X-Nico

100 unusual facts about California


2012 May Day protests

Oakland, California – Protests were dispersed by police with the use of tear gas.

AIDS Project Los Angeles

The Walk is now the largest HIV/AIDS fundraiser in Southern California.

American Duos

When the latest incarnation of American Idol shows sets up shop in Santa Barbara, the requisite cruel British judge Nigel St. Nigel (Tim Curry) finds himself in a panic after a series of near-miss attempts on his life and hires Santa Barbara's most reliable psychic detective to protect him.

Amy Elizabeth du Pont

She died on February 16, 1962 at age 81, following a stroke at her home in Montecito, California.

Aptos High School

Aptos High School is a comprehensive secondary school in Aptos, California, USA in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.

APW/Vendetta Pro Unified Tag Team Championship

On January 5, 2013, The Suburban Commandos (T-Rent and D-Unit) defeated SU/KA and the defending Champiosn The Ballard Brothers in a Triangle Tag Team Match in Hayward, California to become the first team to win the Unified Tag Team Titles on an All Pro Wrestling Event.

Atlantic and Pacific Railroad

The SP began building a branch from Mojave, California that same year, east to Needles, where the two met on August 9, 1883.

Bagby Stationhouse, Water Tanks and Turntable

The structures now located at El Portal were originally built in Bagby, and were moved from that location in 1966 when the townsite was to be inundated by the filling of Lake McClure behind New Exchequer Dam.

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me

On April 30, 1966, two days after the publication of his book, Fariña attended a book-signing ceremony at a Carmel Valley Village bookstore, the Thunderbird (to be followed the next day by another at the Discovery Bookshop in San Francisco).

Bell's Vireo

Historically, the Least Bell's Vireo was a common to locally abundant species in lowland riparian habitat, ranging from coastal southern California through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys as far north as Red Bluff in Tehama County.

Bill Drake

It was later at KYNO in Fresno, California that he met Gene Chenault, who became his business partner.

Cage Without a Key

The movie was filmed at Las Palmas School for Girls in Commerce, California, now known as the Dorothy Kirby Center.

California Conquest

Arturo Bordega and Julia Lawrence eventually travel to Fort Ross, where they are able to capture Fredo Brios (as well as a fictional Russian princess, Helena de Gagarine, and a high-ranking Russian army officer), and otherwise manage to thwart the treasonous conspiracy.

California's 36th congressional district special election, 2011

A 2011 special election in California's 36th congressional district filled the vacancy in California's 36th congressional district after the resignation of incumbent Jane Harman on February 28, 2011, who vacated her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to become head of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Carl B. Koford

Carl Buckingham Koford (September 3, 1915 in Oakland, California – December 3, 1979 in Berkeley, California) was an American biologist who is known for his research work on the behavior of the California Condor.

Carlos Vierra

Carlos Vierra was born and raised in Moss Landing, California near Monterey by his father, Portuguese sailor, Cato Vierra and his mother, Maria de Fratas.

Caroline, No

The sounds that were lifted for the end of the Pet Sounds album were that of Train #58, "The Owl", speeding through at 70 mph through Edison, California.

Carolyn L. Mazloomi

She graduated from Northrop University in Inglewood, California, and worked in Los Angeles as an aerospace engineer.

Catherine L. Malone

Two years earlier she completed an associate's degree from Santa Monica College in California.

Cathode bias

In 1985, The Department of Engineering and Technology at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California was presented with a "C" battery date stamped 1927.

Ceanothus roderickii

This endangered plant was first collected in 1956 near Shingle Springs.

Central California Traction Company

The railroad operated over the same line from Stockton to Sacramento until 1998 when service between Lodi and Sacramento was suspended.

Central-Alameda, Los Angeles

The 84.6% Latino, low-income, youthful Central-Alameda neighborhood of the South Los Angeles, California, region lies just south of Downtown and west of Huntington Park.

Christian Parenti

Parenti has taught at the New College of California and at St. Mary's College in Moraga, California.

Dedrick D. Gobert

On November 19, 1994, Gobert was fatally shot during a fight with several gang members in Mira Loma, California.

DeLaca Island

DeLaca Island was named by the United States Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) for Ted E. DeLaca, a member of the University of California, Davis, California, biological team working this area, 1971-1974.

Devin Del Do

Del Do grew up in Valencia, California, played for the West Valley Samba club team, and attended Hart High School where he was twice named to the All-Foothill League first team, and was his team's Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year as both a junior and senior.

Donald Bogue

Don Bogue is married to Linda Bogue, formerly Linda Baker, and lives in San Mateo, California.

