X-Nico

99 unusual facts about California


2012 May Day protests

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

37th parallel north

Landmarks on the 37th parallel include Santa Cruz, California; Gilroy, California; Madera, California; Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley; Colorado City, Arizona; the Four Corners at the intersection with the 32nd meridian west from Washington (the only place where four U.S. states meet at a point); Cairo, Illinois; Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Newport News, Virginia.

A. J. Jefferson

Jefferson was born and raised in Bakersfield, California and graduated from West High School of Bakersfield in 2006.

Acentrophryne

Fossils of the type species, A. longidens, have been found in Late Miocene strata of Rosedale.

AIDS Project Los Angeles

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

Alistair Paterson

By 2004, Paterson had opened a Poetry NZ office in Palm Springs, California.

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.

Arky Vaughan

After leaving the Seals, Vaughan bought a ranch in Eagleville, California where he retired to fish, hunt and tend cattle.

Artemis Pebdani

She received her BFA in theatre from Southern Methodist University and is also an alum of the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, California.

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.

Bobby Quarry

Bobby Quarry was born in Lynwood, California on November 11, 1962, and is the last surviving brother of the four Quarry brothers, three of whom were noted boxers.

Brian C. Griffin

In January 2004, Griffin was appointed the President and member of the Board for Clean Energy Systems, a private Rancho Cordova, California based energy technology innovations firm.

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 State Route 261

The freeway continues next to The Market Place, a mall in Irvine, before going through a toll plaza after the Irvine Boulevard interchange.

California State Route 49

Near the town of Mount Bullion, SR 49 passes by Mariposa-Yosemite Airport before turning northwest and going through Bear Valley and the intersection with CR J16.

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.

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.

Christian Parenti

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

Clymer Wright

Her daughter from a previous marriage is Lisa Kay Baker of Paso Robles, California.

Coleman University

1986 – the San Marcos campus was opened to serve growing populations in the northern part of San Diego County.

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.

Dedrick D. Gobert

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

Doug Chandler

John Douglas Chandler (born September 27, 1965 in Salinas, California) is a professional motorcycle racer.

Ducey's Bass Lake Lodge

In 1941, Buddy Freeman constructed Freeman's Bass Lake Lodge on the north shore of Bass Lake, California about one mile west of the Pines Village.

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.

En Ami

A majority of the lake scenes were filmed at Lake Sherwood in California.

Evangelica

The "dissident bimonthly" Evangelica based in Napa, California was founded in reaction.

Freddie Rodriguez

Prior to being elected to the state assembly, he was a Pomona city councilmember.

Freeway service patrol

In some states, the program name is the generic term, as with California's Freeway Service Patrol; in others, the program has an individualized name, as with Indiana's Hoosier Helper program.

Garden Grove Unified School District

GGUSD's enrollment boundaries allow the district to serve students in many central and northern Orange County communities, including: Anaheim, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Stanton, and Westminster

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.

Gold Line Foothill Extension

"Phase 2B" is the project to extend the Gold Line corridor from the Phase 2A terminus in Azusa east to Montclair.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

The latest acquisition by the National Park Service is Mori Point, a small parcel of land on the Pacifica coast.

Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media

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

Granville Knight

He later moved to California to practice in the fields of allergies and nutrition.

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.

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.

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.

Horace Bristol

Bristol was born and raised in Whittier, California, and attended the Art Center of Los Angeles, originally majoring in architecture.

Hugh Baiocchi

Married to wife Joan and with two children (Lauren and Justin), he lives in Palm Springs, California.

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.

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.

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.

Jon Pritikin

Jon and his wife, Rhonda and daughter, Jaden currently reside in Lodi, California.

José de los Santos Berreyesa

When his father traveled up to see how his three sons were being treated in jail, the father and two cousins, twin sons of Francisco de Haro, were shot and killed in San Rafael by a group of three men, including Kit Carson, assigned the task by Frémont.

