berkeley, California.

Chiura Obata

In 1950, he and his wife moved out of the attic apartment of a friend, purchasing a house in the Elmwood district in Berkeley, where they had lived before the war.

Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve

The name was changed to Claremont by a developer of the nearby Claremont district.

It thus offers direct pedestrian access to the park system, with connections to public transportation, from the lower-lying residential areas of Berkeley and Oakland.

Collis Birmingham

The 2009 season saw Birmingham break the Oceanian record for the 10,000 m with a run of 27:29.73 minutes in Berkeley, California.

Dave Carpender

Dave Carpender (born 23 January 1950, Berkeley, California, died 26 September 2007) was the guitarist with The Greg Kihn Band from 1976 to 1983.

David V. Mitchell

When Mitchell, an only child, was three, the family moved to Berkeley, where he attended Berkeley High School.

Don Carpenter

He wrote numerous novels, novellas, short stories and screenplays over the course of a 22-year career that took him from a childhood in Berkeley, California and the Pacific Northwest to the corridors of power and ego in Hollywood.

Elizabeth Farnsworth

She is married to attorney Charles Farnsworth and has two children and two grandchildren, and currently resides in Berkeley, California.

Erik Erikson

After spending a year observing children on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, he moved to the University of California at Berkeley; there he affiliated with the Institute of Child Welfare and opened a private practice as well.

Frederic L. Paxson

Frederic Logan Paxson (February 23, 1877 in Philadelphia – October 24, 1948 in Berkeley, California) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American historian.

George Holmes Howison

George Holmes Howison was born on November 29, 1834, in Montgomery County, Maryland, and died in Berkeley, California on December 31, 1916.

GRB 110328A

"This is truly different from any explosive event we have seen before," said Joshua Bloom of the University of California at Berkeley, the lead author of the study published in the June 2011 issue of Science.

Harvey Fergusson

Fergusson moved to Berkeley in the early 1940s, where he wrote an autobiographical book, Home in the West: An Inquiry into My Origins. He also returned to the subject of politics, this time as a work of non-fiction, People and Power: A Study of Political Behavior in America. His last two novels, Grant of Kingdom and The Conquest of Don Pedro, dealt with earlier periods in the history of New Mexico.

Henry F. May

Born in Denver, Colorado, he was reared in Berkeley, California and spent a formative year in Europe with his family as the youngest of three children.

Holy Hill

Holy Hill, a hill in Berkeley, California which is the site of a number of seminaries and the library of the Graduate Theological Union

Jack Gould

Jack Gould (February 5, 1914, New York, New York – May 24, 1993, Berkeley, California) was an American journalist and critic, who wrote influential commentary about television.

James Sandler

He eventually graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville with a degree in psychology, and subsequently obtained a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley.

James Tarjan

Tarjan's last competitive tournament was the 1984 U.S. Championship at Berkeley, where he went out in style with a fine tied third, scoring 10.5/17.

James Tramel

Immediately upon his parole, Tramel began serving as an assistant pastor at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Berkeley, California.

Jane Vandenburgh

She is married to Jack Shoemaker, a Berkeley, California, book publisher (North Point Press, Counterpoint) who publishes Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry.

Jean Paul Jacob

He received his electronic engineering degree from the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, in Brazil, and his MS and PhD degrees in Mathematics and Engineering from the University of California, at Berkeley, in 1966.

Jean Paul Lemieux

He was raised in Quebec City until 1916, when his family moved to Berkeley, California.

Jess Winfield

It has been stated that the modern portion of the novel's plot has been based, in part, on Winfield's years studying Shakespeare in Santa Cruz and Berkeley.

Jesse Reklaw

Reklaw was born in Berkeley, California and grew up in Sacramento, studied at UC Santa Cruz, and completed a master's degree in computer science at Yale University.

John William Gregg

John William Gregg (January 8, 1880, New Hampshire - 1969 Berkeley), was a 20th-century professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lorenzo Milam

He got his start in radio volunteering in 1958-1959 at Lew Hill's KPFA in Berkeley, California.

Marcin Tarczyński

In 2010, Tarczynski attended UC Berkeley in Berkeley, California, where he majored in molecular biology, and played for the California Golden Bears swimming and diving team under head coach Dave Durden.

Mastotermes electromexicus

The amber specimens, a soldier, an imago and twelve nymphs are currently housed in the fossil collection of the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California.

Nikolay Chernetskiy

He trained at Armed Forces sports society in Moscow and set his personal best (46.67 s) in the 400 metres on 1978-07-07 at a meet in Berkeley, California.

Ornithidium donaldeedodii

Ornithidium donaldeedodii is a species of orchid "discovered" in April 2010 when DNA analysis showed that a wrongly labeled orchid at the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley, California, was actually a distinct new species.

Pacific Steel

The Pacific Steel Casting Company is a steel foundry in West Berkeley, California, founded in 1934.

