California Trivia & Tidbits - Page 14

Looking for California trivia? Try our list California little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

The Napa Valley Wine Auction, held annually in St. Helena (pop. 5,950), is the largest charity wine auction in the country. Since its inception in 1981, the auction has contributed more than $42 million to local health organizations and programs dedicated to providing affordable housing and youth development to Napa’s underserved areas.

first appeared: 1/26/2003

Established in 1902, Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains is California’s oldest state park and home to the largest continuous stand of ancient coast redwoods south of San Francisco. Elevations in the park, located northwest of Santa Cruz, vary from sea level to more than 2,000 feet.

first appeared: 1/19/2003

Hollywood legend Hedy Lamarr, born Eva Marie Kiesler in Vienna in 1913, also was an inventor who created a system for guiding torpedoes by radio signal—an invention considered the basis for modern satellite communications. She and composer George Antheil earned a U.S. patent for their device in August 1942.

first appeared: 1/12/2003

Library Tower in Los Angeles, at 1,018 feet, is the tallest building west of the Mississippi River and the world’s tallest building featuring a roof helipad.

first appeared: 1/5/2003

Television chef Julia Child was born in Pasadena in 1912. Her inaugural show, The French Chef, first aired in 1963. Much beloved for her exuberant spirit and passion for cuisine, Child is featured in a PBS-television special called Julia Child’s Kitchen Wisdom, which still is shown in some markets.

first appeared: 1/5/2003

Fort Bragg (pop. 7,026) annually holds the world’s largest salmon barbecue. More than 5,000 pounds of donated and bought fish, 5,000 ears of corn, 1,000 pounds of salad, and 850 loaves of bread are served each year to support efforts to replenish the wild salmon on the West Coast.

first appeared: 12/29/2002

The California Strawberry Festival celebrates the leading industry in Ventura County, where annual strawberry revenues top $100 million. Since the festival’s 1984 inception, nearly $2 million of its proceeds have been donated to local educational and civic organizations.

first appeared: 12/22/2002

California’s interesting town names include Avocado Heights (pop. 15,148), Buttonwillow (pop. 1,226), Half Moon Bay (pop. 11,842), Hawaiian Gardens (pop. 14,779), Iron Horse (pop. 321), Joshua Tree (pop. 4,207), Mecca (pop. 5,402), Onyx (pop. 476), Rail Road Flat (pop. 549), Squirrel Mountain Valley (pop. 498), and Weed (pop. 2,978).

first appeared: 12/15/2002

Frank Epperson, a San Francisco native, invented the Popsicle at age 11 in 1905, but waited 18 years to patent the frozen drink on a stick. Within five years, the lemonade salesman had sold more than 60 million Popsicles in seven assorted fruit flavors and had earned royalties for every Popsicle sold.

first appeared: 12/8/2002

The main chamber in Moaning Cavern near Angels Camp is big enough to hold the Statue of Liberty. The cave, discovered in 1851, got its name from echoes of dripping water that sounded like distant moaning to early cave explorers.

first appeared: 12/1/2002

Visitors to Old Town San Diego State Historic Park can see examples of original adobe buildings reflecting the city’s Mexican and early American era. Among the park’s historic structures is the two-story Robinson-Rose House, built by Texan James Robinson in 1853 as offices for the San Diego Herald and the San Diego and Gila Railroad.

first appeared: 11/24/2002

Richard Rutan and Jeana Yeager piloted the first nonstop, round-the-world flight, which began and ended at Edwards Air Force Base near Rosamond (pop. 14,349). The flight’s duration—from Dec. 14, 1986, to Dec. 23, 1986—totaled 216 hours and about 25,000 miles. The pair flew a Voyager aircraft, whose lightweight structural materials allowed it to carry an unprecedented amount of fuel.

first appeared: 11/17/2002

Zane Grey, a former dentist who became the greatest storyteller of the American West, lived in Altadena, Calif., for 21 years before his death in 1939.

first appeared: 11/10/2002

Imperial County, the state’s most southeastern county, lies in the hottest part of the United States and ranks as one of the hottest places in the world, with a recorded high temperature of 130 degrees—close to the 134-degree record set in Death Valley to the north.

first appeared: 11/10/2002

The National Yo-Yo Museum in Chico claims it houses the world’s largest working wooden yo-yo; a 256-pound version named “Big Yo.” The yo-yo is 50 inches tall, 34 inches wide, and is operated by a crane.

first appeared: 11/3/2002

The cable cars of San Francisco are one of only two mobile national monuments in the country. The other is the Saint Charles streetcar line in New Orleans.

first appeared: 10/27/2002

The desert tortoise, California’s official state reptile, enjoys 39.5 square miles of prime natural habitat at the Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area in the northwest Mojave Desert. The tortoise, almost a foot long, lives 80 to 100 years.

first appeared: 10/20/2002

The main star projector at DeAnza College’s Minolta Planetarium in Silicon Valley was donated by the Minolta Camera Co. At the planetarium’s dedication ceremony in 1970, Minolta president Kazuo Tashima stated, “The mind finds no limits in an expanding universe”—a phrase later cast onto the planetarium’s dedication plaque. More than 30,000 people visit the planetarium annually.

first appeared: 10/20/2002

A bristlecone pine known as the Methuselah tree, growing in the White Mountains of eastern California, dates back nearly 5,000 years and is considered the world’s oldest known living thing. Bristlecones thrive in a harsh climate above 10,000 feet elevation, and many were alive when the pyramids of Egypt were being built.

first appeared: 10/13/2002

Alcatraz Island, run by the National Park Service, has gardens, tide pools, bird colonies, beautiful views of San Francisco Bay, and an operating lighthouse.

first appeared: 10/13/2002

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