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[edit] September 19, 2006
Yosemite National Park (pronounced "Yo-SEM-it-tee", IPA [joʊˈsɛməti]) is a national park largely in Mariposa County, and Tuolumne County, California, United States. The park covers an area of 1,189 mi² (3,081 km²) and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. Yosemite is visited by over 3 million visitors each year, with most only seeing Yosemite Valley. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity (about 89% of the park is designated wilderness area). It was also the first park set aside by the U.S. federal government. Although not the first designated national park, Yosemite was a focal point in the development of the national park idea, largely owing to the work of people like John Muir.
[edit] October 3, 2006
The Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on October 17, 1989, in the greater San Francisco Bay Area in California at 5:04 p.m. local time and measured 6.9 on the Moment magnitude scale (surface-wave magnitude 7.1). It occurred during the 1989 World Series, which happened to match up the Bay Area's two Major League Baseball teams, the Oakland Athletics against the San Francisco Giants. The earthquake lasted for 15 seconds. Its epicenter was at geographical coordinates south-southwest of Loma Prieta Peak in the unincorporated area of Aptos. This location, in the Santa Cruz Mountains' Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, is about ten miles (16 km) northeast of the city of Santa Cruz, California. The focus point was at a depth of 16.79 km, or 10 miles.
[edit] November 9, 2006
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began in January 1848, when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill. As news of the discovery spread, some 300,000 people came to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.
These early gold-seekers, called "forty-niners", traveled to California by sailing ship and in covered wagons across the continent, often facing substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly-arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush also attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia and Asia. At first, the prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning, and later developed more sophisticated methods of gold recovery that were adopted around the world. Gold worth billions of today's dollars was recovered, leading to great wealth for a few; many, however, returned home with little more than they started with.
[edit] July 18, 2007
The Mojave Desert (IPA: /ˌmoʊˈhɑvi/ or /məˈhɑvi/), locally referred to as the High Desert, occupies a significant portion of southern California and smaller parts of southwestern Utah, southern Nevada, and northwestern Arizona, in the United States. Named after the Mohave tribe of Native Americans, it occupies over 22,000 square miles (57,000 km²) in a typical Basin and Range topography.
The Mojave Desert's boundaries are generally defined by the presence of Joshua Trees — they are considered an indicator species for the desert. The topographical boundaries include the Tehachapi together with the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountain ranges. The mountain boundaries are quite distinct since they are outlined by the two largest faults in California: the San Andreas and the Garlock. The Great Basin shrub steppe lies to the north; the warmer Sonoran Desert (the Low Desert) lies to the south and east. The desert is believed to have between 1,750 and 2,000 species of plants.
