San José is a major city in the U.S. state of California and is the
county seat of Santa Clara County. The city is located at the south
end of the San Francisco Bay, within the informal boundaries of
Silicon Valley, and is the largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area.
As of 2003, it reported an estimated population of 925,000, making it
the most populous city in Northern California and overtaking Detroit
as the United States' tenth most populous city. San Jose, founded in
1777 as a farming community to provide food for nearby military
installations, was the first town in the Spanish colony of California.
It served as the first capital of California after statehood was
granted in 1850. Aggressive expansion during the 1950s and 1960s led
first to San Jose being a bedroom community for Silicon Valley in the
1970s, then attracting businesses to the city; by 1990 the city was
calling itself the Capital of Silicon Valley.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose%2C_California
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1862:
Ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fought to a draw in the
Battle of Hampton Roads.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monitor)
1916:
General Pancho Villa led 1,500 Mexicans in a cross-border attack
against Columbus, New Mexico, prompting a punitive expedition from the
U.S. military.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa)
1932:
Eamon de Valera became President of the Executive Council of the Irish
Free State.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_de_Valera)
1945:
A bomb raid on Tokyo started a firestorm, killing 100,000.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II)
1959:
The world's best-selling doll, Barbie, was first sold in New York
City.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how
beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this
beauty, and not destroy it!" -- Yuri Gagarin
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin)