View allAll Photos Tagged UTOPIAN
Let’s throw off the constraints of our bodies and create a better world. Through the use of technology, science and reason we will build a new world that doesn’t limit us in anyway. We will sell our souls to the machine in order to partake of transhumanism. We will become transhuman, we will become patented. We will become transhuman, we will become commodified. “Transhumanism: a worldview in which human nature has no special, cultural or political status.”
Welcome to the pseudo-enlightenment of techno-gnosticism. Welcome to the pseudo-enlightenment of techno-utopianism. Welcome to the pseudo-enlightenment of techno-globalism. Welcome to the pseudo-enlightenment of false consciousness. This antichrist enlightenment is at war with humanity. This antichrist enlightenment is at war with reality. This antichrist enlightenment is at war with truth. This antichrist enlightenment is at war with God.
Destroy the family; destroy parental rights; destroy men and women, they’re just a social construct; let’s destroy traditional marriage; let’s destroy childbirth, we’ll use artificial wombs/pods; let’s destroy dating, get your hookup apps and screw as many people as possible, even better: AI porn and sexbots; let’s destroy good old-fashioned social interaction; let’s destroy culture, let’s go woke and flip it upside down, let’s destroy it with mass migration; ultimately, let’s destroy humanity. Like babies in the womb, humans are parasitic organisms, so let’s abort them—it’s not murder, they’re subtranshumans. Indeed, our goal is to create a new transhuman society. The end goal: to create a society without families, parents, men or women, marriage, human procreation, dating, social interaction, culture, or humanity.
Let’s make humanity in the image of our imagination, let’s make it transhuman. Let’s make a garden for them, a metaverse. Eat the fruit of the serpent and indulge in your new digital senses. Numb your natural senses. Stimulate your digital senses. Enjoy your lusts. Build your tower to heaven and defy God. Come live in the serpent’s paradise. The serpent’s world is a twisted world, a deceptive world, an upside down world, a dystopian world—hell on earth.
Let’s make a new god, let’s build a golden calf. Let’s build an idol with technology. This is your new god who brought you out of the limitations of humanity. Let’s celebrate with feasting and drinking. Let’s bow down and worship the Image of the Beast. Let’s leave the human Dark Ages and enter the transhuman Renaissance.
My people: come out of Egypt, come out of the machine, come out of the antichrist system, come out of Babylon. “Come out of her (Babylon), my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.” “Woe, woe, O Babylon! For in a single moment your judgment has come.”
Description: The boulder-strewn field of red rocks reaches to the horizon nearly two miles from Viking 2 on Mars' Utopian Plain. Scientists believe the colors of the Martian surface and sky in this photo represent their true colors. Fine particles of red dust have settled on spacecraft surfaces. The salmon color of the sky is caused by dust particles suspended in the atmosphere. Color calibration charts for the cameras are mounted at three locations on the spacecraft. Note the blue star field and red stripes of the flag. The circular structure at top is the high-gain antenna, pointed toward Earth. Viking 2 landed September 3, 1976, some 4600 miles from its twin, Viking 1, which touched down on July 20.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Image Number: PIA01522
Date: September 3, 1976
'Stuper Power'
Mixed media on canvas
2007
Alter Egotism – meggs solo Exhibition
23rd November – 2nd December 2007
Utopian Slumps Gallery
Collingwood, Melbourne.
SOLD
The impact of the industrial and digital (information) revolutions has, undoubtedly, been substantial on practically all aspects of our society, life, firms and employment. Will the forthcoming AI revolution produce similar, far-reaching effects?
Will the Artificial Intelligence revolution create a utopian or dystopian future?
Well to great extent that depends on who writes the original code; after all AI is a computer programme, a complex and possibly evolving programme - but still a programme.
Think of it as a difference engine - it does a vast number of calculations and permutations to work out the best result or outcome. Note the use of the word "best" not the right outcome like a calculator where 2+2 = 4, AI might be programmed to decide that 3.9 or 4.1 are close enough. Which is what your brain does, in some situations there is no "right" answer - or you don't have enough information to calculate or predict accurately.
The big risk is when you start letting the programme alter what it thinks is "close enough" - like a human if you take a certain action and get an acceptable result often enough you think the action must be "right". This is what leads to problems. Let me give you an example - take a glass of water and infect it with just one Cholera organism and drink it - OK the chances of a single organism killing you are slim but possible. Now you do the same thing a dozen times and "get away with it" - this might lead you to believe Cholera isn't harmful. Now imagine an AI doing this and altering its idea of acceptable risks to include drinking Cholera infected water.
