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California
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California (/ˌkælɪˈfɔːrnjəˌ -ni.ə/ ^ⓘ KAL-ih-FORN-yə, -⁠FOR-nee-ə) is a state in the Western United States, lying on the American Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With over 38.9 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km²), it is the most populous U.S. state, the third-largest U.S. state by area, and the most populated subnational entity in North America.

The Greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas in California are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions respectively. Greater Los Angeles has over 18.7 million residents and the San Francisco Bay Area has over 9.6 million residents. Los Angeles is the state's most populous city and the nation's second-most populous city, after New York City. San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major city in the country, after New York City. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous county, and San Bernardino County is the nation's largest county by area. Sacramento is the state's capital city.

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America, and the indigenous peoples of California constituted the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including the depopulation of indigenous peoples in the California genocide. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, as a free state, following the Compromise of 1850. (Full article...)

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Yosemite National Park (/joʊˈsɛmɪti/ yoh-SEM-ih-tee) is a national park in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers 759,620 acres (1,187 sq mi; 3,074 km²) in four counties – centered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various California-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Pacheco Adobe, built 1835 by Salvio Pacheco on Rancho Monte del Diablo. (from History of California)
Image 2The 1846 Bear Flag Revolt declared the California Republic and prefaced the American conquest of California. (from History of California)
Image 3While slavery was abolished in California by Mexican authorities in 1829, the first California State Legislature under U.S. statehood passed the 1850 Indian Indenture Act, which allowed for the forced labor of indigenous Californians by Americans. (from History of California)
Image 4The Treaty of Cahuenga, signed at the Campo de Cahuenga in 1847 by Californio general Andrés Pico and American general John C. Frémont, proclaimed a ceasefire under an American victory. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed a year later in 1848, officially ended the Mexican–American War and formally ceded Alta California to the United States. (from History of California)
Image 5California was often depicted as an island, due to the Baja California peninsula, from the 16th to the 18th centuries, such as in this 1650 map by cartographer Johannes Vingboons. (from History of California)
Image 6"Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California", c. 1850 (from History of California)
Image 7Angustias de la Guerra played a crucial role in defending women's property rights during the drafting of the Constitution of California. (from History of California)
Image 8California's first State Capitol building in San Jose, which served as the capital of California 1850–51. (from History of California)
Image 9The University of California, Berkeley is the flagship school of the University of California system. (from Culture of California)
Image 10Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, established in 1770, was the headquarters of the Californian mission system from 1797 until 1833. (from History of California)
Image 11San Francisco harbor, c. 1850–51. (from History of California)
Image 12Stanford University Oval (from Culture of California)
Image 13Depiction of the Donner Party heading west on the California Trail. (from History of California)
Image 14Map of the Butterfield Overland Mail routes through California, c. 1858. (from History of California)
Image 15The Getty Villa (from Culture of California)
Image 16Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, founded in 1771 by padres Pedro Benito Cambón and Ángel de la Somera. (from History of California)
Image 17Joaquín Murrieta, called the "Robin Hood of California", was a notorious outlaw during the California Gold Rush. He served as inspiration for Zorro, the famed Californian bandit-hero character. (from History of California)
Image 18Presidio of Santa Barbara. (from Culture of California)
Image 19Portrait of an "assimilated" Maidu man in Sacramento, 1867. (from History of California)
Image 20Depiction of the revolt of the Mission Indians against padre Luis Jayme at Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1775. (from History of California)
Image 21Founded by Vicente Francisco de Sarría in 1817, Mission San Rafael Arcángel, was the last mission founded during the Spanish period. (from History of California)
Image 22A Southern Pacific Train at Arcade Depot, Los Angeles, 1891 (from History of California)
Image 23The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions. (from History of California)
Image 24Juan Bautista de Anza led the 1774-76 Anza Expeditions. (from History of California)
Image 25Map of Spain's Manila galleon trade routes, showing routes between the Spanish East Indies and Acapulco passing along the coast of California. (from History of California)
Image 26Mission Santa Barbara, founded in 1786, was the first mission to be established by Fermín de Lasuén. (from History of California)
Image 27Presidio of San Francisco, founded by José Joaquín Moraga in 1776. (from History of California)
Image 28The Battle of San Pasqual in 1846. (from History of California)
Image 29Forces raising the U.S. flag over the Monterey Customhouse following their victory at the Battle of Monterey (from History of California)
Image 30Goldfields in the Sierra Nevada and Shasta Cascade. (from History of California)
Image 31The American capture of San Diego by the USS Cyane in 1846 (from History of California)
Image 32Between 1846 and 1873, U.S. government agents waged an extermination campaign against Indigenous Californians, known as the California genocide, resulting in as many as 100,000 deaths. (from History of California)
Image 33The 1562 map of the Americas, created by Spanish cartographer Diego Gutiérrez, which applied the name California for the first time. (from History of California)
Image 34The 1835 Manifiesto a la República Mejicana, by José Figueroa, was the first book published in California (from Culture of California)
Image 35Flag of Company A (The California 100) during the U.S. Civil War. (from History of California)
Image 36General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo reviewing his troops in Sonoma in 1846. (from History of California)
Image 37Advertisement for sailing to California, c. 1850. (from History of California)
Image 38Francis Drake's 1579 landing in "New Albion" (modern-day Point Reyes); engraving by Theodor De Bry, 1590. (from History of California)
Image 39Portrait of a Californio in traditional vaquero clothing. Californios benefitted immensely by the establishment of the ranchos of California, following the Mexican secularization act of 1833. (from History of California)
Image 40The railway station in Sacramento in 1874. (from History of California)
Image 41Poppies, Antelope Valley, a California Impressionist painting by Benjamin Chambers Brown (from Culture of California)
Image 42Map of the route taken by the Anza Expedition of 1775–76, from the Presidio of Tubac to San Francisco Bay. (from History of California)
Image 43In-N-Out burgers (from Culture of California)
Image 44Balthazar, Inhabitant of Northern California, an 1818 portrait of a Miwok man by artist Mikhail Tikhanov. (from History of California)
Image 45Manuel Domínguez built Domínguez Adobe on Rancho San Pedro in 1826. (from History of California)
Image 46Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in 1823 by order of Governor Luis Antonio Argüello, was the last Californian mission established. (from History of California)
Image 47Gaspar de Portolá served as the first Governor of the Californias and led the famed Portolá expedition of 1769-70. (from History of California)
Image 48The Vallecitos stop of the Butterfield Overland Mail, in Julian, California. (from History of California)
Image 49Concord Coach no. 251 in Wells Fargo livery in Old Town San Diego. (from History of California)
Image 50The Petaluma Adobe, built by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo in 1836 on Rancho Petaluma. (from History of California)
Image 51Junípero Serra conducting the first mass in Monterey Bay in 1770. (from History of California)
Image 52Dividing the Light (2007), a skyspace by James Turrell at Pomona College (from Culture of California)
Image 53Bodega y Quadra led a 1775 expedition along the coast of California into the Pacific Northwest. (from History of California)
Image 54Depiction of the California hide trade. (from History of California)
Image 55The colonial coat of arms of the Californias, granted by Antonio de Mendoza, the first Viceroy of New Spain. (from History of California)
Image 56SS California (1848), the first paddle steamer to steam between Panama City and San Francisco, as part of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. (from History of California)
Image 57General Richard Barnes Mason was the longest serving U.S. Military Governor of California (1847–1849), overseeing California's transition into statehood. (from History of California)
Image 58The Battle of Río San Gabriel, in 1847, was a decisive victory for the American campaign in Alta California. (from History of California)

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As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future.

— Alison Lurie

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Image 1

Hanna in 1977

William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator, voice actor, and occasional musician who is best known for co-creating Tom and Jerry and providing the vocal effects for the series' title characters. Alongside Joseph Barbera, he also founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera.

Hanna joined the Harman and Ising animation studio in 1930 and steadily gained skill and prominence while working on cartoons such as Captain and the Kids. In 1937, while working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Hanna met Joseph Barbera. In 1957, they co-founded Hanna-Barbera, which became the most successful television animation studio in the business, creating or producing programs such as The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear. In 1967, Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting for $12 million, but Hanna and Barbera remained heads of the company until 1991. At that time, the studio was sold to Turner Broadcasting System, which in turn was merged with Time Warner in 1996; Hanna and Barbera stayed on as advisors. (Full article...)
Image 2

Publicity photo of Anna May Wong from Stars of the Photoplay, 1930

Wong Liu Tsong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961), known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress, considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition. Her varied career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio.

