2006
- The first Maker Faire (exhibit pictured) takes place at the San Mateo County Event Center
- Microblogging site Twitter is founded in San Francisco
- Knight Ridder, a media company based in San Jose, is purchased by The McClatchy Company
- Gayle McLaughlin is elected mayor of Richmond
- Chuck Reed is elected mayor of San Jose
- Ron Dellums is elected mayor of Oakland
- Ellen Corbett (pictured) is elected to the 10th State Senate district
- George Smoot at the University of California, Berkeley is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, with John C. Mather for work that led to the "discovery of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation."