* California Department of Corrections, the US state of California's prison system

* California Community Colleges System, combined districts of California's community colleges

The most popular single earthquake in fiction is the hypothetical " Big One " expected of California's San Andreas Fault someday, as depicted in the novels Richter 10 ( 1996 ) and Goodbye California ( 1977 ) among other works.

Coppola, with his family, expanded his business ventures to include winemaking in California's Napa Valley, where he purchased the former home and adjoining vineyard of Gustave Niebaum in Rutherford, California.

California's large Latino community enjoyed the sounds of the East Coast Latin club scene, and a number of California artists became popular among freestyle fans on the East Coast.

By 1901, the San Joaquin Basin was the main oil-producing region of California, and it remains so in the 21st century, with huge oil fields including the Midway-Sunset, Kern River, and Belridge fields producing much of California's onshore oil.

* Hine, Robert V. ( 1983 ) California's Utopian Colonies ( University of California Press ) ISBN 0-520-04885-7

In Mazda's RX-8 with the Renesis engine, fuel economy is now within normal limits while passing California State emissions requirements, including California's Low Emissions Vehicle ( LEV ) standards.

* December 30 – California's first modern freeway, the future State Route 110, opens to traffic in Pasadena, California, as the Arroyo Seco Parkway ( now the Pasadena Freeway ).

* On June 24, 2009, following the California Supreme Court ruling on Strauss v. Horton, Boies joined former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the opposing attorney in Bush v. Gore, in the lawsuit Perry v. Schwarzenegger seeking to overturn the state of California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.

Wilson was a self-made man who was orphaned in Nashville, Tennessee, came to Alta California as a fur trapper and adventurer during the American Indian Wars before marrying Ramona Yorba, the daughter of a California land baron, Bernardo Yorba, and made his fortune through the wedding dowry, receiving Rancho Jurupa, settling what would become California's San Gabriel Valley, after the Mexican American War.

* California's application for admission as a free state with its current boundaries was approved and a Southern proposal to split California at parallel 35 ° north to provide a Southern territory was not approved.

On December 29, 2009, the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth District ruled that California Code of Civil Procedure Section 367 cannot be read as imposing a federal-style standing doctrine on California's code pleading system of civil procedure.

California black oak comprises a total volume of 29 % of California's hardwood timber resources, and is the major hardwood sawn into lumber there.

There was a period in the mid 1960's when U. S. Forest Service policy in California's National Forests for the California black oak was systematic extermination by girdling the trees.

In 1947 Gehry moved to California, got a job driving a delivery truck, and studied at Los Angeles City College, eventually to graduate from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture.

He reached Mission San Gabriel Arcangel near the California coast on March 22, 1774, and Monterey, California, Alta California's capital, on April 19.

The 21 Alta California missions were established along the northernmost section of California's El Camino Real ( Spanish for " The Royal Highway ", though often referred to as " The King's Highway "), christened in honor of King Charles III ), much of which is now U. S. Route 101 and several Mission Streets.

In 1843, California's Mexican governor granted of Santa Ynez Valley land to the first Bishop of California, who established at the Mission the College of Our Lady of Refuge, the first seminary in California.

With over 22 million people, roughly 60 % of California's population resides in Southern California.

* October 6 – Southern California's Pacific Ocean Park closes down, known as the Disneyland by the sea.

Vista points on Interstate 80 through California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of the original Central Pacific line and of the snow sheds which make winter train travel safe and practical.

The idea of a fast mail route to the Pacific coast was prompted largely by California's new found prominence and its rapidly growing population.

After California's wheat output dropped in the early 20th Century and especially after the Southern Pacific ( which took over the operations of the Central Pacific ) constructed a railroad bridge at Martinez in 1930 to replace the ferry crossing, Benicia declined until the economic boom of World War II, which doubled the population to about 7, 000 residents.

The county is the site of the central section of the Siskiyou Trail, which ran between California's Central Valley and the Pacific Northwest.

After California's wheat output dropped in the early 20th Century and especially, after the Southern Pacific ( which took over the operations of the Central Pacific ) constructed a railroad bridge at Martinez in 1930 to replace the ferry crossing, Port Costa lost population and importance.

The route of the Southern Pacific through California's Central Valley gave rise to a string of small towns between Sacramento and Bakersfield.

Northern California's diverse geography ranges from the sandy beaches of the Pacific coast to the rugged, snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the east.

The Pacific birds migrate south down the Pacific coast, staging primarily in the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon and northern California and wintering, eventually, in California's Central Valley.

Asians and Pacific Islanders constituted one-fifth of the students in California's public universities by 2000.