OK my example is very simplified but you get the idea; when an AI starts learning (as you would want it to do) who is going to be checking that the things that it has learnt are true? When the things that your AI has learned are so complicated that you cant understand them how will you know what it will do under any given circumstance.
To me the benefits of AI seem great but the risks are somewhat unknown. Film makers and story tellers have been pondering "man made intelligence" for a long time - Frankenstein, 2001 a space Odyssey, The Terminator, Colossus, The Matrix to name just a few.
Take the film "I Robot" based on Isaac Asimov's stories - a robot is suspected of murder - but wait - its a machine it cant be murder it must be an industrial accident. Makes you think!
Rue de la Fidélité 07/11/2022 08h58
Since 2018 or 2019 you can spot work of André Saraiva on the wall of the Rue de la Fidélité in the 10ème arrondissement of Paris. It is commissioned by Grand Hotel Amour.
André Saraiva
As a hopeless romantic, the French graffiti artist known for his Mr. A alter ego proudly describes his vision as utopian and romantic; stating his biggest inspiration is his love stories and the biggest gift in his life, his daughter. *Hearts melting.* Make no mistake, André is anything but soft. It takes some balls to be the romantic in the world of graffiti. With a seemingly unending energy supply fuelled by passion, he complements being an artist with being an industry trailblazer and the serial entrepreneur behind several restaurants, nightclubs, and Paris’ coolest hotel chain.
The artist of Portuguese descent was born on a summer day in 1971 in Uppsala, Sweden. He first picked up a spray can when he moved to Paris at the age of 13 and later became an essential part of the early Parisian graffiti movement. Andre recounts this period as a time to learn and experiment, studying the movement in New York closely while figuring out what the Parisian version of it would look and feel like. While tagging the streets of Paris he gave birth to the iconic character tag he ties to his alter ego, Mr. A. André is confident he will never get tired of drawing the smiling stick figure with a hat, even after doing so more than 300.000. Mr. A is here to make people smile.
André rebels against the classic notion of graffiti with far more than monochromatic designs decorated with pink. He's on a mission to make the traditionally rough art form a bit more friendly. A perfect example of this is his “Love Graffiti,” where he makes colorful tags of people's loved one’s name. He also takes a stand against the commercialization of art noting his drawings are “a currency to share love. The only thing money can’t buy.”
Leaving everyone puzzled, wondering how it’s even possible. André is the personification of living life to the fullest. As if the life of an artist isn't demanding enough, he lives a second one as a remarkable entrepreneur owner of various nightlife ventures and the Parisian “Hotel Amour” chain designed to feel like living in one of his drawings. Besides a large-scale installation titled Andrépolis and numerous films and music videos, his creative fuel has been able to take him just as far into the world of fashion. “Working with fashion is a way to make my art and my characters more accessible for everyone. It is part of my process. I’m revisiting what pop art is” he said during an interview with Highsnobiety. And there’s proof. Not only was he creative director of L’Officiel from 2011 to 2015, but he's also belted a list of collaborations far too long to mention. Louis Vuitton? Off-White? Longchamp? Mango? Apple? The new Adidas SUPERSTAR’s now available at OALLERY in-store and online here? (Of course.) You name it, André has done it.
A utopian vision from outer space. Starting with gold metallic mono-prints, then doodling with white ink, brush pens and colored pencil. No plan, no intention, following what happens on the page and finding meaning along the way. April19, 2022
Tah-dah.
Quantum Kingdom? Really? Guys, you sux (jk). No one got it right.
Brief synopsis: Set against the backdrop of a bleak utopian and dystopian world, where 20% of the population has powers, an agency strives to fight against corruption and threats. When danger and mysteries lie ahead, the team must face a slew of secrets and uncover the truth.
Paladin Ascending will be one of the first planned series in a established and coherent universe (the PAverse), with much more material to come.
Genre: Science fiction, cyberpunk, action, crime, drama, mystery, thriller, conspiracy thriller, techno-thriller, espionage/spy fiction,
P.S.: But that’s not to say I would use the other titles ;). Also, I customised the logo on a website, but screenshotted it because if I downloaded it I would have to pay. I also adjusted the levels on the brightness and opacity and etc, then did a few minor changes on the phone:
I’ll still tag everyone anyways.
"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven."
— Matthew 6:10
Bringing Utopian ideas into real life is tough. If you want everyone to have equal opportunity, how do you do it? If you want to eliminate sexism and racism, how? If you want everyone to have their essentials covered of bread, water, shelter and healthcare, how? Making ideas of a just and fair Heaven stick on a very messy and limited earth is very tough stuff.
How do you lift your slice of the world up? For one, do one's work well. For example, architecture can inspire and remind the user that the path to heaven isn't so long. This 1839 spiraling staircase in the old Trustees' Office at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky is marvelous to behold. It's beautiful.
