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Podcast Transcript
California is not just another state in the United States. It is the most populous state in the federation and if it were an independent country its economy would be the fifth largest in the world.
However, this is not always the case. In the 19th century, California was not big at all. Almost no one lives there. It is far from the center of American power and is technically part of Mexico.
Despite its late start, it more than made up for lost time in the 20th century.
Watch this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily to learn more about California, its history, and what makes it special.
As I travel around the world and tell people I’m from the United States, the first question I often receive is: “Are you from California?”
Many people know nothing about anything outside of California, Texas, and New York City.
In their minds, California is America. Two of America’s biggest cultural exports—Hollywood and Silicon Valley—both come from California.
California has the largest population and economy of all states, and is the third largest in area.
In order to understand California today, you must understand its geography and history.
California’s geography is very diverse. If you haven’t traveled extensively in California, you may have some preconceived notions about the climate and landscape. No matter what you think, if true, it only applies to a small portion of the state.
California’s most important geographical detail is its coastline. It stretches 840 miles (1,350 kilometers) along the Pacific Ocean from the Mexican border to Oregon.
The coast consists of wide beaches in southern California and rugged cliffs in the north.
In the middle of the coast lies San Francisco Bay, one of the largest and best natural harbors on the Pacific Coast and one of the best in the world. It is an outstanding port on a coast without good harbors.
About 77% of Californians live along the coast.
Moving inland, the state has one dominant feature: the Central Valley.
The Central Valley is a vast, flat, fertile agricultural valley that stretches 400 miles between the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east and the Coast Mountains to the west.
The northern part of the valley is known as the Sacramento Valley and the southern part is known as the San Joaquin Valley.
The valley’s Mediterranean climate, fertile alluvial soils, and extensive irrigation make it one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, supplying a large portion of the United States’ fruits, vegetables, nuts, and dairy products.
On the east side of the state are the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Cascade Mountains further north. These include some of the tallest mountains in the United States, including Mount Whitney, the highest point in the continental United States, and Mount Shasta to the north, a massive stratovolcano that has been dormant for the past 800 years.
Along Nevada’s mountainous borders you can find bristlecone pine trees, one of the oldest forms of life on Earth.
Much of the southern part of the state is desert. It is dominated by the Mojave Desert and the Sonoran Desert near the Mexican border. The area includes Death Valley, one of the lowest and hottest places on Earth.
The hottest temperature ever recorded was 56.7 °C or 134 °F, measured in Death Valley on July 10, 1913.
The northern part of the state is mountainous and has higher altitudes. There are some areas here that get a lot of snowfall. The average annual snowfall in Soda Springs, California is 411.6 inches (1,045 cm). That is over 34 feet or over 10 meters.
One of the most striking features of Northern California is the redwood forests along the northern coast. Sequoia trees are known to reach a height of 116 meters or 380 feet.
If you travel around California, one thing you’ll quickly notice is that once you leave the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California, the state’s population density drops dramatically. A large portion of the state is nearly desolate.
California’s extremely diverse geography has played an important role in shaping its history.
California’s history begins more than 10,000 years ago, when the first humans as we know them entered the region.
Tribes such as the Chumash, Miwok, Yokut, and Pomo developed complex societies, each adapted to specific environments ranging from coastal areas to inland valleys
They hunted, gathered, and fished, relying on acorns as their primary food source.
California is rich in linguistic diversity, with more than 100 languages spoken by dozens of different ethnic groups.
In 1542, Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became the first European to explore the California coast and claim the area for Spain. The specifics of his claims are ambiguous, as he never ventured far from the coast and never saw the lands he claimed for Spain.
Although sailing along the coast, he completely missed San Francisco Bay, the most striking feature of the entire coastline. In fact, the bay went unnoticed by numerous Spanish expeditions along the coast for nearly 200 years.
Despite Cabrillo’s claims, Spain has taken no action in the region for decades.
Sixty years later, in 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno mapped the coastline, including Monterey Bay, further establishing Spanish claims.
The belief that California was actually an island persisted for decades.
It was not until 1769 that Father Junipero Serra established the first Spanish mission in Santiago.
The Spanish mission system in California existed from 1769 to 1823 as part of Spain’s efforts to colonize and Christianize the region. It consists of 21 missions stretching from San Diego to Sonoma, royal camino or Royal Road. Led by Franciscan priests such as Father Serra, these missions aimed to convert Native Americans to Christianity and integrate them into Spanish colonial society.
