San Jose Facts

The first radio station in the world, as defined by regular broadcasts for the public and not just occasional or experimental broadcasts, was started in San Jose, California in the early 1900’s. Charles Herrold’s radio broadcasts became the first radio station by having regularly scheduled programs including reading the newspaper, playing music, and having talk shows with his friend and wife. The exact date when regular broadcasting began is unknown but occurred sometime between 1909, when he set up his operation, and 1910. Even this later year was before any other radio experimenters began regular program broadcasting. This first radio station sent its broadcasts from a bank building that use to be where the KQED building stands today, next to the Fairmont Hotel and San Jose Museum of Art.

Sources:
1. http://tech-notes.tv/History&Trivia/Radio/Who%20was%20first/San%20Jose%20Broadcast%20.htm , 2020.
2. http://www.theradiohistorian.org/kqw.htm , 2020.

San Jose Facts

Serpentine is the state rock of California. California was the first state to select a state rock. (1) In San Jose, serpentinite (which is technically the name of the rock while serpentine is the name of the group of minerals that make it up) is plentiful. A great place to see lots of it is in Santa Teresa County Park in south San José.

“In 1965, the California legislature chose serpentinite as the official state rock. …No one knew serpentinite, so emblematic of California, isn’t native to the state. Arguably, no rock is native to California since virtually the entire state is built of imported geology. …Wherever you stand in this state, if your feet are on bedrock, the odds are that you are standing on an immigrant, reeled in by subduction from the far reaches of the Pacific in the process of assembling California.” – Dr. Keith Meldahl, professor of geology and oceanography. (2)

Sources:
1. https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/california/state-rock-mineral/serpentine , 2020.
2. Rough-Hewn Land, book by Keith Meldahl, 2011, page 18.

San Jose Facts

Asteroid San Jose
The blue & yellow orbit around the sun is of Asteroid San Jose. Earth is the light blue orbit shown along with the other planet orbits around the sun at center. (2)

There is an asteroid flying around our sun named after the city of San José. Asteroid 6216 San Jose was named after San José, California in gratitude for the city choosing low light pollution options for street lights over the decades. This has helped nearby Lick Observatory to continue with its astronomical observations and research into space. (1) When you look out at our city from a hill at night and notice the lower intensity yellow permeating glow instead of an intense white glow above, that is to help our nearby telescopes and space aimed instruments.

Sources:
1. https://mthamilton.ucolick.org/public/lighting/Cooperation2.html , 2020.
2. https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_orbit?utf8=%E2%9C%93&number=6216&designation=&name=San+Jose&epoch=2020-05-31.0&peri=28.0827085&m=240.32697&node=30.3655836&incl=3.7642136&e=0.099990391&a=2.7575585&commit=Interactive+Orbit+Sketch , 2020.

San Jose Facts

Frozen Waffles were invented in San José, California in 1953 by the three Dorsa brothers. They eventually settled on the name Eggo waffles for their invention because of its eggy taste. While the Eggo waffle company was eventually sold to Kellogg, the Eggo factory continues on in San Jose near Julian Street and Hwy 101.

Sources:
(1) https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/history-of-frozen-waffle-article , 2020.
(2) https://www.liquisearch.com/leggo_my_eggo/history , 2020.

San Jose Facts

According to the US census, approximately 37% of San José businesses are women owned and approximately 59% of San José businesses are minority owned.

Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanjosecitycalifornia/PST045218 , 2020.

San Jose Facts

In the 1970’s, San José was known as the “Feminist Capital of the Nation” in national publications. The first female mayor of any major US city with a population over 500,000 was San José Mayor, Janet Gray Hayes, who won office in 1974. (1) After her victory, many more women won powerful local positions. “Within two elections, eight of the 11 San Jose City Council members and three of the five Santa Clara County supervisors were women, as were the county executive and the president of San Jose State University.” (2)

Sources:
(1) https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=lib_pub , 2020.
(2) https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/04/21/san-joses-first-female-mayor-janet-gray-hayes-has-died-at-87/ ,2020.

San Jose Facts

Native people were in California for over 10,000 years. Approximately 5,000 years ago, the people that would became known as the Ohlone moved in to the bay area and San José. The Ohlone then did something few groups of people have ever done in the history of earth. They enjoyed approximately 4,500 years of peace. A peace that evidence indicates amounted to approximately 4,500 years without an epidemic, significant conflict or war, natural catastrophe, or famine. Wow, that is a long run of peace, good management, and fortune.

Source: The Ohlone Way, book by Malcom Margolin, 1978, pages 58-60.

San Jose Facts

1901 Smithsonian Native Languages Map

California, including the Bay Area, have always been places of great diversity. Before Europeans arrived, California already supported the densest population of native peoples anywhere in what would become the United States of America, with over 300,000 native people. (1)(3) Along with this, California supported more distinct languages and culture groups than anywhere else in the future US. The map above is from a Smithsonian report in 1901 displaying native languages of north America and it is easy to see the increased density in California. (2) The native people of San José, California were the Thamien. They were just one of approximately 40 groups of native peoples speaking 12 different languages now referred to as the Ohlone people inhabiting the area from San Francisco Bay to Monterey Bay. (1)

Sources:
(1) The Ohlone Way, book by Malcom Margolin, 1978, pages 1 to 3.
(2) https://www.ocregister.com/2019/11/08/the-number-of-native-american-tribal-languages-in-california-might-surprise-you/ ,2020.
(3) https://calisphere.org/exhibitions/essay/1/pre-columbian/ , 2020.

San Jose Facts

Most of California, the exception being a south eastern piece, is made of recycled sea floor scraped off as the ocean floor subducted beneath the North American Tectonic Plate. That means that all of this rock we are standing on in San José and the surrounding area was actually ocean floor millions of years ago. It has since piled on to what is now the USA like the crinkled butter that builds up on the butter knife that scrapes across it. Millions of years ago the North America coastline was way further east of what is now the California coast; before so much north-east moving oceanic crust went under the westward moving North American Plate.

All of the dark grey area in the above map is ocean floor that had been scraped up and added to the land that is now the US and Mexico during the last 200 million years.

Source: Rough-Hewn Land, book by Keith Meldahl, 2011, page 9.

San Jose Facts

“By 1790 Afro-Latinos made up nearly 20 percent of California’s population. That means that one out of every five residents in California was known to be of African background!” (1)

Unlike the laws of British colonies, slaves in Spain’s Mexico could earn freedom and more easily be given or win freedom by slave owners or through court lawsuits. The result is that Mexico in time contained many Afro-Latinos who were free and had risen to be land owners, hold political positions, become soldiers, and skilled business owners. “Thus, long before the first successful English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, Afro-Latinos had not only explored but resided in what is now the United States of America.” (1)

Afro-Latinos were a significant number among the settlers who came with the Anza expedition to settle California, including the father and grandparents of the future Mexican Governor of California, Pío Pico. (1) Five of the fourteen original families (San José founded by fourteen families plus one single man) who founded San José in 1777 were black or of black ancestry. (3)

Today, approximately 8% of the California population and 3% of San José’s population is black. (2, 4)

Sources:
1) Discovering early California Afro-Latino presence, book by Damany M. Fisher, 2010, pages 3, 6, 9, 13.
2) https://blackdemographics.com/states/california/, 2020.
3) https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/02/22/book-sheds-light-on-santa-clara-countys-black-pioneers, 2020.
4) https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanjosecitycalifornia/PST045218, 2020.