1. There is an island off the coast of California teeming with a herd of giant bison. They were put there around 90 years ago for a movie shoot and were never removed. They’ve mated so much since then that they had to be put on birth control.
2. A 300-foot tall sequoia tree in Kings Canyon National Park was given the honor of being the USA’s national Christmas tree back in 1925.
3. More than 12 million pounds of almonds are processed at Blue Diamond in Sacramento. It’s the largest almond processing plant in the world.
4. California was once known as the Bear State–before they were wiped out. Now, of course, it’s the Golden State. At least sunshine can’t be killed.
5. In-N-Out has its own university where it trains people how to properly manage the restaurants and reinforce the company’s focus on cleanliness, quality and service. Flipping burgers just got real, yo.
6. California is the turkey capital of America.
7. There used to be a row of munchkin houses in La Jolla, though none of the guys from The Wizard of Oz lived in them.
8. Fallbrook is known as the Avocado Capital of the World. Over the years the avocados have significantly shrunk in size due to water-access issues. They’re still pretty darn tasty, though!
9. San Francisco, the city that prides itself on diversity, was actually the first place in the country to institute an “ugly law,” making it illegal for unsightly people to show their faces in public. Don’t worry, it was repealed. Eventually.
10. The city of Pacific Grove in California has a law on the books that will fine you $500 for messing with, molesting and hunting butterflies. By molesting they mean simply touching. I hope.
11. Back in 1996, Charlie Sheen purchased 2,615 outfield seats at Angels Stadium in Anaheim just so he would be guaranteed to catch a home run ball. He didn’t.
12. Around 20,000 people were sterilized in California between 1900-1980 as part of a state-run eugenics program.
13. Paul Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, was the first person to ever receive a star on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame back in 1960. And by received I mean paid for, because those things cost around 30 grand. Ouch.
14. The first motion picture theater opened on April 2nd, 1902 in Los Angeles.
15. California had the world’s 8th largest economy as recently as 2013. It has, by far, the largest economy in the U.S.
16. One out of every eight United States residents lives in California.
17. There are over 500,000 seismic earthquake tremors each year in California–most of which are never felt by its residents.
18. California produces more than 17 million gallons of wine each year. I hear Californians drink 20 million.
19. You can actually see all the way from San Diego to L.A. on a clear day. You’ll need to hit up Palomar Mountain Observatory, but you can do it.
20. Eccentric (read: crazy) San Franciscan businessman Joshua Abraham Norton declared himself “Emperor of these Unites States” back in 1859. Most people just laughed him off, but some establishments actually accepted the currency he printed in his own name.
21. The California State Railroad Museum, the largest of it’s kind in North America, is located in Sacramento.
22. California, and L.A. in particular, became ground zero for the film industry because filmmakers were desperate to get away from Thomas Edison. He held a majority of the country’s film patents in New Jersey, and the movie industry escaped to L.A. to avoid Edison’s intellectual property claims.
23. San Bernadino County is the largest county in America. It encompasses nearly 3 million acres.
24. The first bubonic plague epidemic in the continental U.S. broke out in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1900.
25. The town of Baker, CA, population 735, has a lottery outlet store called, appropriately, “The Country Store.” It’s sold more winning lottery tickets than any other place in the California.
26. California is bigger than eighty-five of the smallest nations in the world.
27. San Diego has sent more shows to Broadway than any other city in the country, thanks to The Old Globe and the La Jolla Playhouse.
28. The largest geothermal area in the world is located around Geyserville, CA.
29. The state of California is comprised of the most diverse environment on the entire planet.
30. Sacramento has the second-highest number of trees per capita in the world behind Paris, France.
31. Methuselah, a bristlecone pine tree from California's White Mountains in the Inyo National Forest, is thought to be almost 5,000 years old–making it the oldest living non-clonal tree in the entire world. The exact location of it is kept a secret.
32. The California Redwood is prehistoric. All trees are descended from the redwood.
33. One of the most endangered species in the world lives in Caswell Memorial State Park. It’s called the riparian brush rabbit and only a handful of them are thought to be left in the wild.
34. One out of every eight music festivals in the United States is held in California.
35. Californians love Bigfoot. In fact, Willow Creek is home to the world’s largest collection of Bigfoot artifacts.
36. The state motto is “Eureka,” without the exclamation point.
37. Golden Gate Fun Fact: There are enough steel wires in the bridge’s cables to circle the Earth 3.5 times.
38. Castroville is the Artichoke Capital of the World. Marilyn Monroe was the town’s first Artichoke Queen.
39. The Golden Gate Bridge is so huge that there are workers painting it non-stop, year-round.
40. Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel) used to live in La Jolla, and now it is home to the world’s largest collection of original Dr. Seuss manuscripts at UCSD’s Geisel Library.
41. California is home to both the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States–Mt. Whitney, at 14,494 feet and Death Valley. They’re only 76 miles apart.
42. During the influx of the Gold Rush prospectors would sail in the San Francisco harbor and abandon their ships there forever. The ships were eventually torn apart and used in the building of local businesses and homes.
43. All of the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz—and there were reportedly 122 adults and 12 children—share only one star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I think they were short-changed on that one - Get it? Because munchkins are short…
44. Despite living in Los Angeles for 78 years, writer Ray Bradbury never learned to drive. Talk about a miracle. How did he survive?
45. Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a school, tavern or place of worship. Wouldn’t want to scar the precious children with acts of nature. Not sure how you’d enforce that one, though.
46. The city of Glendale, CA has a law on the books that states that theaters can only show horror films on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays.
47. The cost of tuition at Harvard University is about $44,500–which is just about what it costs to incarcerate a prisoner for a year in California. Yikes.
48. The popular Christmas song “Let It Snow” was actually written in California...in July, on the hottest day on record.
49. Fresno, CA is the Raisin Capital of the World.
50. During the Depression, San Francisco was the only city in the country to have absolutely none of their banks fail. Things were so great that construction on both the Golden Gate Bridge and Oakland Bay Bridge began at this time, too.
51. The L.A. coroner’s office has a gift shop.
52. The fortune cookie was inspired by the Japanese cookie o-mikuji and invented in California.
