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Location:
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State of California, United States of America
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Status:
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Admission to Statehood: September 9, 1850
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Capital City:
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Sacramento
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Main Cities:
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Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach
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Population:
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33,871,648; 1st, 12/00
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Area:
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163,707 sq.mi, 3rd largest
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Currency:
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1 US dollar = 100 cents
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Languages:
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English, Spanish, and over 30 others
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Religions:
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Protestant, Roman Catholic, Judaism
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The flag of California: The flag of California was first flown during the Bear Flag Revolt as a republic flag, and then adapted by the California state legislature in 1911 as the state flag. The flag of the U.S. state of California is often called the Bear Flag.
The modern state flag is white with a wide red strip along the bottom. There is a red star in the upper left corner and a grizzly bear facing left. The modern flag has a larger bear in the center and is standing on green grass. The bear depicted is a California grizzly, a subspecies that is now extinct. The five-point star is a nod to the Republic of Texas, and the bear represents strength.
According to the California Blue Book, "(t)he flag was designed by William Todd on a piece of new unbleached cotton. The star imitated the lone star of Texas. A grizzly bear represented the many bears seen in the state. The words ‘California Republic’ were placed beneath the star and bear." The original bear was near the top, looked somewhat like a pig, and had no ground to stand on.
The original Bear Flag was raised for the first time in Sonoma, California on June 14, 1846, by the "Bear Flaggers" led by William B. Ide who said he wished to "bring freedom to the Spaniards." He was made President of the short-lived California Republic. California had been under Mexican rule since Mexican independence in 1821 as the department of Alta California, and under the control of Spain for many years before that.
The original Bear Flag and the republic it symbolized had a brief career, from June 14 until July 9. On July 9, 1846 Commodore John Drake Sloat of the United States Navy's Pacific Squadron first raised the 28-star American flag at Monterey, the capital of Alta California, and claimed the territory for the United States. This revived the earliest claims on California by his namesake, Sir Francis Drake (in 1579), and made good American colonial claims on the lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific, "from sea to sea" in the 1600s.
Two days later Navy Lt. Joseph Warren Revere arrived in Sonoma and hauled down the Bear Flag, running up in its place the Stars and Stripes. Revere handed the Bear Flag to Midshipman John E. Montgomery, who, because the flag snagged a few times as it was lowered, would later write in a letter to his mother "Cuffy came down growling"—"Cuffy" being his nickname for the bear on the flag.
The original Bear Flag was preserved in San Francisco until it was destroyed on April 18, 1906 in the fires that followed the great San Francisco earthquake. Today, a replica hangs on display in the Sonoma Barracks, or El Presidio de Sonoma. There is also a statue in the plaza of Sonoma, California depicting the raising of the flag.
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The flag is a piece of cloth, often flown from a pole or mast, generally used for signalling or identification. The design of a flag displayed in another form is also referred to as a flag. The first flags were used to assist military coordination on battlefields, and flags have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signalling and identification, especially in environments where communication is similarly challenging (such as the maritime environment where semaphore is used).
National flags are potent patriotic symbols with varied wide-ranging interpretations, often including strong military associations due to their original and ongoing military uses. Flags are used in messaging or advertising, or for decorative purposes, though at this less formal end the distinction between a flag and a simple cloth banner is blurred. The study of flags is known as vexillology, from the Latin vexillum meaning flag or banner.
Although flag-like symbols have been used by ancient cultures for thousands of years, the origin of flags in the modern sense is a matter of dispute. Some believe flags originated in China, while others hold that the Roman Empire's vexillum was the first true flag. Originally, the standards of the Roman legions were not flags, but symbols like the eagle of Augustus Caesar's Xth legion; this eagle would be placed on a staff for the standard-bearer to hold up during battle. But a military unit from Scythia had for a standard a dragon with a flexible tail which would move in the wind; the legions copied this; eventually all the legions had flexible standards — our modern-day flag.
During the Middle Ages, flags were used mainly during battles to identify individual leaders: in Europe the knights, in Japan the samurai, and in China the generals under the imperial army.
From the time of Christopher Columbus onwards, it has been customary (and later a legal requirement) for ships to carry flags designating their nationality; these flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime flags of today. Flags also became the preferred means of communications at sea, resulting in various systems of flag signals; see International maritime signal flags.
Beginning in the 17th century, European knights were replaced by centralized armies, and flags became the means to identify not just nationalities but also individual military units. Flags became much more elaborate, and were seen as objects to be captured or defended. Eventually these flags posed too much danger to those carrying them, and by World War I these were withdrawn from the battlefields, and have since been used only at ceremonial occasions.
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