KDUG

KDUG-LP, a low-power television station (channel 21) licensed to Hemet, California, United States

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.

Kristin Hedstrom

She currently resides in Oakland, California where she is affiliated with the California Rowing Club.

La Palma Intercommunity Hospital

La Palma Intercommunity Hospital (LPH) is an 141 bed acute care facility in La Palma, California, USA.

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.

Leah Rosenfeld

She spent the rest of her life in Mariposa, California, where she was interviewed by railroad historian Shirley Burman and photographed by railroad photographer Richard Steinheimer in 1987.

Leisure Suit Larry 4: The Missing Floppies

The other reason was that the ending of Larry 3 was very definitive and somehow metafictional, since it showed Larry and Patti coming to the Sierra studios to make games based on their adventures, as well as living happily in a mountain cabin in Coarsegold.

Liv Jagge-Christiansen

She participated at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley and at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, competing in downhill, slalom and giant slalom.

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.

Melvin Anthony

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

Metasonix

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

Northrop XFT

After the 3A and its test pilot, Lieutenant Frank Scare, disappeared without trace on a flight over the Pacific Ocean off California on 30 July 1935, Northrop abandoned the 3A project and sold its blueprints to Chance Vought Aviation.

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.

Paffard Keatinge-Clay

Here, he built a pavilion in the desert – an elemental study of components that would later become the template for his own home on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Corte Madera in Marin County.

Panama hake

The Panama hake (Merluccius angustimanus) is a merluccid hake of the genus Merluccius, found off the west coast of the Americas from Del Mar, California, to Ensenada de Tumaco, Colombia.

Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District

The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District (PYLUSD) is a public school district that serves Placentia, Yorba Linda and parts of Anaheim, Brea, and Fullerton located in Orange County, California.

Ramakrishna's influence

It premiered on September 16, 2006 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California, performed by Orange County’s Pacific Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carl St. Clair with the Pacific Chorale directed by John Alexander.

Rich Manning

He played collegiately at both Syracuse University and the University of Washington, after having attended Center High School in Antelope, California.

Road Hogs

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

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.

San Diego Polo Club

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

Santa Ana Civic Center

The County of Orange was formed in 1889 by William Spurgeon and James McFadden and Santa Ana was chosen as the county seat of government because of its larger growth as a town over surrounding towns namely Orange.

Santa Ana Unified School District

Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) is a school district in Orange County, California that serves the city of Santa Ana.

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.

Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour

After the death of her close childhood friend, 17-year-old Sarah Landon (Rissa Walters) goes to visit her friend's grandmother, Thelma Shaw (Jane Harris), in the small town of Pine Valley, California.

Saurolophus

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

Shirley Horton

Spring Valley.

St. Helena Hospital Clearlake

The hospital owns and operates three outpatient family health centers in Clearlake, Middletown and Kelseyville.

St. Jude Medical Center

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet began operating their first hospital in Eureka, California in 1919 as a response to the Spanish Flu epidemic.

Sun Valley Charter High School

Sun Valley Charter High School was a small charter high school in Ramona, California, chartered by the Ramona Unified School District.

Swift Aire Lines

Swift Aire Lines was a U.S. commuter air carrier that was based in San Luis Obispo, California.

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.

Tomales Presbyterian Church and Cemetery

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

Touro University

Touro University California, a medical, pharmacy and physician assistant's school in Vallejo, California, USA.

Trabuco Canyon, California

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

Turtle Rock Preschool

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

U.S. Route 95 in California

Upon entering San Bernardino County, US 95 turns away from the Colorado River, heading northwest towards Vidal Junction, the junction with SR 62 in the Vidal Valley.

V3 Gaming PC

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

Vaca Valley and Clear Lake Railroad

The Vaca Valley Railroad was incorporated on April 12, 1869 to run a branch from the mainline of the California Pacific Railroad (later Southern Pacific Railroad's mainline between Sacramento and Oakland, CA) at Elmira to Rumsey.

