“There’s only the American Dream and the California dream.”
—Gov. Gavin Newsom
CAL@170 is a collection of 170 stories celebrating California’s 170 years of statehood. The aim is to offer examples of California’s unique character and that of its residents, past and present. That means among the good there will be some bad. For every success story, there’s a failure, a tragedy, an injustice. It’s from these mistakes that we learn and grow stronger together. Share a story with us that helps define what California means to you.
Mayor Gavin Newsom marries Erin Carder (left) and Kerri McCoy at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, October…
Near Copperopolis in Calaveras County, Wells Fargo’s poetry-writing nemesis “Black…
Herbert Hoover (California State Library Image) President Herbert Hoover issues Proclamation 2028 preserving some 2 million acres of “scenic, scientific…
In September 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation (AB 2022; Chapt. 479, Stats of 2022) which requires the term "squaw"…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apBWI6xrbLY In 1961, the Beach Boys receive their first paycheck for playing three songs at the Richie Valens Memorial Concert…
Segregation is prohibited in California schools when a federal judge agrees with Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez that their daughter, Sylvia,…
Ettore Steccone, 26, immigrates to America in 1922 seeking his fortune. He becomes a window cleaner in Oakland. Steccone is…
President Polk (Library of Congress) When President James K. Polk receives news that his emissary has signed the Treaty of…
Laura de Force Gordon gives the first speech on suffrage in California at San Francisco’s Platt Hall on February 19,…
Invitation to the Opening of the San Francisco Bay Bridge In 1936, California opens what’s then the longest bridge in…