Pat Schneider

Schneider was educated at Central College in Missouri, and earned her MA from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

Rami Zur

He was born in Berkeley, California and is Jewish on his biological mother's side; he was later adopted and raised by an Israeli Jewish couple.

Roy Campanella II

In 2004, Campanella was named general manager of Pacifica radio station, KPFA in Berkeley, California.

Ruth Reichl

She and Hollis moved to Berkeley, California, where her interest in food led to her joining the collectively owned Swallow Restaurant as a chef and co-owner from 1973 to 1977, and where she played an important role in the culinary revolution taking place at the time.

Sandra M. Schneiders

Sandra Marie Schneiders, I.H.M. (born 12 November 1936), is professor emerita in the Jesuit School of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Sierra National Forest

They both fall in the Pacific southwest Research Station which is based in Berkeley, California.

Stephen Durham

He was an early member of the gay rights movement and attended the first national lesbian and gay gathering, the West Coast Gay Liberation Conference, which took place in 1969 in Berkeley.

Termitaradus dominicanus

The amber specimen, HE-4-52, is currently housed in the fossil collection of the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California.

William B. Mahoney

Eventually he moved to Berkeley, California, and finally, in the early 1990s, to Miami, remaining involved with AA—and sponsoring scores of other alcoholics on their road to sobriety—wherever he lived.


Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve

Father Bernard R. Hubbard was a Jesuit priest and professor of geology at Santa Clara University in California, who had been exploring Alaska's volcanoes and glaciers every summer season since 1927 and writing about them in best-selling books and in publications such as National Geographic and the Saturday Evening Post.

Aurora Village–Wells College Historic District

Its significant business entrepreneurs included men such as Henry Wells, founder of American Express and Wells Fargo, whose operations created new express mail and banking services that spanned New York state and reached to the developing state of California.

Border Incident

"Here is the All-American Canal. It runs through the desert for miles along the California-Mexico border... Farming in Imperial Valley... requires a vast army of farm workers... and this army of farm workers comes from our neighbor to the south, from Mexico. ... It is this problem of human suffering and injustice about which you should know. The following composite case is based upon factual information supplied by the Immigration and Naturalization Service..."

Bowers Museum

The museum has cultivated partnerships with the Smithsonian, the Nanjing Museum, the Shanghai Museum, and the British Museum, among others, to bring national and international exhibitions from the world's greatest museums to Southern California.

Brendan Burch

Brendan Burch is an American animation producer and CEO of Six Point Harness Studios in Los Angeles, California.

California Cycleway

The inventor and promotor of the cycleway was Pasadena resident Horace Dobbins, who attracted ex-California governor Henry Harrison Markham to join him in the venture.

California State Route 20

Its west end is at SR 1 in Fort Bragg, from where it heads east past Clear Lake, Colusa, Yuba City, Marysville, and Nevada City to I-80 near Emigrant Gap, where eastbound traffic can continue on other routes to Lake Tahoe or Nevada.

Clark Natwick

Clark Natwick competed in several road racing events; he won Mt. Hamilton Road Race racing with Greg LeMond

Cleome platycarpa

It is native to the western United States from northeastern California to Idaho, including the Modoc Plateau, where it grows on clay and volcanic soils in the sagebrush.

Colorado River Indian Reservation

In 2005, the reservation began proposing a new hotel and casino near Blythe, citing the location along the river and Interstate 10, with the help of the governments of that city and the state of California.

Daniel Siebert

In 2002, Siebert wrote a letter to the United States Congress in which he objected to bill H.R. 5607 introduced by Rep. Joe Baca (D-California) which sought to place Salvia divinorum in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.

Days May Come and Days May Go

Days May Come and Days May Go: The 1975 California Rehearsals is a compilation album by Deep Purple, released in 2000 (see 2000 in music).

Eldad

Eldad Tarmu (1960, Los Angeles, California), a vibraphonist and composer

FFS2

FFS2, Unix File System, Berkeley Fast File System, the BSD Fast File System or FFS

Francis K. Shattuck

Shattuck was instrumental in getting the Central Pacific Railroad to construct a branch line into Berkeley in 1876 connecting the community and University of California with the main line and the railroad's ferry to San Francisco.

Golden dream

Golden Dreams, a film about California's history at Disney's California Adventure

Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company

He partnered with fellow insurance salesman Norman O. Houston and businessman George A. Beavers, Jr. to secure 500 pre-paid life insurance applications as well as the $15,000 deposit required by California.

Health maintenance organization

Within a year, the Los Angeles Fire Department signed up, then the Los Angeles Police Department, then the Southern California Telephone Company (now AT&T Inc.), and more.

History of California's state highway system

The decade also saw the implementation of FasTrak, California's electronic toll collection (ETC) system, across all toll facilities on state highways.

Human trafficking in the United States

Slavery is found throughout California, but major hubs are centered around Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco.

John Barlow Hudson

Hudson has three degrees, finished in the California Institute Fine Arts, Valencia, CA in 1972 and 1972, and there is nother one institute, he learned at Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH.

