California Facts

Larry Walters tied 42 weather balloons to his lawn chair and rose to 16,000 feet over Los Angeles.

Los Angeles's original name from 1781 was 'El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula' - a 55-character mouthful that Spanish settlers thankfully shortened over time.

During the Gold Rush in 1849, some people paid as much as $100 for a glass of water!

In 1982, a high school student from Los Angeles, California unscrambled the Rubik's Cube in 22.95 seconds.

A couple that were out walking on their property in Sierra Nevada discovered a canister containing $10 million in gold coins.

There's a road in Lancaster, CA that has grooves carved in such a way that when you drive over them at 55 MPH, they will play a part of Rossini's "The William Tell Overture."

There is a county in California called Yolo.

In 1850, only 8% of the people in California were women.

The Power Rangers Command Center was filmed at a real building called the House of the Book, located at the Brandeis-Bardin Campus in Simi Valley, California.

Barbra Streisand sued a photographer for $50 million to remove an aerial photo of her Malibu mansion from the internet. Before the lawsuit, it had been downloaded exactly 6 times. Two of those were her own lawyers. After the lawsuit, 420,000 people viewed it in a single month. She lost the case and paid $177,000 in legal fees. The entire phenomenon of trying to suppress something and making it more famous is now called "The Streisand Effect."