On November 4, 1769, an expedition led by Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá finally discovered San Francisco Bay. The discovery was accidental. Portola and his expedition were actually looking for Monterey Bay, but beyond their destination.
In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain and California became part of the Mexican Republic.
Mexico abolished the missionary system and redistributed the land as large ranches to private individuals, mostly wealthy native Mexican landowners, known as Californians.
Mexico’s claim to California did not last long. In 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico.
In June 1846, while Mexico was occupied and fighting the Americans, a group of American settlers staged a brief rebellion in Mexican-controlled California known as the Bear Flag Rebellion.
Settlers centered in Sonoma, dissatisfied with Mexican rule, declared California an independent republic and raised a makeshift flag featuring a bear and star that later became the inspiration for the modern California flag.
The Bear Flag Republic lasted less than a month before U.S. troops took control, marking a major step toward the eventual U.S. annexation of California.
In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war and formally ceded California to the United States
That same year, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, sparking the California Gold Rush.
The next year, thousands of prospectors known as the “49ers” migrated to California, changing the social and economic landscape.
The influx of settlers led to widespread displacement and violence against Native Americans and changed California forever.
Soon, in 1850, California joined the Union and became the 31st state. It was the first U.S. state to border the Pacific Ocean.
California is cut off from the rest of the country. It does not border any other states, and reaching California requires either a long and dangerous overland trip or a long sea trip through South America.
This problem was finally solved in 1869 with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, which stretched from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Francisco, where it connected with the Eastern Railroad.
By 1900, California’s population was just under 1.5 million and Los Angeles’ population was just over 100,000.
The twentieth century saw the rapid rise of California.
The fertile Central Valley has made it an agricultural powerhouse. Ore and lumber were large industries, and its location made it America’s gateway to the Pacific and Asia.
The discovery of oil in Southern California spurred industrial growth in the state.
The first modern industry to settle in California was the motion picture industry. In 1910, many of the first movie studios opened their studios in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles.
Southern California’s consistent sunshine and mild weather allow for outdoor filming year-round, while its proximity to mountains, beaches, deserts, and urban environments provides filmmakers with a variety of natural backdrops. Additionally, Hollywood’s geographic isolation from Thomas Edison’s base in New Jersey made it easier for filmmakers to escape his strict patent controls, fostering a more independent and creative environment.
In the early 20th century, good weather and economic opportunities led to a dramatic increase in California’s population.
In 1910, the population reached 2,377,549; in 1920, 3,426,861; in 1930, it was 5,677,251.
The population has nearly quadrupled in just 30 years.
Oddly enough, the Great Depression saw even more immigration. California became a destination for Dust Bowl immigrants, as described in John Steinbeck’s book grapes of wrath.
Large infrastructure projects like Hoover Dam provide jobs and water.
Likewise, World War II did not stop California’s growth. California became a center for defense manufacturing, especially shipbuilding and aerospace.
California was also the center of the mass internment of Japanese Americans. Manzanar and Tule Lake were two of the largest internment camps in the United States.
After the war, the area south of San Francisco became a hotbed for the aerospace and defense industry. Fairchild Semiconductor is a company founded in the 1950s
Fairchild Semiconductor became the seed for several technology companies in the region founded by former employees. Intel, AMD, National Semiconductor and Silicon Valley Graphics are among the microprocessor companies established in the region.
The entire area is known as Silicon Valley.
In the 1960s, California once again became a cultural center. It was the center of the counterculture and hippie movement. The Doors, the Grateful Dead, the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, even surf bands like the Beach Boys all came from California.
The young California wine industry came to prominence in the 1970s when California wines beat French wines in blind taste tests. Wine regions such as Napa Valley and Sonoma became among the most productive in the world.
In the 1980s, Silicon Valley moved away from microprocessors and toward personal computers and companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple. With the rise of the Internet in the 1990s and early 2000s, companies such as Google and Facebook were established in Silicon Valley.
Today, California has one of the largest economies in the world, driven by technology, entertainment, agriculture and tourism.
As of the 2020 census, California’s population was 39 million.
It is home to nine national parks in the United States, the most of any state, including world-class attractions such as Yosemite National Park.
California is far from perfect. Today, it suffers from homelessness, wildfires, drought, housing shortages and a host of other problems, much of which stems from its success over the past century.
For the first time since joining the Union, California experienced net out-migration.
Yet despite its problems, people around the world still view California as the embodiment of America, and it will remain the nation’s largest economy and most populous state for the foreseeable future.