Walter B. LaBerge

He also held several academic appointments, including Senior Researcher at the Institute of Advanced Technology at the University of Texas at Austin; visiting professor at the Defense Systems Management College at the Defense Acquisition University in Fort Belvoir, Virginia; and Visiting Professor of Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, 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.

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.


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.

Angelo Buono, Jr.

The presiding judge, Ronald M. George (future Chief Justice of California), denied the motion to dismiss.

Being and Time

Theodore Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993).

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.

California Gull

Seriously threatened birds that share the same South Bay habitat include the Snowy Plover and California Least Tern, while less-threatened birds including Black-necked Stilts, American Avocets, Forster's Terns, and Caspian Terns are also preyed upon by the abnormally large flocks of California Gulls.

California Review

Milton Friedman, George Will, Jack Kemp, Arthur Laffer, Alexander Haig, Jack Wheeler, Pete Wilson, and George Gilder all agreed to give the California Review exclusive interviews.

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.

Carl E. Walz

The Expedition 4 crew returned to Earth aboard STS-111, with Endeavour landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on June 19, 2002.

Come Monday

At a live performance in 1974, Buffett mentioned that he wrote the song heading out to California the previous year, meaning that it would have been written as he was "heading up to San Francisco for the Labor Day Weekend show" in 1973.

David Epel

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

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).

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.

Fender California Series

Manufactured from 1997 to 1998 by Fender, the California Series Stratocaster, Telecaster and bass models were a joint effort between the company's factories in Corona and Ensenada.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Frederick Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929) was an American Unitarian minister who served congregations in Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, and California and who wrote many significant hymns.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jonas H. Ingram

In August 1952, he suffered a heart attack while serving as the superintendent of summer schools at Culver Academies, then was stricken again with another attack on September 9, while at the U.S. Naval Hospital in San Diego, California.

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

Kempster Blanchard Miller

His brother was businessman, rancher and citrus farmer Azariel Blanchard Miller (1878–1941), founder of the city of Fontana, California.

Lorenz Larkin

On February 9, 2013, the UFC announced that Larkin would make his debut against Francis Carmont at UFC on Fox: Henderson vs. Melendez in San Jose, California.

Lupinus apertus

Lupinus apertus, summit lupine, is a species of flowering plant from the order of Lamiales which is native to Nevada and California.

Michael Jung

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

Mount Sungay

The mountain was leveled to about half of its former prominence to accommodate the Palace in the Sky of the former First Lady, a mansion originally intended as a guesthouse for former California Gov. Ronald Reagan - who never arrived.

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.

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.

Ricardo Lacsamana

His painted Pumpkin won best entry at the 1998 Annual Pumpkin Contest at the Westin Hotel & Resorts in San Francisco, California.

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.

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.

Savitree Suttichanond

While attending the University of California, Irvine, Savitree was a member of the Delta Delta Delta Sorority, was a SPOP staffer, and actively participated in the university's Thai Club.

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.

Shanghai Girls

The sisters' story is interrelated with critical historical events, famous people, and important places—the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Shanghai, internment at Angel Island, Los Angeles Chinatown, Hollywood, World War II, the Chinese Exclusion Act, McCarthyism, etc.

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.

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.

Tunisian Community Center

In their support for the Tunisian Revolution's aims toward freedom and democracy, the TCC has written to the US Senator of California Barbara Boxer, requesting to freeze the overthrown President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's assets.

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.

William G. Sebold

William G. Sebold (Wilhelm Georg Debrowski; 10 March 1899 in Mülheim, Germany – February 1970 in Walnut Creek, California) was a German spy in the United States during World War II, who became a double agent for the FBI.

Zulema de la Cruz

Zulema de la Cruz was born in Madrid and studied at the Madrid Conservatory for piano and composition and Stanford University in California for composition and computer music, with professors including Carmelo Bernaola and Ramón Barce.