Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

Mount Diablo is a mountain in Contra Costa County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area, located south of Clayton and northeast of Danville. It is an isolated upthrust peak of 3,864 feet (1,178 m), visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area and much of northern California. Mount Diablo appears from many angles to be a double pyramid and includes many subsidiary peaks, the largest and closest of which is the other half of the double pyramid, North Peak, nearly as high in elevation at 3,557 feet (1,084 m) and about one mile northeast of the main summit.

The peak is the centerpiece of Mount Diablo State Park, a state park of about 20,000 acres (8,000 ha) in area. The park was the first public open space of a complex—according to Save Mount Diablo—now including 38 preserves, including nearby city open spaces, regional parks, watersheds, etc., buffered in some areas with private lands protected with conservation easements. Preserved lands on and around Mount Diablo total more than 90,000 acres (36,000 ha). (more...)

William Randolph Hearst (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain and whose methods profoundly influenced the history of American journalism. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father. Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that led to the creation of yellow journalism—sensationalized stories featuring crime, corruption, sensation and sex, and of sometimes dubious veracity. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world.

He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, for Governor of New York in 1906. Politically he was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class. He controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines and thereby exercised enormous political influence. He called for war in 1898 against Spain—as did many papers—but he did it in sensational fashion. After 1918 he called for an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932-34, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. His peak circulation reached 20 million readers a day in the mid 1930s, but he was a bad money manager and was so deeply in debt that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s; but he kept his newspapers and magazines.

His life story was the main inspiration for the ridicule of the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane. His famous mansion, Hearst Castle, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark. (more...)

San Francisco /sæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural center and a leading financial hub of the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.

The only consolidated city-county in California, San Francisco encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,867 people per square mile (6,898 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose, and the 14th-most populous city in the United States—with a Census-estimated 2013 population of 837,442. The city is also the financial and cultural hub of the larger San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, with a population of 8.5 million. (more...)

• The San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Henry Kimball Hadley (pictured), is founded
• Italian immigrant Ambrogio Soracco opens Liguria Bakery in San Francisco
• Daly City is incorporated in San Mateo County

• ... that the vivid colors of the San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds (pictured), ranging from magenta to blue-green, come from the brine shrimp and microorganisms that thrive in the water?
• ... that the Laguna Creek watershed debouches into the San Francisco Bay near the site of the ghost town of Drawbridge?
• ... that the chase scene from the 1968 Steve McQueen film Bullitt starts on Cesar Chavez Street (then Army Street) before continuing through San Francisco?
• ... that the title of There There, a 2018 novel about urban Indians in Oakland, California, mirrors Gertrude Stein's quip about the city that "There is no there there"?

• ... that the San Francisco Armory (pictured), a National Guard stronghold during the "Bloody Thursday" events of 1934, is now used as a BDSM porn studio?
• ... that Camillo Ynitia was the only Native American on the northern frontier of Alta California to secure a large land grant for his tribe?
• ... that in five years of operation during World War II, more than 747 vessels were built in the Richmond Shipyards (pictured) in Richmond, California—a feat not equaled anywhere else in the world, before or since?
• ... that the California Wine Country is known for its cuisine, recreation and history as much as viticulture?
• ... that the pyramid scheme Holiday Magic was investigated by the State of California, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission and shut down for fraud?
  
• ... that gay pornographic film director Scott Masters directed more than 100 loops before founding his own company, Nova Studios?

April 2007

The San Jose Holiday Parade is held annually in December in San Jose, and has been described as one of the "Top 25 Parades in America". Celebrities and famous locals appear as Grand Marshals and numerous bands from across America are invited to participate in the parade. It began in 1981. (19th century parade in San Jose pictured)

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