It is amazing what Shaker non-architects accomplished in their desire to have the everyday mundane touch a bit of Heaven.
Shakers had a framework for their community layouts and building designs. Their overarching goal was to bring heaven to earth, as can be seen in this staircase from on high that connects the earth beneath.
www.henja.nl info(at)henja.nl
WALCOT CHAPEL
Bath BAI
utopia:dystopia in the world
May 28 -June 12 10-6 Free
Opening May 27 6-9
At Walcot Chapel the idea is floating in the air that there is currently a shared utopian project underway across a globe - to transform humankind's troubled relationship with the natural order. Many millions believe that, if this utopian dream is not fully realised, the dystopian consequences will be unprecedented in human history.
Visual artists from around the world respond to these ideas.
Somewhere in Paris (can't remember where), when I discovered the streets of the city of love,I found a small store near the river. Never mind that I found a botanical in a bottle that seems so nice.
I ask the seller fo a photo, but he said no! So I ask him about the idea behind the bottled utopia.
He tells me that he was searching for an container for his plant, but just found a big bottle.
So the idea for "plant in bottle" was born. The idea was such prettie, so he stands it in the middle of his store to show it for the world.
And lastly I got my image of the "Bonsai in the bottle", while his saying: don't disappoint me!
This picture was shot inside in a little akhara (gymnasia) lost in the fields near Sakalhida, a village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Here pehlwans (Indian wrestlers) who have a rural life don't have many visitors however they were very happy to meet me and they easily accepted to pose in front of my camera.
It might be because, unconsciously, in order to bring about the utopia envisioned and presaged by the ideology of wrestling, it is the moral duty of every wrestler to convert others to his chosen life path.
"It can be said that a wrestler is not a wrestler unless he makes others into wrestlers.
The wicked and the corrupt are quick to swell their ranks with converts, while the pure and honest sit back quietly.
Is goodness cowardly and shy? Is it selfish? It is essential that we put our lives behind goodness. Today! Now! . . .
A wrestler must have a missionary spirit.
He must be obsessed with the advancement of wrestling.
He must get excited about his art.
He must be interested in spreading the word throughout the nation.
He must make wrestling contagious; not as a disease, but as a way of life" (K. P. Singh).
"It is incumbent on every wrestler to read the poetics of this nationalism into the particular situation of his own life.
What this means is to be able to translate personal strength into national integrity, personal health into national well-being and self-control into national discipline".
("The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideology in North India" by Joseph S. Alter)
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Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.
Drove 135 km on bike with a photog friend. Drove in heavy rain, sunshine over the valleys and finally reached the super calm lake waters of Kaas Plateau. Experienced Serenity...
The Santuario Dom Bosco (Sanctuary of Dom Bosco) in Brasilia honors the Italian saint who dreamed of a utopian city in 1883. Brasilia, the modern capital city of Brazil, is inspired by this dream. The shrine is especially notable for its impressive interior, bathed in heavenly blue light from four walls of stain glass windows.
This simple and beautiful building, completed in 1848, served as church (top floor) and living quarters (bottom floor) to the Janssonists, a Swedish utopian community at Bishop Hill, Illinois.
The Santuario Dom Bosco (Sanctuary of Dom Bosco) in Brasilia honors the Italian saint who dreamed of a utopian city in 1883. Brasilia, the modern capital city of Brazil, is inspired by this dream. The shrine is especially notable for its impressive interior, bathed in heavenly blue light from four walls of stain glass windows.
©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®
No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)
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Photograph taken at an altitude of Two metres, at 12:07pm on Saturday 18th September 2019 standing on the breakwater off Thieves Bay Marina within Thieves Bay Park on North Pender Island in British Columbia, Canada.
Pender island is divided by a small bridge and nestles between Moresby Passage and Captain Passage, part of the Southern Gulf Islands.
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Nikon D850 Focal length: 70mm Shutter speed: 1/160s Aperture: f/18.0 iso1000 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX) Hand held with Nikon VR vibration reduction enabled Focus mode: AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking AF-Area mode: Single point & 73 point switchable Exposure mode: Aperture priority Nikon Back button focusing enabled Metering Mode: Matrix metering White balance: Natural light auto, 0, 0 Colour space: Adobe RGB Nikon Distortion control: On Picture control: Auto High ISO NR: On (Normal) Vignette control: normal Active D-lighting: Auto.
Nikkor AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E.Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150Con adapter for Lee 100 rings.Lee 100 67mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.6 (2 stops) soft ND Grad resin filter. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.