John Muir College

Muir's connection to California's Yosemite Valley continues with the Half Dome Lounge and the dining hall Pines (formerly Sierra Summit).

Journal of Historical Review

The Journal of Historical Review is a non-peer reviewed serial, periodical, or journal published by the Institute for Historical Review in Torrance, California.

Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail

Both these pueblos and missions were on the California side of the Colorado River near the mouth of the Gila River but were administered by the Arizona authorities.

KBQR

KQSL, a television station (channel 8) in Fort Bragg, California, United States known as KBQR from October 2010 through May 2011

Kellyn Tate

She later played professional softball for the Orlando Wahoos (1998), Akron Racers (1999-2000), WPSL All-Stars (2001), and California Sunbirds (2004).

KLRS

KCAI, a radio station (89.7 FM) licensed to serve Lodi, California, United States, which held the call sign KLRS from 2007 to 2012

KPOP

KTNQ, a radio station (1020 AM) licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States, which formerly used the call sign KPOP

Loni Hancock

Serving as mayor for two terms, she balanced seven straight city budgets, forged a historic agreement between the city and the University of California, began the revitalization of downtown Berkeley, led efforts to secure additional open space and launched a Bio-Tech Academy at Berkeley High School (in partnership with Bayer).

MacLafferty

James H. MacLafferty (1871-1937), a U.S. Representative from California

Michael Jung

Michael E. Jung (born 1947), Professor of Chemistry at the University of California

Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles

Nichols Canyon was named after John G. Nichols who served as mayor of Los Angeles, California between 1852 and 1853 and again from 1856 to 1859.

Novim

The group was formed at the University of California campus in Santa Barbara to create a collaborative problem-solving approach to address wide-spread and complicated problems, modeled after approaches at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP).

NWEAMO

New West Electronic Arts & Music Organization (NWEAMO), founded by composer Joseph Waters in Portland, Oregon, U.S. in 1998, is a nonprofit organization based in San Diego, California that produces the annual international festival of electro-acoustic music.

Pais

Ampelographers believe that along with the Criolla Grande grape of Argentina and Mission grape of California, that the Pais grape is descended by the Spanish "common black grape" brought to Mexico in 1520 by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

R. N. Baskin

In route for California, Baskin visited the Little Cottonwood mining district with Thomas Hearst and saw possibilities in the minerals of Utah Territory and decided to stay.

Randy California

Randy California drowned in the ocean while rescuing his 12-year-old son from a rip current near the home of his mother, Bernice Pearl, at Molokai, Hawaii.

Richmond–San Rafael Bridge

The Richmond–San Rafael Bridge (officially, the John F. McCarthy Memorial Bridge) is the northernmost of the east–west crossings of the San Francisco Bay in California, USA, connecting Richmond on the east to San Rafael on the west end.

Robert F. Fisher

Robert F. Fisher, (February 18, 1879 Plymouth, England - July 20, 1969 Carlotta, California) served in the California legislature and during the Spanish-American War he served in the United States Army.

Rougheye rockfish

Rougheye rockfish are deepwater fish, and exist between 31° and 66° latitude, in the North Pacific, and specifically along the coast of Japan to the Navarin Canyon in the Bering Sea, to the Aleutian Islands, all the way south to San Diego, California.

Sedco Hills, California

The name Sedco Hills has become the informal name of that section of the Temescal Mountains east of Sedco Hills, west of Cottonwood Canyon Creek and south of the San Jacinto River.

Sidney Wicks

At 9 a.m. on May 5, 1989, in Mira Mesa, San Diego, California, Wicks was seriously injured in a car accident.

Squid Labs

In 2004, Colin Bulthaup, Dan Goldwater, Saul Griffith, and Eric Wilhelm moved from the East Coast to California to found the company known as Squid Labs.

Steal This Record

Mixed by Chris Lord-Alge at Image Recording, Inc. in Hollywood, California

Times Building

Los Angeles Times Building, the building at 1st and Spring Streets in Los Angeles, California that has housed The Los Angeles Times since 1935

True Self

All tracks were recorded at Bombshelter Studios in Los Angeles, California, unless otherwise noted.

Walther Linis

They started in France and sailed through the Suez Canal to Arabia where they unloaded oil and continued over the Pacific shoreline to San Diego in California and on into the Panama Canal to the Gulf island of Aruba, waterless island but they could get oil board and then took 12 trips between many U.S. cities in the east shore, the boat went several times to the port of Tampico in Mexico from 1957-58.

Watsonville Riots

In September 4, 2011, California apologized to Filipinos and Filipino Americans in an Assembly resolution authored by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas.

Zorro's Fighting Legion

The story takes a few liberties with Zorro's official timeline: it takes place in Mexico instead of Alta California; Zorro wears a masquerade mask, rather than the traditional bandana; the characters Don Alejandro Vega (Don Diego's father) and Bernardo are absent; and Zorro's horse, Tornado, was changed to white (much like Kaiketsu Zorro).