Born in Los Angeles to second-generation Taishanese Chinese American parents, Wong became engrossed with films and decided at the age of 11 that she would become an actress. Her first role was as an extra in the movie The Red Lantern (1919). During the silent film era, she acted in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first films made in color, and in Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Wong became a fashion icon and had achieved international stardom in 1924. Wong had been one of the first to embrace the flapper look. In 1934, the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York voted her the "world's best dressed woman." In the 1920s and 1930s, Wong was acclaimed as one of the top fashion icons. (Full article...)
Image 3

Schwarzenegger in 2019

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, businessman, filmmaker, former politician, and former professional bodybuilder known for his roles in high-profile action movies. He served as the 38th governor of California from 2003 to 2011 and was among Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and 2007.

Schwarzenegger began lifting weights at age 15 and won the Mr. Universe title aged 20, and subsequently the Mr. Olympia title seven times. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, and has written many books and articles about it. The Arnold Sports Festival, considered the second-most important bodybuilding event after Mr. Olympia, is named after him. He appeared in the bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron (1977). After retiring from bodybuilding, he gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action star, with his breakthrough in the sword and sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian (1982), a box-office hit with a sequel in 1984. After playing the title character in the science fiction film The Terminator (1984), he starred in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and three other sequels. His other successful action films included Commando (1985), The Running Man (1987), Predator (1987), Total Recall (1990), and True Lies (1994), in addition to comedy films such as Twins (1988), Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Jingle All the Way (1996). He is the founder of the film production company Oak Productions. (Full article...)
Image 4

Official portrait, 1981

Ronald Wilson Reagan (/ˈreɪɡən/ RAY-gən; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, his presidency constituted the Reagan era, and he is considered one of the most prominent conservative figures in American history.

Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and began to work as a sports broadcaster in Iowa. In 1937, he moved to California, and became a well-known film actor there. From 1947 to 1952, Reagan served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild. During the 1950s, he worked in television and spoke for General Electric. From 1959 to 1960, he again served as the Screen Actors Guild's president. In 1964, his "A Time for Choosing" speech gave Reagan attention as a new conservative figure. He was elected governor of California in 1966. During his governorship, he raised taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus, and cracked down harshly on university protests. After challenging and losing to incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican nomination and then a landslide victory over incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. (Full article...)
Image 5

Caroline Agnes Brady (also known as Caroline Agnes Von Egmont Brady; October 3, 1905 – November 5, 1980) was an American philologist who specialised in Old English and Old Norse works. Her works included the 1943 book The Legends of Ermanaric, based on her doctoral dissertation, and three influential papers on the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University, among other places.

Brady was born an American citizen in Tientsin, China, and traveled frequently as a child, spending time in Los Angeles, California, British Columbia, and Austin, Texas. She studied in the University of California system, receiving her bachelor's and master's degrees, and her Ph.D. in 1935. She next became an English instructor at that university's College of Agriculture, and worked as an assistant professor of languages and literature at Berkeley from 1941 to 1946. The following three years were spent at the University of Pennsylvania, until, at the end of 1949, Brady moved to teach at Central Oregon Community College; her resignation due to "ill health" was announced a few months later. After being named the 1952–53 Marion Talbot Fellow of the American Association of University Women and writing two articles, Brady's scholarship ceased for a quarter of a century. In 1979, and posthumously in 1983, her final two articles were published. (Full article...)
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Horace Jeremiah "Jerry" Voorhis (April 6, 1901 – September 11, 1984) was a Democratic politician and educator from California who served five terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1947, representing the 12th congressional district in Los Angeles County. He was the first political opponent of Richard M. Nixon, who defeated Voorhis for re-election in 1946 in a campaign cited as an example of Nixon's use of red-baiting during his political rise.