LATITUDE: N 48d 46m 14.00s
LONGITUDE: W 123d 18m 51.10s
ALTITUDE: 2.0m
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PROCESSING POWER:
Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.
Dystopian novels have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity for reasons only people who read more than 140 characters at a time would understand. Topping the charts is 1984 so for this month’s Dystopian or Utopian LUGNuts challenge I decided to build a 1984 Murica-Mobile. This bad hombre is decked out with bulletin boards citing the slogan “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” and roof mounted loud speakers are so that the driver may broadcast alternate facts. Many people are saying that the gun rack and truck nuts are a classy touch. Many people. Believe me. And no one knows classy better than I do. Let’s make America great again. Bigly.
Sounds : Right Click and select "Open link in new tab"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-CKVm8MXxU
Luigi Nono: La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura
The nostalgic utopian future distance
Services are still held in this building.
Only a few buildings remain of the original early 1880s Rugby settlement founded by British author Thomas Hughes ("Tom Brown's School Days") as an experimental utopian colony.
Knoxville, the nearest city, is about 75 miles from Rugby. To put that time in perspective, in 1880 Knoxville had a population of 9,693. The portion of the Tennessee Highlands chosen by Hughes for his colony would have been extremely remote.
Rugby is on the south edge of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.
43/52 Passion is what drives us to live, the intensity of love for a moment, to perform some action that fills our lives with pleasures that are ethereal and sometimes utopian.
Our emotional state of choice is Ecstasy. Our nourishment of choice is Love. Our addiction of choice is technology. Our religion of choice is music. Our currency of choice is knowledge. Our politics of choice is none. Our society of choice is utopian though we know it will never be.
You may hate us. You may dismiss us. You may misunderstand us. You may be unaware of our existence. We can only hope you do not care to judge us, because we would never judge you. We are not criminals. We are not disillusioned. We are not drug addicts. We are not naive children. We are one massive, global, tribal village that transcends man-made law, physical geography, and time itself. We are The Massive. One Massive.
We were first drawn by the sound. From far away, the thunderous, muffled, echoing beat was comparable to a mother's heart soothing a child in her womb of concrete, steel, and electrical wiring. We were drawn back into this womb, and there, in the heat, dampness, and darkness of it, we came to accept that we are all equal. Not only to the darkness, and to ourselves, but to the very music slamming into us and passing through our souls: we are all equal. And somewhere around 35Hz we could feel the hand of God at our backs, pushing us forward, pushing us to push ourselves to strengthen our minds, our bodies, and our spirits. Pushing us to turn to the person beside us to join hands and uplift them by sharing the uncontrollable joy we felt from creating this magical bubble that can, for one evening, protect us from the horrors, atrocities, and pollution of the outside world. It is in that very instant, with these initial realizations that each of us was truly born.
We continue to pack our bodies into clubs, or warehouses, or buildings you've abandoned and left for naught, and we bring life to them for one night. Strong, throbbing, vibrant life in it's purest, most intense, most hedonistic form. In these makeshift spaces, we seek to shed ourselves of the burden of uncertainty for a future you have been unable to stabilize and secure for us. We seek to relinquish our inhibitions, and free ourselves from the shackles and restraints you've put on us for your own peace of mind. We seek to re-write the programming that you have tried to indoctrinate us with since the moment we were born. Programming that tells us to hate, that tells us to judge, that tells us to stuff ourselves into the nearest and most convenient pigeon hole possible. Programming that even tells us to climb ladders for you, jump through hoops, and run through mazes and on hamster wheels. Programming that tells us to eat from the shiny silver spoon you are trying to feed us with, instead of nourish ourselves with our own capable hands. Programming that tells us to close our minds, instead of open them.
Until the sun rises to burn our eyes by revealing the distopian reality of a world you've created for us, we dance fiercely with our brothers and sisters in celebration of our life, of our culture, and of the values we believe in: Peace, Love, Freedom, Tolerance, Unity, Harmony, Expression, Responsibility and Respect.
Our enemy of choice is ignorance. Our weapon of choice is information. Our crime of choice is breaking and challenging whatever laws you feel you need to put in place to stop us from celebrating our existence. But know that while you may shut down any given party, on any given night, in any given city, in any given country or continent on this beautiful planet, you can never shut down the entire party. You don't have access to that switch, no matter what you may think. The music will never stop. The heartbeat will never fade. The party will never end.
I am a raver, and this is my manifesto.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuI61cTNbAk
He may play the jack of diamonds
He may lay the queen of spades
He may conceal a king in his hand
While the memory of it fades
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Outfit: Madrugadah
Earmods: HerrrPinguin
Ring: Rangvar
Faceup: Me
“...reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays....”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
I will never, ever regret the things I've done.
Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to.
~Jojo Moyes, Me Before You
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRbmK9LkKeg
You do something to me
That I can't explain.....
I know I'll see you again
Whether far or soon ....
But I need you to know, that I care
And I miss you...
© All rights reserved Anna Kwa. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.
Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Resort was a utopian healing center in the Mojave Desert of California, founded in 1944 by Curtis Howe Springer. Springer, a self-proclaimed medical doctor, Methodist minister, and popular radio evangelist, filed mining claims on 12,800 acres of federal land that included the Soda Springs oasis. He named the area Zzyzx, claiming it to be the last word in the English language. The resort offered mineral water, heated mineral baths, specialized diets, lectures, religious services, and access to the Mojave Desert's clean air and sunshine. Springer also bottled water from the springs and provided drinks for travelers. To attract families, he imported animals from around the country and built a two-story castle, dining hall, library, lecture room, pool house, goat farm, and rabbit rooms. ARIZON 2020
Strange Tales [Second Selection] / Heft-Reihe
Cover: Alva Rogers
- John Beynon Harris / The Moon Devils
(Wonder Stories April 1934)
- Clark Ashton Smith / The Nameless Offspring
(Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror Juni 1932)
- Tarleton Fiske / The Sorcerer's Jewel
(Strange Stories February 1939)
- Richard Tooker / The Song from the Dark Star
(ghost written by William G. Bogart / Astounding Sep. 1936)
- H. P. Lovecraft / Cool Air
(Tales of Magic and Mystery March 1928)
- Robert Bloch / The Mannikin
(Weird Tales April 1937)
Utopian Publications Ltd. / England 1946
Reprint / Comic-Club NK 2010
ex libris MTP
This is a miniature mockup of the original religious settlement of Harmony, Indiana. Harmony was founded in 1814 by German Lutheran immigrants. These followers of George Rapp, called the Rappites or Harmonists, quickly built up a religious utopian town in Indiana, where private property was held in communal common. Their tall church in white can be seen towards the top of my image.
They didn't make it long in the real world, though. There was the issue of health. Mosquitoes from the surrounding wetlands spread disease. In those days, science did not have much understanding of malaria. Many, many Rappite followers mysteriously died. And then there was the economics. Although these German immigrants were quite productive, the economics of communal living in their Zion of shared assets did not work out for the believers as they had hoped.
The living began to realize that it was in their best interest to leave. They could make it on their own in America, and probably do much better.
An industrialist took up another utopian task and created New Harmony from what was left of Harmony. This time, the experiment was secular.
General Sherman is a giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) tree located at an elevation of 2,109 m (6,919 ft) above sea level in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in Tulare County, in the U.S. state of California. By volume, it is the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth.
The General Sherman tree was named after the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman. The official story, which may be apocryphal, claims the tree was named in 1879 by naturalist James Wolverton, who had served as a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Cavalry under Sherman.
Seven years later, in 1886, the land came under the control of the Kaweah Colony, a utopian socialist community whose economy was based on logging. Noting the pivotal role that Sherman had played in the Indian Wars and his forced relocation of native American tribes, they renamed the tree in honor of Karl Marx. However, the community was disbanded in 1892, primarily as a result of the establishment of Sequoia National Park, and the tree reverted to its previous name.
In 1931, following comparisons with the nearby General Grant tree, General Sherman was identified as the largest tree in the world. One result of this process was that wood volume became widely accepted as the standard for establishing and comparing the size of different trees.
In January 2006, the largest branch on the tree (seen most commonly, in older photos, as an "L" or golf-club shape, protruding from about a quarter of the way down the trunk) broke off. There were no witnesses to the incident, and the branch—with a diameter of over 2 m (6.6 ft) and a length of over 30 m (98 ft), larger than most tree trunks—smashed part of the perimeter fence and cratered the pavement of the surrounding walkway. The breakage is not believed to be indicative of any abnormalities in the tree's health and may even be a natural defense mechanism against adverse weather conditions.
Firefighters and park personnel wrap General Sherman in fire shelter material to help protect it from the KNP Complex Fire
On September 16, 2021, the tree was threatened by the KNP Complex Fire in Sequoia National Park. Park and firefighting personnel wrapped the tree's base in a protective foil usually used on structures in case the wildfire approached the General Sherman Tree—which, in the end, was left unharmed.
While it is the largest tree known, the General Sherman Tree is neither the tallest known living tree on Earth (that distinction belongs to Hyperion, a Coast redwood), nor is it the widest (both the largest cypress and largest baobab have a greater diameter), nor is it the oldest known living tree on Earth (that distinction belongs to a Great Basin bristlecone pine). With a height of 83.8 meters (275 ft), a diameter of 7.7 m (25 ft), an estimated bole volume of 1,487 m3 (52,513 cu ft), and an estimated age of 2,300–2,700 years, it is nevertheless among the tallest, widest, and longest-lived of all trees on the planet.