El Capitan High School

El Capitan High School (commonly known as El Cap) is a public high school in Lakeside, California, United States, a census-designated place in San Diego, and serves students in grades nine through twelve.

Fernley and Lassen Railway

In Flanigan, the Fernley & Lassen intersects the original Western Pacific Railroad, then continues on to Wendel, California.

George S. Stuart

When Stuart moved to Ojai, California in 1959, he opened The Gallery of Historical Figures and began teaching workshops on figural construction, costuming and sculpting faces.

Gerald Heffernan

Gerald "Gerry" Joseph Heffernan (July 24, 1916 in Montreal, Quebec – January 16, 2007 in Moraga, California) was a professional ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey League.

Gérard Guillaumaud

Guillaumaud was born in France and was a graduate of the National Test Pilot School (NTPS) in Mojave, California.

Gilroy Unified School District

The other school districts included San Ysidro and Rucker.

Gladys Waddingham

Gladys Waddingham (1900–1997), a Spanish teacher at Inglewood High School in Inglewood, California, for 45 years, was the author of many books about her adopted city.

Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media

The organization has three full-time staff members who operate from offices in Baltimore, MD and Oakland, CA.

Harry W. Musselwhite

He died in San Lorenzo, California and is interred on the other side of the state in Cypress Lawn Cemetery of Coloma.

Hercules Transit Center

The transit center is a pulse (a timed and synchronized) transfer point for various local feeder bus lines from the adjacent areas of Hercules, Pinole, Rodeo, the northern Hilltop area of Richmond, Bayview-Montalvin, and Tara Hills.

Hilltop Lake

The lake is fed by Garrity Creek, a small river originating from many springs in the hills east of the Hilltop Green neighborhood in the Hilltop neighborhood.

IBM 1500

Seeded by a research grant in 1964 from the U.S. Department of Education to the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences at Stanford University, the IBM 1500 CAI system was initially prototyped at the Brentwood Elementary School (Ravenswood City School District) in East Palo Alto, California by Dr. Patrick Suppes of Stanford University.

Islam in Peru

The Latin American Muslim Unity (LAMU) organization, based in Fresno, California, United States, has drawn up a proposal for the first Islamic orphanage in Peru, although it has not yet materialized.

Jackson Temple

Jackson Temple (August 11, 1827–December 25, 1902) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California.

James Colley

Raised in Bakersfield, California, Colley found his musical inspiration in the works of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones and Lou Reed.

James N. Walker

James N. Walker served as a member of the 1863-1865 California State Assembly, representing the 4th District.

Jane Vandenburgh

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

Jennifer 8

At the invitation of an old friend and colleague, Freddy Ross, Berlin heads to rural northern California, for a job with the Eureka police force.

Jerry Birdwell

Jerry R. Birdwell was the former mayor of South Lake Tahoe, California and judge of Dallas County's 195th Judicial District Court.

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.

Junction, California

Junction, Contra Costa County, California, a former settlement on the East Bay of San Francisco, located adjacent to Antioch

Kinderhook Industries

In June, 2012, the firm took control of M. Davis Company, Incorporated (doing business as USA Recovery, and Skip Masters), a firm based in El Dorado Hills, California that reprocesses property when owners default on loans.

Las Lomitas Elementary School District

The Las Lomitas Elementary School District is a public school district in the San Francisco Bay Area, primarily serving parts of the communities of Menlo Park, Atherton and Ladera, with its headquarters in Menlo Park.

Lee Norwood

Lee Charles Norwood (born February 2, 1960 in Oakland, California) is a retired American ice hockey player.

Loan Chau

In 1995, four years after arriving in California, Loan Châu won top honors at a karaoke contest at Ritz night club in Orange County.

Lori Williams

The first, A Swingin' Summer, made the same year, is a beach musical filmed primarily at Southern California's Lake Arrowhead.

Lucienne Bloch

Dimitroff and Bloch died in 1996 and 1999, respectively, on their small farm in Gualala in Northern California.

Margie Wright

Wright has become a popular figure in the Fresno community and was inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008.

Marian Bergeson

A resident of Newport Beach, California, Bergeson and her husband, Garth, have four children (Nancy, Garth Jr., Julie, and James) and eleven grandchildren.

Mark McCammon

On 15 June he played for his country in a 8–0 defeat to the United States at The Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

Mary Lanier

Lanier died on May 23, 2002, in Ojai, California; her cause of death is unknown, but some sources say natural causes.

Melvin Anthony

Melvin Anthony grew up in the lower-middle-class neighborhoods of Sacramento and San Bernardino, California.

Merrill B. Twining

He had retired from active duty with the Marine Corps on October 31, 1959 and died May 11, 1996 in Fallbrook, California.

Meshael Alayban

Meshael Alayban is a Saudi woman accused of human trafficking in Irvine, California.

Metasonix

Metasonix is an American audio equipment manufacturer, founded by Eric Barbour in 1998 and located in Lakeport, California.

Mike Gregorian

Gregorian grew up in Culver City, California where he played forward for the Fram club of Culver-Palisades which won the 1986 McGuire Cup (U-19 national championship).

Millspaugh

Millspaugh, California, unincorporated community in Inyo County, California

Morris Scott Dollens

A major collection of these slides is housed at University of California at Riverside in California, United States.

Novella Carpenter

In March 2011, the City of Oakland told Carpenter she would have to close her Ghost Town Farm because she was selling excess produce without a permit.

Nuckle Brothers

The Nuckle Brothers were a third wave ska band from Huntington Beach that was part of the early 1990s Orange County, California music scene, inspiring such bands as Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris and The Aquabats.

Odostomia pratoma

The type specimen was found in the Pacific Ocean off Santa Rosa Island, California

Oklahoma City Crosstown Expressway

Constructed nearly fifty years ago, Interstate 40 (I-40) stretches from Wilmington, North Carolina to Barstow, California.

Olson 30

Olson and partner Lyn Neale started Pacific Boats in an industrial area of Live Oak, CA, an unincorporated area between Santa Cruz and Capitola.

Ramaytush people

– 1823 Pomponio, of Half Moon Bay led raids against Mission Dolores, taking livestock and horses.

Road Hogs

Most of the civilized mutants and humans are located in what was previously known as Sacramento, California.

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.

Robert R. Odén

In 1959 the U.S. Olympic Committee asked him to be the official team doctor for the United States Ski Team during the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California.

Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle

"Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle" (also known as "How Do You Afford Your Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle") is the debut single by Sacramento alternative rock band Cake.

Ryan Pickett

Through his foundation, Pickett hosted his first Celebrity Golf Classic in 2013 at the Barona Creek Golf Course in Lakeside, California, just outside San Diego.

San Diego Polo Club

San Diego Polo Club is a polo club in situated Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego, California.

San Mateo Union High School District

The district consists of seven public high schools, one alternative high school (a "college high school"), and one adult School in San Bruno, Millbrae, Burlingame, and San Mateo.

Santa Barbara Polo Club

After a Japanese attack on Goleta, California (Attacks on North America during World War II), soldiers were stationed at the polo club to protect the members for the remaining years of the war.

Saurolophus

In 1939–40, two partial skeletons were found in the Moreno Formation of California.

Shirley Horton

Spring Valley.

Spring Valley, California

Valley Springs, California, in Calaveras County, formerly called Spring Valley

T. Thorn Coyle

Thorn Coyle was born September 24, 1965 and was reared in the Catholic faith in Whittier, California.

Temescal Valley

Temescal Valley, California a populated place in the Temescal Valley of California.

The National Crittenton Foundation

The foundation is affiliated with 22 member agencies operating across the country in urban and rural areas, including Baltimore; Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Denver, Colorado; Kansas City, Missouri; Knoxville, Tennessee; Orange County, California and Los Angeles, California; Peoria, Illinois; Philadelphia; Phoenix, Arizona, San Francisco, California; Sioux City, Iowa; Washington, D.C. and Wheeling, West Virginia.

The Paradine Case

The Paradine Case had its world premiere in Los Angeles on December 29, 1947, opening simultaneously in two theatres across the street from each other in Westwood.

The Touch of Satan

The film was shot in 1970 in the Santa Ynez, California area and featured early work by movie makeup artist Joe Blasco.

Thomas Anthony Thacher

His sons Sherman Day Thacher and William Larned Thacher were the founder of the Thacher School in Ojai, California; and his daughter Elizabeth Sherman Thacher married William Kent (U.S. Congressman).

Tomales Presbyterian Church and Cemetery

Tomales Presbyterian Church and Cemetery is a historic Presbyterian church at 11 Church Street in Tomales, California.

Trabuco Canyon, California

Trabuco Canyon is north of the town of Rancho Santa Margarita.

Triage tag

The example Triage Tag shown in this article is the All Risk(R) Triage Tag manufactured by Disaster Management Systems (DMS) located in Pomona, California.

