Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
is any indication, California will make good on its big talk, no matter how outlandish it
might sound at first.
To read more about the garage-workshop culture of Silicon Valley go to
www.folklore.org
,
which covers the crashes and personality clashes that made geek history.
TIMELINE
6000-13,000 BC
Native American communities get settled across the state, from the Yurok in redwood plank
houses in the north to the Kumeyaay's thatched domed dwellings in the south.
AD 1542-43
Portuguese navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and his Spanish crew are the first Europeans to sail
California's coast. His journey ends in the Channel Islands when a gangrenous wound kills him.
1769
Franciscan friar Junípero Serra and Captain Gaspar de Portolá lead a Spanish expedition to estab-
lish missions, rounding up Native Californians as converts and conscripted labor.
1781
Spanish governor Felipe de Neve sets out from Mission San Gabriel with a tiny band of settlers,
trekking west just 9 miles to establish the future Los Angeles.
1821
Mexican independence ends Spanish colonization of California. Mexico inherits 21 missions,
along with unruly Californio cowboys and a radically reduced Native Californian population.
1835
An emissary of US President Andrew Jackson makes a formal offer to buy Alta California, but
Mexico tries to unsuccessfully sell it off to England instead.
