Journey through California's past, from its indigenous roots and Spanish missions to the exhilarating Gold Rush and the making of a modern state.
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Twelve Thousand Years in the Making
This series, California's Golden History, traces the forces that built one of the most complex places on earth — from its earliest inhabitants to statehood and beyond.
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1
Missions That Became California's Cities
Between 1769 and 1833, Franciscan friars established twenty-one missions along a six-hundred-mile corridor they called El Camino Real — the Royal Road.
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2
Gold Fever Changed California Forever
In January 1848, James Marshall spotted something glinting in the tailrace of a sawmill he was building for John Sutter along the American River.
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3
Twenty-Two Days of California Independence
California existed as an independent nation for just twenty-two days.
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4
Iron Rails Stitched California Together
On May 10, 1869, a golden spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, completing the Transcontinental Railroad and cutting the journey from the East Coast to California…
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5
Frozen in Time at Ten Thousand Feet
Bodie, perched at 8,379 feet in the eastern Sierra Nevada, once held ten thousand residents, sixty-five saloons, and a reputation so rough that legend says a young girl…
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