Turbonilla halistrepta

The type species was found in the Pacific Ocean off Newport, California.

Turtle Rock Preschool

Turtle Rock Preschool (TRP) is a private preschool, kindergarten and after school academy located in the city of Irvine, California.

V3 Gaming PC

V3 Gaming PC is a manufacturer of custom-built personal computers headquartered in Lomita, California.

Westchester, Los Angeles

The main part of Westchester is flanked by Del Rey and Culver City on the north, Inglewood and Lennox on the east, Del Aire and El Segundo on the south and Playa del Rey on the west.

William Pedley

Pedley went to America where he was manager of the San Jacinto Land Company, who developed part of the Sobrante de San Jacinto land grant at Riverside, California.

Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas

Track 3 of side three and 1 and 2 of side four recorded at the Bakersfield Civic Auditorium, Bakersfield, California, October 22, 1975.

Wrestling at the 1984 Summer Olympics – Men's Greco-Roman +100 kg

The Men's Greco-Roman +100 kg at the 1984 Summer Olympics as part of the wrestling program were held at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California.

ZChocolat.com

zChocolat.com is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, and has a dedicated logistics center in Forcalquier Alpes de Haute Provence and U.S. office in Ojai, California.


Amanda Aday

She attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center, a summer theatre/dance camp in the Catskill Mountains in New York, from 1990 through 1996, and then graduated from the prestigious Idyllwild Arts Academy in California.

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 Lottery

Make Me a Millionaire, the California Lottery's second TV game show, debuted on January 17, 2009 for an initial four-year run with host Mark L. Walberg and co-presenter Liz Hernandez.

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.

Carl Braden

The Bradens had three children: James, born in 1951, a 1972 Rhodes Scholar, and a 1980 graduate of Harvard Law School (where he preceded Barack Obama as editor of the Harvard Law Review), has lived and practiced law for over 25 years in San Francisco, California.

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.

Clunker

A Cruiser bicycle built during the mid Seventies, in Marin county, California.

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.

Cornelius Herman Muller

In addition to his teaching duties during his years at UCSB, Muller conducted numerous research studies, funded partly by four National Science Foundation grants, on allelopathic mechanisms in California plant communities and systematics and evolution of the species Quercus.

Daniel J. Crowley

Crowley and a research expedition team from the University of California travelled to Oruro, Bolivia to study the major carnival there.

David Epel

David Epel is a researcher at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.

Doug Lefler

Doug Lefler (born California) is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer and storyboard artist, best known as director of the Dragonheart fantasy adventure film sequel, Dragonheart: A New Beginning, and recently The Last Legion.

Eldad

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

G. californica

Gutierrezia californica, the San Joaquin snakeweed and California matchweed, a flowering plant species native to California and Baja California

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.

Heather Aldama

Heather Marie Aldama (born 1 December 1978, in Redlands, California) is a retired American soccer midfielder who was a member of the United States women's national soccer team.

Henry Flynt

Kristine Stiles & Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by Kristine Stiles) University of California Press 2012, reprinting of Henry Flynt, Concept Art (1961) pp.

Hubbs' beaked whale

Carl Leavitt Hubbs, a noted American ichthyologist, published a description of a whale found alive in the surf near his office at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, in 1945.

Human trafficking in the United States

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

Huntington Park

Mount Rubidoux, a city park in Riverside, California, formerly known as Huntington Park

Jacques Vallée

Jacques Fabrice Vallée (born September 24, 1939 in Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France) is a venture capitalist, computer scientist, author, ufologist and former astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California.

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.

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

KEFC

KEFC-LP, a low-power radio station (100.5 FM) licensed to Turlock, California, United States

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

Loch Lomond Vernal Pool Ecological Reserve

An annual wildflower of the Phlox family (Polemoniaceae) that has only been found in the California counties of Lake, Sonoma and Napa.

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).

Mark Kersey

Mark Kersey (born c. 1976) is a member of the San Diego City Council representing District 5 in San Diego, California.

Mayacamas

Mayacamas Mountains or Mayacmas Mountains, in Napa Valley, 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).

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.

Richard Urquhart Goode

In 1889, he was appointed a geographer with the Survey and was placed in charge of surveys of the Pacific Coast States - California, Oregon, and Washington.

Rory Calhoun

At age thirteen, he stole a revolver, for which he was sent to the California Youth Authority's Preston School of Industry reformatory at Ione, California.

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.

SAPIEN Technologies, Inc.

Group Telein wrote the software in Turbo Pascal, eventually moving their operations from their individual residences to an office in downtown Berkeley, California.

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.