While General Sherman is the largest currently living tree, it is not the largest historically recorded tree. The Lindsey Creek tree, with more than 90,000 cubic feet (2,500 cubic meters) almost twice the volume of General Sherman, was reported felled by a storm in 1905. Another larger tree, the Crannell Creek Giant, a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) cut down in the mid-1940s near Trinidad, California, is estimated to have been 15–25% larger than the General Sherman Tree by volume. Similarly, the Mother of the Forest, another giant sequoia, may have historically been larger than General Sherman. Two other historical and exceedingly enormous giant sequoias, the Discovery Tree with a near-30 metres (98 ft) circumference, and especially the long-fallen "Father of the Forest" from Calaveras Grove, reportedly 435 feet (133 m) high and 110 feet (34 m) in circumference, are widely considered to have once been larger than General Sherman. In addition, the Burnt Monarch from Big Stump Grove had a much larger base than General Sherman and could have easily been larger as well.
Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, to protect 404,064 acres (631 sq mi; 163,519 ha; 1,635 km2) of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing a vertical relief of nearly 13,000 feet (4,000 m), the park contains the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet (4,421 m) above sea level. The park is south of, and contiguous with, Kings Canyon National Park; both parks are administered by the National Park Service together as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. UNESCO designated the areas as Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve in 1976.
The park is notable for its giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on Earth by volume. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five of the ten largest trees in the world. The Giant Forest is connected by the Generals Highway to Kings Canyon National Park's General Grant Grove, home of the General Grant tree among other giant sequoias. The park's giant sequoia forests are part of 202,430 acres (316 sq mi; 81,921 ha; 819 km2) of old-growth forests shared by Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. The parks preserve a landscape that was first cultivated by the Monachee tribe, the southern Sierra Nevada before Euro-American settlement.
The national park was partially closed in September 2020 due to the Sequoia Complex wildfire, and again from mid-September through mid-December 2021 due to the KNP Complex Fire.
Many park visitors enter Sequoia National Park through its southern entrance near the town of Three Rivers at Ash Mountain at 1,700 ft (520 m) elevation. The lower elevations around Ash Mountain contain the only National Park Service-protected California Foothills ecosystem, consisting of blue oak woodlands, foothills chaparral, grasslands, yucca plants, and steep, mild river valleys. Seasonal weather results in a changing landscape throughout the foothills with hot summer yielding an arid landscape while spring and winter rains result in blossoming wildflowers and lush greens. The region is also home to abundant wildlife: bobcats, foxes, ground squirrels, rattlesnakes, and mule deer are commonly seen in this area, and more rarely, reclusive mountain lions and the Pacific fisher are seen as well. The last California grizzly was killed in this park in 1922 (at Horse Corral Meadow). The California Black Oak is a key transition species between the chaparral and higher elevation conifer forest.
At higher elevations in the front country, between 5,500 and 9,000 feet (1,700 and 2,700 m) in elevation, the landscape becomes montane forest-dominated coniferous belt. Found here are Ponderosa, Jeffrey, sugar, and lodgepole pine trees, as well as abundant white and red fir. Found here too are the giant sequoia trees, the most massive living single-stem trees on earth. Between the trees, spring and summer snowmelts sometimes fan out to form lush, though delicate, meadows. In this region, visitors often see mule deer, Douglas squirrels, and American black bears, which sometimes break into unattended cars to eat food left by careless visitors. There are plans to reintroduce the bighorn sheep to this park.
The vast majority of the park is roadless wilderness; no road crosses the Sierra Nevada within the park's boundaries. 84 percent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is designated wilderness and is accessible only by foot or by horseback. The majority was designated Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness in 1984 and the southwest portion was protected as John Krebs Wilderness in 2009.
Sequoia's backcountry offers a vast expanse of high-alpine wonders. Covering the highest-elevation region of the High Sierra, the backcountry includes Mount Whitney on the eastern border of the park, accessible from the Giant Forest via the High Sierra Trail. On a traveler's path along this 35-mile (56 km) backcountry trail, one passes through about 10 miles (16 km) of montane forest before reaching the backcountry resort of Bearpaw Meadow, just short of the Great Western Divide.
