Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

WELCOME TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA   BAY AREA CITIES   RECOGNIZED BAY AREA CONTENT The San Francisco Bay Area Portal The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, and commuter rail. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 43rd-largest urban area in the world with 8.80 million people. The Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 companies in the United States, after the New York metropolitan area, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area ranks second in highest density of college graduates, after the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and performs above the state median household income in the 2010 census; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States. Based on a 2013 population report from the California Department of Finance, the Bay Area is the only region in California where the rate of people migrating in from other areas in the United States is greater than the rate of those leaving the region, led by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. (more...) Selected article The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary or United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island (often just referred to as Alcatraz) was a maximum high security Federal prison on Alcatraz Island, off the coast of San Francisco, California, USA, which operated from 1934 to 1963. The main prison building was built in 1910-12 during the time it was a United States Army military prison; Alcatraz was the site of a citadel from the 1860s. The United States Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz was acquired by the United States Department of Justice on October 12, 1933, and the island became a Federal Bureau of Prisons federal prison in August 1934, after the buildings were modernized to meet the requirements of a top-notch security prison. Given this high security and the location of Alcatraz in the cold waters and strong currents of San Francisco Bay, at least a mile off the coast, the prison operators believed Alcatraz to be inescapable and America's strongest prison. (more...) Selected biography Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014) was an American medicinal chemist, biochemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and author. Shulgin is credited with introducing MDMA (also known as "ecstasy") to psychologists in the late 1970s for psychopharmaceutical use. He discovered, synthesized, and personally bioassayed over 230 psychoactive compounds, and evaluated them for their psychedelic and/or entactogenic potential. In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL (standing for Phenethylamines and Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved), which extensively described their work and personal experiences with these two classes of psychoactive drugs. Shulgin performed seminal work into the descriptive synthesis of many of these compounds. Some of Shulgin's noteworthy discoveries include compounds of the 2C* family (such as 2C-B) and compounds of the DOx family (such as DOM). Due in part to Shulgin's extensive work in the field of psychedelic research and the rational drug design of psychedelic drugs, he has since been dubbed the "godfather of psychedelics". (more...) Selected city Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma County, California United States. The 2012 census reported a population of 170,685. Santa Rosa is the largest city in California's North Coast, Wine Country and the North Bay; the fifth most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont; and the 26th most populous city in California. (more...) Selected image Water tower, Elmira, California image credit: Robert Couse-Baker Recently in the Bay Area 2018 September The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upholds a patent filed by the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University involving Crispr Cas-9 gene-editing, ruling that the patent didn’t infringe on another patent filed two years prior by the University of California, Berkeley, where the technique was first developed [1] The Global Climate Action Summit convenes in San Francisco, hosted by California governor Jerry Brown, who pledges to uphold state environmental guidelines despite moves by the United States to roll them back [2] San Francisco businessman and co-founder of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, and his wife, Lynn Benioff, purchase Time magazine for $190 million [3] Psychologist and Palo Alto University statistics professor Christine Blasey Ford accuses Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982 [4] 2019 January Pacific Gas and Electric Company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its recent roles in the California wildfires. (Reuters) (CBS News) February Oakland teachers go on strike. [5] Elected San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi dies at the age of 59.[6] Rainstorms cause the Russian River to flood, engulfing the town of Guerneville in the highest floodwaters in 25 years [7] March California governor Gavin Newsom declares a moratorium on the death penalty in California, and orders the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison, the state's only site for the administration of capital punishment, to be dismantled and closed [8] April East Bay congressperson Eric Swalwell announces his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2020 election [9] The Bay Area by year 1963 The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (pictured) is founded The Committee improvisational theatre group is formed in San Francisco The Reverend Cecil Williams becomes pastor of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco General Motors Oakland Assembly closes Selected historical image Construction of the San Francisco Mint, 608 Commercial Street, San Francisco (1876) image credit: Eadweard Muybridge, Historic American Buildings Survey Did you know...  • ... that filmmaker Emiko Omori (pictured, left, with Victor Wong) began her career in 1968 at KQED, becoming one of the first camerawomen to work in news documentaries?  • ... that Fisher Creek is tributary to the largest freshwater wetland in Santa Clara County, Laguna Seca, a seasonal lake important to groundwater recharge and migratory birds?  • ... that San Francisco based architect Jack Hillmer is known for his meticulously hand-crafted Modernist homes built from redwood, and was an exponent of what Lewis Mumford called the "Bay Region style"?  • ... that Stanford University Department of Biology chairman Tim Stearns (pictured), together with his wife, medical researcher Susan Cleveland, tend a fruit tree orchard at their home in Redwood City?  • ... that the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company's flagship, the Oceanic (pictured), set a Pacific crossing record of 16 days and 10 hours, 8 days less than the ships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company?  • ... that the building consumed in the 2016 Oakland warehouse fire had at least ten complaints filed on it since 1998? (interior damage pictured)  • ... that after Agnes Fay Morgan conducted a nutritional study with foxes, she presented her data wearing a stole made from the fur of her subjects? Previous Did you know... ... that Bodega Bay (pictured) in California was the setting for Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds? ... that the music of the Pointer Sisters combined jazz, scat and be-bop? ... that American Zoetrope was originally housed in a warehouse in San Francisco in 1969? ... that California's Russian River (Pacific Ocean estuary pictured) is named for the Russian trappers who explored it in the early 19th century? ... that a pencil sharpener, frequently found in the San Francisco Bay Area, "is a device for sharpening a pencil's point by shaving the end of the pencil"? Well, all right, you probably did. 2004 Selected periodic event Midsummer Mozart Festival is an annual music festival that exclusively features the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The festival was founded by George Cleve in 1974 and is held at various venues across the San Francisco Bay Area. (The San Francisco Boys Chorus, past performers, pictured) Quote “ Baghdad-by-the-Bay ” ~ Herb Caen, on San Francisco (ca. 1949) *more quotes about San Francisco from Wikiquote Selected multimedia file Play media San Francisco at night credit: "Editor" Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areas Regions East Bay North Bay Peninsula Santa Clara Valley Silicon Valley Wine Country West Marin Geographic features San Francisco Bay San Pablo Bay Suisun Bay Islands of the Bay Marin Headlands Diablo Range Berkeley Hills Santa Cruz Mountains Protected areas Golden Gate Recreation Area Farallones Marine Sanctuary Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge Point Reyes Seashore Mount Tamalpais State Park Henry Coe State Park Midpeninsula Open Space East Bay Regional Parks Things you can do *Write an article on a Bay Area-related subject *Propose new material or features for this portal *Add new selected articles *Add new selected biographies *Add new selected cities *Add new selected images *Add new selected historical images *Add new selected events *Add new selected multimedia files *Add new quotes *Add new historical events *Add new selected panoramas WikiProject You are invited to participate in the San Francisco Bay Area task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the San Francisco Bay Area. 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