Voorhis was born in Kansas, but the family relocated frequently in his childhood. He earned a bachelor's degree from Yale University (where he was elected to the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa) and a master's degree in education from Claremont Graduate School. In 1928, he founded the Voorhis School for Boys and became its headmaster. He retained the post into his congressional career. (Full article...)
Image 7

Pauling in the 1940s

Linus Carl Pauling (/ˈpɔːlɪŋ/ PAW-ling; February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize (the others being Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Frederick Sanger, and Karl Barry Sharpless). Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.

Pauling was one of the founders of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology. His contributions to the theory of the chemical bond include the concept of orbital hybridisation and the first accurate scale of electronegativities of the elements. Pauling also worked on the structures of biological molecules, and showed the importance of the alpha helix and beta sheet in protein secondary structure. Pauling's approach combined methods and results from X-ray crystallography, molecular model building, and quantum chemistry. His discoveries inspired the work of Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins on the structure of DNA, which in turn made it possible for geneticists to crack the DNA code of all organisms. (Full article...)
Image 8
Walter Francis O'Malley (October 9, 1903 – August 9, 1979) was an American sports executive who owned the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers team in Major League Baseball from 1950 to 1979. In 1958, as owner of the Dodgers, he brought major league baseball to the West Coast, moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles despite the Dodgers being the second most profitable team in baseball from 1946 to 1956, and coordinating the move of the New York Giants to San Francisco at a time when there were no teams west of Kansas City, Missouri. In 2008, O'Malley was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for his contributions to and influence on the game of baseball.

O'Malley's father, Edwin Joseph O'Malley, was politically connected. Walter, a University of Pennsylvania salutatorian, went on to obtain a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), and he used the combination of his family connections, his personal contacts, and both his educational and vocational skills to rise to prominence. First, he became an entrepreneur involved in public works contracting, and then he became an executive with the Dodgers. He progressed from being a team lawyer to being both the Dodgers' owner and president, and he eventually made the business decision to relocate the Dodgers franchise. Although he moved the franchise, O'Malley is known as a businessman whose major philosophy was stability through loyalty to and from his employees. (Full article...)
Image 9

Knight in June 2007

Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight Jr. (/ʃʊɡ/ SHUUG; born April 19, 1965) is an American music executive and convicted felon who is the co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records. Knight was a central figure in gangsta rap's commercial success in the 1990s. This feat is attributed to the record label's first two album releases: Dr. Dre's The Chronic in 1992 and Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle in 1993. Knight is serving a 28-year sentence in prison for a fatal hit-and-run in 2015.

Prior to founding Death Row Records, Knight played college football at UNLV as a defensive end. He would briefly play in the NFL for the Los Angeles Rams as a replacement player during the 1987 NFL players strike. (Full article...)
Image 10

Gyllenhaal in 2019

Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal (/ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl/ JIL-ən-hawl, Swedish: [ˈjʏ̂lːɛnˌhɑːl]; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in October Sky (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in Donnie Darko (2001).

Gyllenhaal starred in the 2004 science fiction disaster film The Day After Tomorrow. He played Jack Twist in Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, for which Gyllenhaal won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. His career progressed with starring roles in the thriller Zodiac (2007), the romantic comedy Love & Other Drugs (2010), and the science fiction film Source Code (2011). Further acclaim came with his roles in Denis Villeneuve's thrillers Prisoners (2013) and Enemy (2013), and he received nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performances as a manipulative journalist in Nightcrawler (2014) and a troubled writer in Nocturnal Animals (2016). His highest-grossing release came with the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), in which he portrayed Quentin Beck / Mysterio. He has since starred in Wildlife (2018), Velvet Buzzsaw (2019), The Guilty (2021), and Ambulance (2022). (Full article...)
Image 11

The GFDL logo

The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify (except for "invariant sections") a work and requires all copies and derivatives to be available under the same license. Copies may also be sold commercially, but, if produced in larger quantities (greater than 100), the original document or source code must be made available to the work's recipient.

The GFDL was designed for manuals, textbooks, other reference and instructional materials, and documentation which often accompanies GNU software. However, it can be used for any text-based work, regardless of subject matter. For example, the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia uses the GFDL (coupled with the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License) for much of its text, excluding text that was imported from other sources after the 2009 licensing update that is only available under the Creative Commons license. (Full article...)
Image 12

Hartman in character as Chick Hazard, Private Eye, circa 1978.

Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group the Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.

In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. He also starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio, voiced Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure on The Simpsons, and appeared in supporting roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers. (Full article...)
Image 13

Major Burnham in his British Army uniform in 1901

Frederick Russell Burnham DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa, and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rhodesia. Burnham helped inspire the founding of the international Scouting Movement.

Burnham was born on a Dakota Sioux Indian reservation in Minnesota, in the small village of Tivoli near the city of Mankato; there he learned the ways of American Indians as a boy. By the age of 14, he was supporting himself in California, while also learning scouting from some of the last of the cowboys and frontiersmen of the American Southwest. Burnham had little formal education, never finishing high school. After moving to the Arizona Territory in the early 1880s, he was drawn into the Pleasant Valley War, a feud between families of ranchers and sheepherders. He escaped and later worked as a civilian tracker for the United States Army in the Apache Wars. Feeling the need for new adventures, Burnham took his family to southern Africa in 1893, seeing Cecil Rhodes's Cape to Cairo Railway project as the next undeveloped frontier. (Full article...)
Image 14

Perry in 2023

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. She is known for her influence on modern pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone. At 16, Perry released a gospel record titled Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records.

Perry rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 respectively. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"— the only album by a female singer to do so. A reissue of the album titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently produced the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her empowerment-themed album Prism (2013) had two U.S. number one singles, "Roar" and "Dark Horse". Both their respective music videos made Perry the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo and YouTube. The electropop album Witness (2017) featured themes of feminism and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) was influenced by motherhood and her mental health journey. Afterwards, she embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play (2021–2023), receiving critical acclaim and commercial success. (Full article...)
Image 15

Meyer in 1996 (photo by Roger Ebert)

Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. He is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Meyer often named Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) as his definitive work. (Full article...)

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... that the serial arsonist who started the fatal Nihon Shōgakkō fire confessed to starting at least 25 other California fires in the early 1920s?
... that until its demolition in 2014, The Jungle in San Jose, California, was often considered to be one of the largest homeless encampments in the United States?
... that Sigismund Danielewicz's career in the California labor movement ended after he delivered an 1885 speech advocating against the persecution of Chinese people?
... that Cephas L. Bard, the first American physician in Ventura, California, was also the first person to die in the hospital he built there?
... that when UCLA was founded in 1919, the university's students provided numerous services, including athletics, housing, and parking?
... that a Chinatown in the logging community of Sugar Pine was intentionally burned down by the Madera Sugar Pine Company in 1922?
... that Project Carryall proposed the detonation of 23 nuclear devices in California to build a road?
... that the founder of a California TV station opted not to name it for himself because the call sign would have sounded like "cough"?

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Black's Beach

Credit: Jaybeatle

Black's Beach is a de facto clothing optional beach in La Jolla, California. It is perhaps the largest nude beach in the United States and is popular with many Southern Californian nudists and naturists. It is situated north of downtown La Jolla and south of Torrey Pines State Park.

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Credit: Emin Eshacker

State Route 166 is a part of the California Freeway and Expressway System and is eligible for the State Scenic Highway System. It starts off in Guadalupe in northwestern Santa Barbara County and heads east towards the largest city on its eastern journey: Santa Maria.

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State facts

Nicknames: The Golden State
Capital: Sacramento
Total area: 163,696 mi²
- Land: 156,002 mi²
- Water: 7,694 mi²
Highest elevation: 14,505 ft (Mount Whitney)
Population 39,250,017 (2016 est)
Admission to the Union: September 9, 1850 (31^st)

State symbols:

Insect: California Dogface Butterfly
Bird: California Valley Quail
Fossil: Saber-toothed cat
Dance: West Coast Swing
Colors: Blue & Gold
Animal: California Grizzly Bear
Flower: California Poppy
Gem: Benitoite
Rock: Serpentine
Fish: California Golden Trout
Songs: I Love You, California
Tree: California Redwood
Mineral: Gold

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Create Requested California Articles
Help assess articles supported by WikiProject California
Help suggest content for usage in this portal by using the archive links to obtain instructions
Write California-related topics if you see a redlink which is worthy of an article
Cleanup and expand stub-class articles relating to California