Continuing along the High Sierra Trail over the Great Western Divide via Kaweah Gap, one passes from the Kaweah River Drainage, with its characteristic V-shaped river valleys, and into the Kern River drainage, where an ancient fault line has aided glaciers in the last ice age to create a U-shaped canyon that is almost perfectly straight for nearly 20 miles (32 km). On the floor of this canyon, at least two days hike from the nearest road, is the Kern Canyon hot spring, a popular resting point for weary backpackers. From the floor of Kern Canyon, the trail ascends again over 8,000 ft (2,400 m) to the summit of Mount Whitney. At Mount Whitney, the High Sierra Trail meets with the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, which continue northward along the Sierra crest and into the backcountry of Kings Canyon National Park.
The area which now is Sequoia National Park shows evidence of Native American settlement as early as 1000 A.D.[ The area was first home to "Monachee" (Western Mono) Native Americans, who resided mainly in the Kaweah River drainage in the Foothills region of what is now the park, though evidence of seasonal habitation exists as high as the Giant Forest. Members of this tribe were permanent residents of the park, with a population estimate of around 2,000. In the summertime the Tubatulabal Native Americans used the eastern part of the area (the Kern River drainage) as their summer hunting grounds. During this time, the Western Mono tribe would travel over the high mountain passes to trade with tribes to the East. To this day, pictographs can be found at several sites within the park, notably at Hospital Rock and Potwisha, as well as bedrock mortars used to process acorns, a staple food for the Monachee people.
The first European settler to homestead in the area was Hale Tharp, who famously built a home out of a hollowed-out fallen giant sequoia log in the Giant Forest next to Log Meadow. Tharp arrived in 1858 to the region and encountered several groups of Native Americans, the largest being around 600 with several other smaller groups found at higher elevations. After becoming friendly with the Western Mono tribe, Tharp was shown the Giant Forest Sequoia Grove. After his settlement, more settlers came around 1860. Shortly thereafter - between 1860 and 1863, epidemics of smallpox, measles, and scarlet fever killed the majority of the Native Americans living in the area. After this, the rest of the Native Americans left with the largest campsite (Hospital Rock) abandoned by 1865. During their time in the area, the Monachee used periodic fire burning to aid in hunting and agriculture. This technique played an important role in the ecology of the region and allowed for a "natural" vegetation cover development. After they left, Tharp and other settlers allowed sheep and cattle to graze the meadow, while at the same time maintaining a respect for the grandeur of the forest and led early battles against logging in the area. From time to time, Tharp received visits from John Muir, who would stay at Tharp's log cabin. Tharp's Log can still be visited today in its original location in the Giant Forest.
However, Tharp's attempts to conserve the giant sequoias were at first met with only limited success. In the 1880s, white settlers seeking to create a utopian society founded the Kaweah Colony, which sought economic success in trading Sequoia timber. However, Giant Sequoia trees, unlike their coast redwood relatives, were later discovered to splinter easily and therefore were ill-suited to timber harvesting, though thousands of trees were felled before logging operations finally ceased. The National Park Service incorporated the Giant Forest into Sequoia National Park in 1890, the year of its founding, promptly ceasing all logging operations in the Giant Forest.
Another consequence of the Giant Forest becoming Sequoia National Park was the shift in park employment. Prior to the incorporation by the National Park Service, the park was managed by US army troops of the 24th Regiment of Infantry and the 9th Regiment of Cavalry, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers. These segregated troops, founded in 1866, were African-American men from the South, an invaluable demographic to the military with the lowest rates of desertion. The Buffalo Soldiers completed park infrastructure projects as well as park management duties, helping to shape the role of the modern-day park ranger. The Buffalo Soldiers rose to this position due to a lack of funding for the park which led to an inability to hire civilians. The third African American West Point graduate, Captain Charles Young led the cavalries of Buffalo Soldiers in the Sequoia and General Grant Parks. Young landed this post as a result of the segregation rampant throughout the Army: as a black man, he was not permitted to head any combat units. He did, however, demonstrate his leadership capability through his initiatives in the National Park delegating park infrastructure projects, hosting tourists and politicians, and setting a standard of a strong work ethic into his men. Young was also a prominent figure regarding the early conservation of Sequoia National Park. He greenlighted the dedication of trees in honor of prominent figures as a means of promoting their preservation. One such example is the Redwood dedicated to the escaped slave and activist, Booker T Washington. Young also argued to the Secretary of the Interior that the lack of enforcement of forest protection laws allowed the detrimental practices of logging and the popular tourist hobby of carving names into the redwoods to continue. To combat this, Young increased patrolling of troops around heavily trafficked areas and initiated a proposal to buy out private landowners surrounding Sequoia to further buffer the protected area.
