See USA -1-
California was first explored by the Spanish in the middle of 16th century. In 1769, the First of many Catholic missions was built in the colony of San Diego. Another large mission was constructed in San Fransisco in 1776. The famous explorers Louis and Clark were the first white men to observe the beautiful Pacific coast line, being followed in 19th century by mapping and surveying expeditions that started to win public support to "go west". These early frontiersmen explored many of the areas' natural resources - especially gold - and also used hunting for fur as a means of economic subsistance.
California was part of a larger territory that included the territories of Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorao and Utah. In 1848 it was divided by the Guadlupe-Hidalgo treaty that was completed between Mexico and United States.
California's birth as a State occured on September 9th, 1850. California was a welcome place for immigrants to climb the ladder of prosperity through the growing oil and related energy industries. Soon, famous Hollywood movies, and the country's largest fruit producing land led to rapid immigration and economic growth.
Many of these immigrants included Chinese, Japanese and others. Their communities are still thriving in many parts of Southern California. In the downtown area of Los Angeles, you can find the Japanese-American influenced "Little Tokyo." It has many ties to the early immigrants that succeeded in making California a very diverse community. You can also can visit the Nikkei (Japanese-American) Museum. Here are many exhibits of Japanese-Americans' history. Visitors to Little Tokyo during the week of August 11th may enjoy Nissei Week Festivals and parades.
To the southeast of Los Angeles, in Orange County, lies the city of Irvine; the starting place of this year's RAAM event. The nearby resort city of Newport Beach claims many celebrities as their local residents, and plays host to a renowned summer time Jazz Festival. The course that the bicyclist will travel from Irvine will follow the Santa-Fe railroad line that was responsible for opening the West coast to the entire rest of the United States.
While continuing east bound on the U.S. Highway 10 to Flagstaff, Arizona, the bicyclists will travel through the desert city of Palm Springs, where many large electric generating windmills can be viewed. This unusual site has been developed by the need for natural pollution free energy created by California's aggressive attitude towards eliminating smog, a problem in many large metropolitan areas.
Reference material
ATLAS OF AMERICAN HISTORY (Japanese edition) by Robert H. Ferrel & Richard Natkiel
Editorial content ©Bison Book Corp 1987 published by Hara-Shoboh ISBN4-562-02510-7
1st print March 1994Æ@12,360yen
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