The North Pacific High is related to the Sonoran Desert and California's climate, while the South Pacific High is related to the Atacama Desert and central Chile's climate, and the Indian Ocean High is related to the deserts of western Australia ( Great Sandy Desert, Great Victoria Desert, and Gibson Desert ) and the Mediterranean climate of southwest and south-central Australia.

Waxman's most recent district ( until 2012 ), California's 30th congressional district, included Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Malibu, West Hollywood, and Westlake Village as well as such areas of Los Angeles as West Los Angeles, Fairfax, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Beverlywood, Topanga, Chatsworth, Palms, Westwood, West Hills, Westside Village, Woodland Hills, but through the creation of a new 33rd Congressional District by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, in the November 2012 general election Waxman will be competing for re-election in an area including his home community of Beverly Hills and stretching to Malibu and Pacific-coastal communities heading south including Santa Monica, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

San Miguel Island is the westernmost of California's Channel Islands, located across the Santa Barbara Channel in the Pacific Ocean, within Santa Barbara County, California.

It is generally credited to Albert Hunt, a mechanical engineer at Southern California's Pacific Electric ( PE ) interurban streetcar railroad, who invented it in 1909 for safer railroad grade crossings.

From 2008 to 2011, about 40 fishers were re-introduced in the northern Sierra Nevada near Stirling City, complementing fisher populations in Yosemite National Park and along California's northern boundary between the Pacific Coast Range and the Klamath Mountains.

The Siskiyou Trail was based on an ancient network of Native American footpaths connecting the Pacific Northwest with California's Central Valley.

Following this, he was also chief engineer on the Western Maryland Railway and headed up the construction of the Western Pacific Railroad through California's rugged Feather River Canyon.

The Siskiyou Trail was based on existing Indian footpaths, and became an important link between the Pacific Northwest and California's Central Valley.

Throughout the late 1860s and into the 1870s, Latham helped finance the California Pacific and the North Pacific Coast Railroad, earning recognition as one of California's rail barons.

Tribes living in the mountains of the north and east relied heavily on salmon and game hunting, and used California's volcanic legacy by collecting and shaping obsidian for themselves and for trade.

The Information Sciences Institute ( ISI ) is a research and development unit of the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering which focuses on computer and communications technology and information processing.

In March 2012, Bacon was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, ' 8 ' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as Attorney Charles J. Cooper.

Skate punk innovators also pointed in other directions: Big Boys helped establish funkcore, while Venice, California's Suicidal Tendencies had a formative effect on the heavy metal – influenced crossover thrash style.

The Oxford English Dictionary refers to the first mention of the word " White Russian " in the sense of a cocktail as appearing in California's Oakland Tribune on 21 November 1965.

The Aqueduct's waters, which functionally extend the Sacramento River southwards, then run on to serve the enormous populace of California's south, supplying the needs of some 22 million people.

During World War II, Judge Louis E. Goodman dismissed the case against native Californian Masaaki Kuwabara and 25 other draft resisters from Tule Lake Segregation Center on due process grounds. His decision for the defense was unique among the Japanese-American draft resistance cases, and foreshadowed the cases on the Japanese evacuation and California's anti-Japanese Alien Land Law yet to be tried before the Supreme Court:

It also filed an amicus brief in the federal court case in which Judge Vaughn Walker struck down California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Count Nikolay Rumyantsev funded Russia's first naval circumnavigation under the joint command of Adam Johann von Krusenstern and Nikolai Rezanov in 1803 – 1806, and was instrumental in the outfitting of the voyage of the Riurik's circumnavigation of 1814 – 1816, which provided substantial scientific information on Alaska's and California's flora and fauna, and important ethnographic information on Alaskan and Californian ( among others ) natives.

The investigation led to media allegations of an affair with married, and then-U. S. Representative, Gary Condit, a five-term Democrat representing California's 18th congressional district and a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

California's first vineyard was located on the Mission grounds, with the planting of the " Mission " or " Criollo " grape in 1779, one grown extensively throughout Spanish America at the time but with " an uncertain European origin.

On December 14, 1818, the French privateer Hipólito Bouchard, sailing under the flag of the " United Provinces of Rio de la Plata " ( Argentina ), brought his ships La Argentina and Santa Rosa to within sight of the Mission ; aware that Bouchard ( today known as " California's only pirate ") had recently conducted raids on the settlements at Monterey and Santa Barbara, Comandante Ruíz had sent forth a party of thirty men ( under the leadership of a young Spanish lieutenant named Santiago Argüello ) to protect the Mission at first news of the approach on the 13th.

Most of the original church was destroyed on December 21, 1812 in an earthquake centered near Santa Barbara that damaged or destroyed most of California's missions.

In March 2012, Sheen was featured with George Clooney in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, ' 8 ' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as attorney Theodore Olson.