The land buyouts Young initiated were just the beginning of increasing the area of Sequoia National Park. The park has expanded several times over the decades to its present size; one of the most significant expansions took place in 1926 and was advocated for by Susan Thew Parks. One of the most recent expansions occurred in 1978, when grassroots efforts, spearheaded by the Sierra Club, fought off attempts by the Walt Disney Corporation to purchase a high-alpine former mining site south of the park for use as a ski resort. This site known as Mineral King was annexed to the park. Its name dates back to early 1873 when the miners in the area formed the Mineral King Mining District. Mineral King is the highest-elevation developed site within the park and a popular destination for backpackers.
Sequoia National Park contains a significant portion of the Sierra Nevada. The park's mountainous landscape includes the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, which rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m) above sea level. The Great Western Divide parallels the Sierran crest and is visible at various places in the park, for example, Mineral King, Moro Rock, and the Giant Forest. Peaks in the Great Western Divide rise to more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m). Deep canyons lie between the mountains, including Tokopah Valley above Lodgepole, Deep Canyon on the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River, and Kern Canyon in the park's backcountry, which is more than 5,000 feet (1,500 m) deep for 30 miles (48 km).
Most of the mountains and canyons in the Sierra Nevada are composed of granitic rocks. These rocks, such as granite, diorite and monzonite, formed when molten rock cooled far beneath the surface of the earth. The molten rock was the result of a geologic process known as subduction. Powerful forces in the earth forced the landmass under the waters of the Pacific Ocean beneath and below an advancing North American Continent. Super-hot water driven from the subducting ocean floor migrated upward and melted rock as it proceeded. This process took place during the Cretaceous Period, 100 million years ago. Granitic rocks have a speckled salt-and-pepper appearance because they contain various minerals including quartz, feldspars and micas. Valhalla, or the Angel Wings, are prominent granitic cliffs that rise above the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River.
The Sierra Nevada is a young mountain range, probably not more than 10 million years old. Forces in the earth, probably associated with the development of the Great Basin, forced the mountains to rise. During the last 10 million years, at least four ice ages have coated the mountains in a thick mantle of ice. Glaciers form and develop during long periods of cool and wet weather. Glaciers move very slowly through the mountains, carving deep valleys and craggy peaks. The extensive history of glaciation within the range and the erosion resistant nature of the granitic rocks that make up most of the Sierra Nevada have together created a landscape of hanging valleys, waterfalls, craggy peaks, alpine lakes (such as Tulainyo Lake) and glacial canyons.
Park caves, like most caves in the Sierra Nevada of California, are mostly solutional caves dissolved from marble. Marble rock is essentially limestone that was metamorphosed by the heat and pressure of the formation and uplift of the Sierra Nevada Batholith. The batholith's rapid uplift over the past 10 million years led to a rapid erosion of the metamorphic rocks in the higher elevations, exposing the granite beneath; therefore, most Sierra Nevada caves are found in the middle and lower elevations (below 7,000 ft or 2,100 m), though some caves are found in the park at elevations as high as 10,000 ft (3,000 m) such as the White Chief cave and Cirque Cave in Mineral King. These caves are carved out of the rock by the abundant seasonal streams in the park. Most of the larger park caves have, or have had, sinking streams running through them.
The park contains more than 270 known caves, including Lilburn Cave which is California's longest cave with nearly 17 miles (27 km) of surveyed passages. The only commercial cave open to park visitors is Crystal Cave, the park's second-longest cave at over 3.4 miles (5.5 km). Crystal Cave was discovered on April 28, 1918, by Alex Medley and Cassius Webster. The cave is a constant 48 °F (9 °C), and is only accessible by guided tour.
Caves are discovered every year in the park with the most recently discovered major cave being Ursa Minor in August 2006.
According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. Potential natural vegetation Types, Sequoia National Park encompasses five classifications listed here from highest to lowest elevation; Alpine tundra & barren vegetation type with an Alpine tundra vegetation form...Pinus contorta/ Subalpine zone vegetation type with a California Conifer Forest vegetation form...Abies magnifica vegetation type with a California Conifer Forest vegetation form...Mixed conifer vegetation type with a California Conifer Forest vegetation form...and Chaparral vegetation type with a California chaparral and woodlands vegetation form.
Animals that inhabit this park are coyote, badger, black bear, bighorn sheep, deer, fox, cougar, eleven species of woodpecker, various species of turtle, three species of owl, opossum, various species of snake, wolverine, beaver, various species of frog, and muskrat.
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.
The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.
Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.
Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.
The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.
The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.
The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.
After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.
Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.
The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.
During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.
During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.
In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.
From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.
One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.
After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.
In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.
The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.
Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.
In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.
The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.
In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.
At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.
Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.
In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.
Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.
In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.
Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.
To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.
Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.
In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.
During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.
Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.
In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.